4 Years After the FCC Repealed Net Neutrality, the Internet Is Better Than Ever | Hacker News Reader

4 Years After the FCC Repealed Net Neutrality, the Internet Is Better Than Ever

reason.com

7 pointsBostonian9 comments

Which practices that net neutrality forbade do we want? Which are taking place, so that they can be credited with the internet being "better than ever"?

And of course, the effects are subtler than some apocalyptic predictions. An anti-competitive nudge towards services favored by the ISP, distorting the market and encouraging even greater consolidation:

Since June 2014, U.S. mobile provider T-Mobile US has offered zero-rated access to participating music streaming services to its mobile internet customers. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating

The EFF makes some good arguments, none of which are addressed in the Reason article: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/zero-rating-what-it-is...

"Needless to say, that didn't happen. None of it did. Foes of net neutrality were clearly correct that the internet didn't need the government to save it, and absent federal direction and regulation, everything is fine."

It wasn't about 'saving the Internet' explicitly, it's about 'saving the equal access to the Internet'. For many people across the country, they don't get a choice of their ISP, or if they do, it's a duo-opoly in their market. Net-Neutrality was designed to preserve the equal treatment of data, and the hindrance of certain providers.

Arguably, you can see how the Internet has become more entrenched with the biggest players taking on more 'space' among the masses.

What a slanted load of BS.

No matter your politics, all Americans can agree on 3 things:

1) Cutting in line is wrong; 2) People who shoot bald eagles are real a-holes; 3) the 2 industries that that get more expensive every year while providing worse service every year are cell phone networks and cable/internet providers.

That doesn't seem to be the case, on average. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU3721

People have a visceral hatred of utilities for some reason, but isn’t this obviously false?

> the 2 industries that that get more expensive every year while providing worse service every year are cell phone networks and cable/internet providers.

I get 150 mbps down at my random exurban strip mall with Comcast 5G (which runs on Verizon’s network). It’s gotten a lot faster in the last five years.

What else has improved that much in consumer tech over the past five years? Windows and MacOS have been stuck in a rut. Intel did like five or six rehashes of Skylake in that time frame. Apple CPUs have really improved in that time frame. But many aspects of the web have gotten worse. Google seems to be worse than it was in 2015, thanks to SEO. Amazon is full of fake products, etc.

My phone and internet are more reliable and more stable. Price is just a touch higher - way less than price ramps everywhere else.

Seriously? Let's also add lead back to paint, gas, and children's toys. Then Reason can write another article 4 years later declaring that we haven't seen a measurable increase in health/brain/behavior damage so all is good. Silly lead fear-mongers, that'll show em.

> Seriously?

I think the trick to understanding Reason magazine is to recognize that it is named ironically. With that perspective, the things it publishes make a little more sense.

I wonder how this will look 4 years after the government makes a decision on Section 230 regulation. (Or even today vs 4 years ago). Would the conclusion be the same?

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