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Comment by LikelyABurner | Hacker News Reader

I thought "finally, maybe someone gets it" and did the unspeakable sin at Hacker News and read the article.

Did they talk about efforts by governments to censor the Internet "for the {children,terrorism,morals}? Nope.

Did they talk about efforts by corporations to control access by adding proprietary DRM layers on top of the open protocols, a la Google WEI? Nope.

Nope, as the article states, "It is the conduct of the ISPs that is in question here".

Just like the last round of "net neutrality", I see Tom Wheeler's lips moving, but I only hear FAANG talking points coming out of his mouth.

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You’re falling right into the ISP playbook. ISPs absolutely need far more oversight, due to the fact that they have received billions in public money to subsidize their buildouts, but then complain that they should be able to operate like a private business with only free market competition to guide them.

The first time NN came up, there was a huge whataboutism campaign by them pointing at FAANG to redirect attention to them instead of the monopoly abuses from the ISPs themselves. And the misdirection worked in many case (as evidenced by your comment).

Does FAANG need to be looked at? Yes. But it’s not an NN issue, just regular anti-trust. ISPs are at a whole other level that needs regulation. They should not be able to sell all my DNS queries, monitor all my traffic, scan my internal network from their modems, or give zero ratings to their own bundled streaming apps. All of that is related to the fact that they are the sole available option for Internet service in almost all markets.

> [ISPs] should not be able to sell all my DNS queries, monitor all my traffic, scan my internal network from their modems, or give zero ratings to their own bundled streaming apps

Only the last is relevant to net neutrality. From what I can tell, it’s not an issue—streaming is competitive.

Debating net neutrality seems a convenient way to avoid scrutinising the pricing and privacy problems at ISPs. In that sense, it seems more profitable—for the ISPs—to centre the debate around net neutrality versus their actual profit centres.

In summary, I’d much prefer an ISP customer bill of rights, and release of exclusivities granted to ISPs that didn’t meet their ends of the bargains, than this seemingly-performative debate about net neutrality, which is largely about increasing the scope of the FCC’s portfolio than doing anything meaningful for ordinary Americans.

It's not clear that network neutrality wouldn't be much more of an issue if government and citizens hadn't shown some degree of will to protect it in name or nature since the inception of the internet. The counterargument sounds a bit like a diabetic dismissing the importance of insulin.

> I’d much prefer an ISP customer bill of rights

This relies on a wholly imaginary choice between net neutrality and the the rights you would prefer. It's not dissimilar to the argument that is made in response to gun violence for instance. For instance "I'd much prefer we focused on the root cause of mental health than potentially infringing on the rights of honest gun owners."

In fact mental health is an important issue but there is no particular reason to believe that a government with a budget in the trillions can't do you know TWO THINGS.

> relies on a wholly imaginary choice between net neutrality and the the rights you would prefer

This isn’t how politics works. Crowding out an issue with a filibuster is a valid political tactic. Net neutrality seems, to me, like that when it comes to ISP regulation.

This is how politics works. We have a maximum of 535 law makers with out 18,000 staffers. The reason there is constant discussion about net neutrality is because it is real and actual. There is no connection whatsoever abandoning the actuality of net neutrality and the fanciful notions you imagine would be virtuous. There is no reason to imagine your ideas are ever liable to be made real even if useful.

Abandoning the actual for the fanciful nets us only a loss of both.

How can you talk about “net neutrality” and then say the government should limit what goes over the wire - ie DRMd protocols?

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