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Comment by Grimm1 | Hacker News Reader

I stand by the actions of Facebook, Twitter etc, I'd agree this ISP has the same rights. Now where I could see it getting interesting is if consumers in the area don't have an alternative way to access content. I'd say if that is the case then this ISP here just opened up a door to a potential case to regulate them as utilities which means they wouldn't be able to do this. If the users do have a choice in the area then moot point.

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If there is competition, one could think it's okay. But if they are allowed, I imagine the competitors ask why they can't do that either. If they can, they'll block sites too.

Then what? Residents won't have any choice guaranteeing free access to all websites.

I don't see that working.

Right then they get regulated as utilities without a choice in which content they serve.

This is how most natural monopolies are handled. The U.S. is a bit of an outlier in that regional communications is still private.

Yup, I was kind of amazed at how the situation played out a few years ago with Wheeler and then onto Pai. You don't need the same type of net neutrality laws if you just make them utilities, but ISPs of course know this and made sure that wasn't going to happen then.

Agree, that would be the best scenario.

The worse one would be that they actually can block sites and access to the internet is forever changed, now at the will of the ISPs. (fortunately, this would be more plausible under a Republican government, and they're leaving.)

> Now where I could see it getting interesting is if consumers in the area don't have an alternative way to access content.

Assuming private companies have the moral right to fully regulate their services, they're just blocking a specific resource for violating their policy. If you build your case on blocking Facebook, you must argue that the utility chain leads all the way to Facebook. It is all or nothing.

That doesn't seem right to me, by your logic all companies built on an ISP are a utility then, which I'm sure you can see the absurdness of.

There exist many utilities that themselves are built on top of other utilities.

The reason something should be an utility has to do with competition and how much power customers. The primary argument in favor of having Internet providers be an utility is that creating an competing Internet is not really an realistic concept, and the power customers of ISP has in their customer-provider relation is close to nothing. Utility laws exist to solve this specific situation in the market, and making every single company an utility would not be very efficient way to make use of those laws.

Let's examine two cases for an ISP utility. They both lead to the same conclusion without turning everything downstream of ISPs into utilities.

1. The utility of an ISP is that of an ad hoc communication platform. Here we must ask why an ISP is an ad hoc communication platform and Facebook is not. Either both are or neither is.

2. The utility of an ISP is derived from providing access to Facebook. Again it is either both or none.

edit: s/an ad hoc/a/

Ah see, I disagree that an ISP is in itself an adhoc communications system.

An ISP hooks up the wires, lays and maintains the infrastructure for web connections for which you can build communications on but are not in themselves sufficient as communications. You can also build more than just communications on ISP infrastructure.

As examples, you watch Netflix on the infrastructure of an ISP but Netflix is not communications and you may bank on your bank's website on an ISP and that is not communications those are movie watching and banking respectfully.

I could continue to provide examples, but my point being is an ISP is not in itself sufficient for communications to be established and that you can establish more than communications on an ISP and that is why I don't agree.

I see. I don't know whether an ISP should be viewed as a custodian of infrastructure or as a platform to relay information. Maybe both?

The ISP doesn't have an agreement with Facebook though. They have an agreement with the end user.

This would be like Amazon banning a specific end user from accessing and AWS hosted product.

56k modem, spacex starlink, tethering/mifi, rfc1149, etc. An ISP might always be able to claim that they don't have a monopoly?

> I'd agree this ISP has the same rights

This implies you agree with the ban on Network Neutrality, I do not.

I agree a private business may do what they will within the bounds of our laws, so yes, but my framework for how I handle this would have ISPs regulated as natural monpoly which would make them a utility without that choice and that takes care of your concern. In their current state, however, you would not be wrong even if I wouldn't like it.

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