Court strikes down US net neutrality rules
bbc.com
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Large businesses are becoming a greater liability than ever before. Although I applaud net neutrality advocates, something greater must be done: the takedown of large corporations and rebuilding them from scratch.
I'm skeptical of introducing federal intervention preemptively as it seems like a natural extension would be censorship. If some regulatory agency is telling ISPs to allow legitimate content equally, it's not that much of a stretch to imagine they'll forbid "illegitimate" content. Think cheap fakes and other misinformation.
We should have had comprehensive broadband and fiber in every home for decades, but ISPs would rather throttle you, and charge you more for worse service, rather than make overdue investments in infrastructure.
Or ISPs not counting their own streaming services towards the data cap, but counting their competitors. Very anti competitive.
We need net neutrality.
Let me see if I understand.
ISPs are extorting Netflix. And Netflix is hosting middleboxes that improve quality, but they don't actually care about improving quality, they are greedy, by not wanting to be extorted by the ISPs?
And we don't build out fiber because ISPs would rather throttle you and they can't do two things at once. But doesn't throttling and extorting companies like Netflix give them more revenue to build fiber? Or somehow the new fiber and customers they could get somehow prevents their ability to throttle?
No offense but this is the typical unpersuasive argument for net neutrality I hear. It's just non-sensical and all over the place. It makes no logical sense. Maybe there's a better argument, but so much of what I hear is this and it leads me to believe that proponents are just rooting for a sports team. The equivalent of arguing with a ref after a call against your team.
ISPs care about something called “transit”. Transit is when you’re given a packet by someone that you connect to directly, but you don’t have a direct path to the destination, and need to go through some other entity to get there, such as another ISP. When you pay them for that (usually as a metered charge, or simply by size of the interconnect), this is called “buying transit”. When you connect that way, though, you can also agree with the other side that it’s mutually beneficial to just interconnect. After all, you might be giving them paths to destination they can’t get to directly. When you interconnect without payment (either way! There commonly are interconnects where only one side pays), that’s called peering.
Internet ISPs exist on something called tiers. A tier 1, by actual definition, is an ISP that doesn’t pay anyone for transit because they peer with anyone. ISPs that only pay tier 1s for transit and peer with everyone they connect to that isn’t a tier 1 are called tier 2s, and so on.
Transit is expensive so ISPs strive to be at a high tier and push as much data via peerings as possible.
The best thing, of course, is when the ISP doesn’t have to go through an interconnect at all and can simply complete the full path on its own backbone, which is just smart use of assets you own.
Netflix sends ISPs a lot of data. This can make the transit an ISP uses to get to Netflix quite expensive. Netflix also offers ISPs caches, which means that Netflix is telling ISPs that they are happy to take a box with a petabyte of storage, put their most popular programming on it, meet the ISP at some exchange point, and put an interface on that cache onto the ISPs network. Now the ISP can just use its backbone to serve Netflix streams available via that cache.
Some ISPs have documented behavior of refusing to put a cache onto their network, instead asking Netflix to subvert or fund the transit cost. They don’t care about how good their customer’s Netflix experience is, they want to generate revenue. This is arguably greedy.
ISPs also have a last mile issue. Backbone networks are typically quite good in the US, but there are capacity problems where the ISP meets actual customers. Some ISPs have a documented history of taking federal grants given to improve last mile networks and just not making those actual investments. This was particularly prevalent in the 2000s. Instead, they simply offer lower speeds or introduce data caps that let them throttle end users after certain thresholds, which reduces the overall load on their last mile networks
I am open minded to arguments against net neutrality, but please wait to enter this discussion until you are tall enough to ride.
Slippery slope fallacy.
The most natural side-effect from lack of net neutrality is throttling, ISPs can throttle high-bandwidth applications and ask them to pay up, if competitors pay up they have an advantage so it forces everyone to pay up for access to non-throttled customers. Smaller companies/startups will be in absolute disadvantage.
Now imagine throttling for almost any kind of application: game providers not paying for "premium access" get a 500ms delay, messaging apps not paying will have media delivery throttled (good luck sending a 20MiB video to your family when the ISP throttle it to 256kbps), it opens a new way for ISPs to monetise their networks, it opens a new way for bigger players to subjugate competition that doesn't have deep pockets.
ISPs experimenting with throttling has already happened, when data caps were a bigger thing they also sold "partnerships" with apps that wouldn't be counted towards the data cap.
And it can't really be contested by customers because many only have 2-3 choices in their area. If they all collude...
My slippery slope comment was about their jump to censorship being the end result, I completely agree with you as I said the same on the other paragraphs.
They are actually destroying themselves. Enshitification is killing Microsoft, Google, Netflix, Facebook, and more. Just build solid alternatives focused on user satisfaction instead of profit so people have viable alternatives.
You can't build anything great from scratch in less than 10 years.
Ask yourself this: imagine Facebook and Twitter going down for good. Would society be worse off? Probably not. We'd quickly find alternatives. Maybe they wouldn't be as fully featured but they'd work.
Based on what metric?
On what Earth? Enshittification is killing us. Big corps are doing just fine bending masses to their will.
>"Just build solid alternatives focused on user satisfaction instead of profit so people have viable alternatives."
Easy peasy. I'll just change human nature, borrow couple of trillions from my buddy and it is all done.
>"You can't build anything great from scratch in less than 10 years."
Suddenly I see a big optimist on HN
Base pkg: Select Social + Approved Banking Base+ pkg: Base + Select Streaming Advanced pkg: Base+ + Approved general internet (w/ transfer cap)
absolutely
> and rebuilding them
absolutely not
Apple is a bit harder and that may be where the laws are a bit outdated. But EU is setting a good precedent when that comes around.
We need a whole new set of laws of technology that go beyond the feeble anti-trust laws we have today.
Nowadays that's not even scratching the surface of what companies are doing. But we seem to have simply stopped enforcing anti-trust for the largest corporations, about the time they all started joining PRISM. I don't think that's a coincidence. Quid pro quo.
At one point in time the concept of the separation of State and Church was revolutionary. It's time for the separation of State and Big Business/Banking. So many things could be fixed basically overnight if the relationship between corporations and the government was more adversarial, and less incestuous.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
Both parties hate her, sadly.
Same about corporate powers, especially in US where consumer protection seems to be a lot weaker than in EU, even if US has a lot more regulations.
I got ganged up on when this was first done in the FCC. I said it will flip flop depending on who is in power and what their motivations are. Here we are 15 years later and that is exactly what happened. Until Title III is written there will be no real change. We should not let the executive branch have law judge and jury authority. It was not designed that way, it fundamentally breaks the separation of duties. We should also not let the congress and senate and judiciary cede their authority because it is convenient at the moment.
Adopting a strategy that wouldn't have worked in 1980 and probably wont work in 2080 unless the country is literally torn down and rebuilt from the ground up doesn't seem like an effective strategy. The supreme court has never just been a cold arbiter of law and they certainly aren't acting thus now. The intention isn't for congress to do their job the purpose is to gut regulation so that the parties who hired the justices by proxy can profit.
Because of the construction of our system your desired legislation can be stymmied by lawmakers representing barely half of states represention 25% of the population so ultimately 13% of us. Worse any meaningful parts are liable to be horse traded away for more vital concerns which are almost always going to be either a crisis or immediate budgetary matters.
See the last 40 years. Imagine your cow died decades ago and you were still milking its bones.
I mean, that's an exaggeration, but major decisions like this being decided by the courts is fundamentally wrong. If the majority of the population disagree with this court ruling we ought to very simply head to congress and pass a new law to overturn it. But we won't and everyone knows it. Not to draw too many parallels but it feels similar to the recent overturn of Roe v Wade. It feels like we, as a population, are powerless to do something the majority wants.
> the people can always amend the Constitution
My point is that the people cannot do that. Yes, the technical ability exists, but the chances of getting anything passed is very low. So we exist in a limbo where everything gets decided by the courts.
Time to actually suffer to get what you want people.
As I said; "Time to actually suffer to get what you want people."
But I am not just talking about the providers, I am talking about compaines like Facebook and Google.
But my Grandfather was a coal miner in PA and they had strikes that led directly to some of their deaths by murder by agents of the coal companies, so do not talk about losing your job would be hard.
The unregulated capitalist free-for-all that strikes down net neutrality cannot also disallow independent network networks from being stood up.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/fcc-admits-defea...
we'll likely see similar moves with the Department of Education this year.
Years ago, I said this might happen. Way back when, there was no FCC and the airwaves were the Wild West and anyone could throw up an antenna and call themselves a broadcaster.
The internet is too wild and you all know it. I, too, want to be able to put together my own web site to hold content or sell my wares but, as psychologists now warn, the harm this "anything goes" content has caused us needs to be tamed.
Were you paying attention for the last 10 years? We already have tighter and tighter controls over the internet. Pretty much every government on the planet is itching to institute internet censorship, and many already did. Major content providers are tightly working with the governments to ensure no information disapproved by the government is allowed on their platforms. States are instituting digital ID schemes to control access to sites (and if you think it's only about porn you're still not paying attention). People are regularly deplatformed and banned from major internet services for expressing controversial opinions. Are you trying to scare me with something that had already happened?
> something greater must be done: the takedown of large corporations and rebuilding them from scratch.
Ah yes, of course, only the glorious proletarian revolution will save us. How does it go? Le monde va changer de base: Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout!
Please wake me up when that happens. On the second thought, please don't, I'd rather not see it. We had enough of it in the last centrury, thankyouverymuch.
The proponents of NN argued all these anti consumer and anti competitive practices that this will cause. It was framed as getting ahead of some of these abusive practices.
Now it's 7 years later. I haven't followed it closely but personally have not noticed many harmful or obvious exploiting of the removal of NN.
Am I just not seeing it? Do I have to wait longer? Were they waiting for this to become more permanent? What am I missing?
That said even this would hardly count as a negative for users though you're spot on about it hurting competition for other streaming services - on the other hand it's a way for ISPs to compete. Hmmm... still haven't formed an opinion on this issue yet.
But there are examples where net neutrality has protected consumers.
In 2012, At&T blocked FaceTime on its network unless you were on one of its expensive plans.
> An AT&T spokeswoman, speaking on background, disputed it was using cellular FaceTime as a "premium" feature, but acknowledged the company was using it as a lever to get users to switch over to the new plans which charge for data usage in tiers.
(Source: https://www.wired.com/2012/08/facetime-net-neutrality-flap/)
There is only so much cellular spectrum and the more it’s congested the more performance degrades for all other users. Rate limiting in that environment makes sense.
Rate limiting over fiber doesn’t though.
Just because you don't see it happening overtly, doesn't mean that it's not needed. When dealing with private interests you have to presume that if something is allowed and will result in a marginal, even if insignificant rise in income, firms will do it. And considering that they've attempted to do it before, it's preferable to pursue regulation that would result in disincentives to pursue such actions, rather than let them to their own devices. You would remind a kid not to eat cookies before dinner, even if they know about it.
The idea that these companies won't leverage the absolute hell out of rulings like this to nickel and dime the shit out of you (which we know 1000% they already do) is absurd.
The idea that these regulatory bodies won't leverage the absolute hell out of rulings like this to invade on free speech (which we know 1000% they already do) is absurd.
You might be thrilled at this incoming administration and their ability to appoint absolute incorruptible stewards of the public into these positions, but administrations change over time so they may eventually be handing it off to some people with bad intentions
blah blah blah blah blah freedom of speech blah blah blah.
> You might be thrilled at this incoming administration and their ability to appoint absolute incorruptible stewards of the public into these positions, but administrations change over time so they may eventually be handing it off to some people with bad intentions
What? What on earth does my stance on net neutrality have anything to do with the incoming administration? And yes, I will trust some unelected bureaucrat over the worst companies on this planet every time.
You seemed very eager to allow the state to have more control over ISPs so I assumed you were bullish on the incoming administration since they're the ones appointing these unelected bureaucrats. I just mentioned that even though you may like this new administration, you may not like future administrations and think they are filled with self-serving billionaires with authoritarian tendencies and may abuse their power
In a closed system, maybe. But there are some options and the threat of new entrants that keep the system in check (e.g. SpaceLink). Regulation has a cost, and it might be able to prevent some bad behavior but it keeps competition out. That's why the most regulated industries are often the most stagnant, expensive and awful to deal with (think education, legal, health care, banking)
There's a million examples of companies not naively maximizing profits. Why doesn't McDonalds charge for napkins and ketchup? Surely some pointy haired manager suggested this to squeeze out some profit, but it would piss people off and isn't worth it. And this is a better constraint on bad behavior than some unelected regulatory body.
> Why doesn't McDonalds charge for napkins and ketchup?
If they did I could just go to Burger King. But someone living in a town where McDonalds is the only restaurant would be powerless. (and McDonalds does now charge for sauces they used to give away for free!)
It's not proof my ISP was prioritizing the well known speed test's traffic to gaslight subscribers about the low network speeds, but I find it suspicious. After all, why wouldn't they? It's not illegal.
And the opponents for their part suggested:
- Broadband rollout to rural areas would never happen with Net Neutrality in place
- Repealing Net Neutrality would lead to a surge in new private investment
- No private company would ever throttle traffic
- Encrypted traffic would never be treated differently
- There's no risk that private companies will leverage differentiation of traffic types to support surveillance, censorship, or data mining or selling of data
- it would restore the conditions of the 1990s and early 00s that lead to major new companies like Facebook
- Broadband prices would fall
- Special zero-rated forms of broadband traffic would become available
It's now 7 years later. I've only followed on and off, but I haven't noticed a transformative explosion in private market investment, new Facebooks, lower prices, or anything like that, that was tied to an assessment of Net Neutrality.
So, same question back to you. I've been looking for the explosion in new private investment, the steep collapse in broadband prices and the new zero rated product offerings, unleashed by the repeal of net neutrality. Was I just not seeing it? Is that just around the corner now that it's been struck down? We'll be able to come back to a thread like this in another 7 years and that will all have happened, right?
Please can you actually explain how this is just big business vs big business? When this solidifies practices that allow major parties to unfairly dominate?
Do you even understand what net neutrality rules are/do?
I definitely think ISPs will downgrade access to home VPNs. They probably really enjoy watching what sites you visit, and are probably strongly pressured to do so.
As an example, net neutrality proponents widely predicted that ISPs would begin offering 'bundles' (for example pay separately for social media sites, pay for video sites etc) [1].
None of it happened. It was just a lie.
[1] https://blog.flashrouters.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Net...
Generally speaking, two parties build a peering pipe between each other, let's say it's 100Gbps. All is good. Now, fast forward a few years and this peering line is reaching capacity. Who should pay? Should it be Party A who uses 70% of the capacity or Party B who uses 30% of the capacity? Net neutrality forces Party B to pay, which is totally against the spirit of the internet and these agreements.
Net neutrality is nothing more than a corporate handout to freeloading cheapskates like Netflix who started this entire outrage because they refused to pay for peering upgrades (as their peering agreements mandate).
Net neutrality literally shifted the cost of upgrading the pipes that were saturated as a direct result of Netflix traffic onto the ISPs, and therefore onto consumers. So customers who NEVER used Netflix are paying more.
Strictly speaking, there's nothing stopping AT&T from hiking prices to $499/month in areas they have effective monopolies. They don't. Prices are reasonably competitive even there. You can't invent a doomsday scenario (the world is ending in 2012!) then when it doesn't come to pass you merely adjust the timeframe (the world is ending in 2030 for real this time!). That's what those arguments were, dishonest doomsday predictions which repeatedly failed to come to fruition.
What good would even come from repelling it?
You have one side saying terrible things can happen, and your argument for the other side is nothing more than "But it didn't happen... yet!"
What's the upside?
Net neutrality was a lie pushed by Netflix at a time they didn't want to honor their peering agreements, which mandated that the party using disproportionate amounts of bandwidth on the pipe paid for the upgrade.
All of the useful proponents of NN fell in line and lied about the doomsday should it be repealed, none of which remotely came to pass because it was a dishonest argument.
They'll extort some money from internet stakeholders and still keep the consumer prices high
The first image you linked to literally says "this COULD be the internet without net neutrality". And it's correct, it's exactly the kind of thing net neutrality enables.
That the change in regulation makes it possible when it was previous not possible. Your 2012 comparison doesn’t hold up.
IMO that’s the most sensible way to approach something like this, anything else is a value judgment on what you think someone is going to do based on very little. What is now possible that previously was not? That’s the core question. If no one is going to do it, why would they push to change the regulation?
Not currently.
Effectively, AT&T returns (by a very strange and expensive route).
It will be very interesting to see what effect this has on networks globally.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
We're truly in the post-truth age.
"Net Neutrality policies are a national standard by which we ensure that broadband internet service is treated as an essential service. It prohibits internet service providers from blocking, throttling, or engaging in paid prioritization of lawful content. By classifying broadband service as a “telecommunications” service under Title II of the law, the FCC restores its oversight of internet service outages, national security threats in broadband networks, and consumer protection and regains key tools to promote broadband deployment."
I am admittedly not educated about Sri Lanka, but here in the US, companies fuck people over regularly. And as such, it's often important to even the playing the field.
If you want to create your own search engine, but Google decides to partner with every major ISP in the country and pay to throttle your site you'd probably find the whole "Why do we need net neutrality" arugment pretty convincing.
It's hard for me ot understand the position that we should just let these enormous companies do whatever they want and either you're a paid shill commenting on posts like this or just honestly don't have a clue.
Net neutrality is about where (to use an American example) Netflix can run fiber directly to Comcast in return for Comcast not metering their customers' Netflix traffic.
You're comparing apples to oranges.
It's not like ISPs cannot block/throttle customers at all, but what they are allowed to do is heavily regulated under net neutrality.
Net neutrality is the same thing. I don’t want to be constrained on what search engine isn’t blocked, or which streaming service isn’t throttled, or what service made a deal to get priority over something else I might want to use. If I have 500 mbps speed, I want 500 mbps, regardless whether I’m using it for Meta, Youtube, or farmersonly. If I have a data cap, I get to decide what to use it for.
It would be one more way for already large and powerful companies to monopolize things and squeeze out competition. Having neutral electricity means that no company, industry, or type of product is able to constrain or manipulate my freedom of choice through the universal and ubiquitous electrical service. it isn't a situation where I feel I would be blocked from using electricity for certain thing, like running a home server. It is that I understand all too well that I am not immune to that manipulation, and over time, I would be steered and constrained and I would be worse off.
Regulating the energy efficiency of devices sold has actually saved me, and everyone money. And it does it with the goal of helping consumers, not in giving one company another lever to increase it’s profits. That is what I want, regulation that maximized consumer choice, while improving the products and services they receive.
Meta rules forever, no competition, ever again.
“Well actually this is good for you”
Oh wait, none of that happened. It was a lie from the start.
[1] https://blog.flashrouters.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Net...
Who cares if your traffic gets a little more or less shaped when the platforms you're accessing are all neutered? Who cares how much Netflix has to pay for bandwidth when Amazon can just delete entire platforms, like they did with Parler?
"So-called open internet advocates" is the right phrase here because the Internet borne by these rules was anything but open. This policy is very much like the cookie warning in the EU, completely failed to deliver meaningful benefits.
Your link indicates that Twitter/affiliates donated money to Democrats (which is of course trivial to understand why - tech company from the Bay Area, of course most of its employees will slant progressive), not that "Biden pressured social media companies into censorship". Care to provide a real source for your conspiracy theory? And weren't there investigations by republicans in Congress that found nothing wrong in the whole laptop story? Why are you still stuck on it?
At the moment I find it difficult and risky to achieve “standing” to getting the court challenges and then further take it to appeals
But I suspect it will get easier as the government stops even bothering with appeals court after these trial court cases get so consistent