Y Combinator has filed an official comment with the FCC
blog.ycombinator.com
blog.ycombinator.com
The best thing for tech companies to do is to start destroying some political careers. That's the only thing the machine understands and the only thing it's really going to respond to.
Add gerrymandering to the mix, and this tactic becomes even harder to resist, since the effective sidelining of an opposing party means that no matter what else happens, the seat in question stays with the side that already holds it. This is what people mean by "safe" seats, by the way. They're safe for the party. Particular incumbents, not so much.
So yes. If you have a realistic hope of getting what you want it's because you're known to have the power to end careers. If legislators refuse to cooperate, their prospects dim. If an agency gets uncooperative, the legislators who oversee it turn the budget screws, causing pain and wrecking livelihoods until the backer with the biggest stick wins. These are the mechanics of regulatory capture, and they're in operation every day.
Obviously, all of this deeply depressing, and provides an excellent argument for getting private finance out of elections altogether, since that really is the mechanism upon which American-style corruption depends. And while we're at it, de-rigging the vote with non-partisan redistricting and establishing a nation-wide version of the (pre-gutted) Voting Rights Act would go a long way in fostering a government of, by, and for the people.
But in the meantime, when our systems is less like a democracy and more like an oligarchy, getting what you want means playing by the rules that exist. And that means lobbying with both carrot and stick. They hit you, you hit back. And not only do you hit back harder, you hit back so hard that they will never get up again. That's what the SOPA/PIPA backlash did: threatened a sweeping act of maximum violence to an unprecedented number of careers.
It was brutal and it was ugly, but it worked. And it did so when there's not much else that does.
If candidates knew this was something their constituents cared about, they might actually run on it.
Who cares if Lessig fails. We're finally talking about campaign finance.
Muffy is a dog. Muffy cannot bark. Therefore, no dogs can bark.
Textbook logical fallacy.
Of course, politicians can and do buy elections. Today's process practically guarantees this will occur.
>to the extent that any good ideas are removed from the public realm with this scheme, we all lose.
There are other ways to ensure that good ideas come to the fore. And, as the ability to raise funds is not solely based on the quality of one's ideas, there is no feasible way that the democratic process can benefit from unrestrained campaign financing and rulings like Citizens United.
"10 things we think we know, but really don't
1. Money buys the votes of the general public. (Maybe savvy donors just donate to candidates who will win in the hopes of influencing them.)" [edit: quote moved]
Money is necessary but not sufficient in order to become elected.
Politics is not about good ideas. Jim Crow laws existed for decades.
Money alone isn't sufficient to guarantee an election outcome, you still have to execute.
"'American Crossroads, the super PAC founded by Karl Rove, spent $104 million in the general election, but none of its candidates won. The United States Chamber of Commerce spent $24 million backing Republicans in 15 Senate races; only two of them won. Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul, spent $53 million on nine Republican candidates, eight of whom lost.' It was, as the paper noted, 'A Landslide Loss for Big Money.'"[1]
"When a candidate doubled their spending, holding everything else constant, they only got an extra one percent of the popular vote. It’s the same if you cut your spending in half, you only lose one percent of the popular vote. So we’re talking about really large swings in campaign spending with almost trivial changes in the vote."[2]
[1] - http://reason.com/archives/2014/07/14/dear-liberals-stop-fre...
[2] - http://freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/does-money-really-buy-ele...
That's not saying every dollar is the same, and the money -> influence function is a straight line. But money buys reach and coverage at the very least.
That's a very important point in public corruption debates, since there mere perception of corruption can diminish trust in public institutions. And trust, as it turns out, is their greatest asset. That's why effective anti-corruption laws are written to prohibit actions that simply appear corrupt, along with those that can be proven corrupt beyond all reasonable doubt.
When it comes to public trust, appearance really does matter.
But politicians are a simple and superstitious folk, and they do care a lot about fund raising. And in a 50:50 fight, they'll do almost anything for an edge.
Also, while a politician might be in a safe seat, they'll gain a lot of brownie points (e.g. a promotion) if they can funnel some funds to someone in a marginal seat.
That's the sugar coated version. When it comes to people who already have a lot of seniority and don't need the money for their own elections, the ability to transfer funds between their reelection accounts and those of others isn't about "brownie points". It's the raw exercise of political power, and is handled not to praise, but to bury.
What if the problem is simply that very few voters care about the issue, and that even less would be willing to change their vote over this issue?
For example, most regular voters care about copyright extensions, but the lobbyists do, and so it gets extended time after time.
There are plenty of issues that average 'tech people' dont care about that other professions might. I have not seen any evidence that as a whole technical people care more about whats going on in the world.
When voter turn out is low, it is not because people dont care about the issues. It is because they dont believe their vote is being counted, cant distinguish between candidates, or simply dont think any candidate can lead to the kind of governance they would prefer.
It you care about your legacy, and your opponent only cares about getting (re-)elected to benefit from the position, your opponent is at an advantage: Your opponent does not need to "waste" time, money and effort on things that does not improve their chances at (re-)election.
Such a website would be very useful to society, and can be done on city and state levels all around the world.
People also say that regulators are captured by the industry via opportunities they get in a revolving door. They are offered cushy positions at the industry after they stop being politicians, in exchange for favorable votes. I could see this as possibly being a bigger motivator than re election.
Maybe there should be some consequences to not voting according to the policies you ran on. Buy in any case, if most politicians are awayed by lobbying, then being one politician who isn't won't make a huge difference.
For the longest time, this stuff was of interests only to wonk's wonks. Now it's slowly seeping into common awareness. That's a vital step on the way to (eventual) change. If you've got a link to Ira's show, please don't hesitate to post it.
Beyond that, the art of politics is to make sure you look reasonable at all times, and can make your case both to the decision maker in question, but also to everybody else now watching said decision maker in light of the statements you have made.
This is a rallying cry, and a notification to the FCC chairman that the YC community cares, is paying attention, and has pointed feelings on the matter, both in terms of policy and outcome.
One thing I've learned about trying to motivate someone else to do something - a la Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people" and Pink's "To Sell is Human" - is to shut up about yourself and focus on the other person/party. Remember, we're all human.
The FCC -- as is common in regulatory agencies releasing proposals with a call for comments -- specifically wants impacted parties to detail how they are impacted (including financial impacts), because the FCC is tasked to take those impacts into account.
But I wonder how it balances individual impacts versus business impacts. Is a thousand people complaining "This ruins my ability to watch netflix" as significant as netflix same comments in terms of its business losses.
I think the FCC cares, otherwise, it wouldn't keep adopting regulation aimed to restrict the degree to which broadband providers can deviate from neutrality.
They've also specifically asked for comments on how their current proposal on how to do that can be improved, and the YC comment letter addresses that question and the more specific subordinate questions asked within it.
If you aren't familiar with this, you might be surprised to see who signed it.
2) Send private dectectives to follow them.
3) Dig up dirt from their past.
This could be pretty interesting. For example, maybe Google could mine the web (or Twitter their tweet data) for public information on politicians and start airing their dirty laundry. For example, if someone Googles a certain politician, it could show that information at the top of the search if the politician doesn't do what they want.
It's democratic (if you are happy for Russian links to count in your senators feeds)
Thank you very much for writing that! (and the letter in general!)
We might not get what we want or expect. However do not think that I agree with services like Netflix paying more for priority when I am already paying for the bandwidth
Shouldn't it be 'premier'? I know, not a big deal, but a mistake on the first line doesn't scream 'Best in the Business' if you ask me.
lead the world, create jobs, and tremendous value
From years of being in the graphics business I noted that people tended to miss words that weren't particularly difficult but at the same time (and same people) usually caught difficult words.
My reasoning was that people "chunk" the easy frequent words but slow down and think about every letter in the difficult words.
Some of the most common errors were actually with the city names and street addresses (and numbers) for example.
1. question, concern or objection
2. bona fides and background information
3. vision for change or outcome
4. call to action
P.S.
Thanks for fighting the good fight!
I believe that in legal writing, there's the additional intent of making it easier for a professional to skip over the boilerplate introductions of the bona fides and jump straight to the relevant content - and make no mistake, this is absolutely a legal filing, intended to persuade a small group of professionals, with their careers and maybe also some actual principles at stake. The effect on the broader public is kind of incidental.
Look at those who are against net neutrality, those who stand to gain the most from opposing it: ISP's. I can't recall where I saw it, but it was an infographic/table showing which companies/organisations have been spending lobbyist cash on getting their archaic and unfair legislation through via the FCC. It seems as though spending has increased over the years in the form of donations and propaganda.
If the likes of Google, Reddit and Y! Combinator want to see a fair Internet, they need to combine some cash into a pool and use it to lobby the right parts of the system. Sadly we live in a world where money talks and words are ignored. I have seen a lot of companies speaking out, but maybe it is time to consider changing tactics when a public statement from Google on the subject is basically ignored. Pull out those wallets and start spending guys, it's the only way.
This is the first time I've seen this misconception, and I have to admit it make me chuckle a bit.
"Y!" is a trademark of Yahoo, which has no connection to Y Combinator (which is spelled without any exclamation mark).
I think that YC will become increasingly prominent in politics, because the tech sector has to in order to maintain control of its own fate. It'll be interesting to see what other moves YC will make.
Your point is well taken that well organized (not always well moneyed) narrow interest groups can often get their way in the legislative or administrative rule-making process simply by being organized and cohesive. That is why public-choice theory[1] suggests that representative democracy cannot always achieve disinterested action in favor of the abstract public good. But what we deal with is a system that is imperfect, but better than other systems of government that have been tried, in the comparison that Churchill popularized.[2]
Yes.
> It's hard to overlook that money seems to drive American politics moreso than public opinion
One of the ways that money drives regulatory politics is that having money means you can hire people who (1) understand the regulatory process, and (2) participate in open comment opportunities by submitting comments that are effective (particularly, by addressing the desired policy changes in terms of that address directly the points for which the regulatory agency has called for input.)
If I understand correctly, the process dictates that the FCC formulate responses to the concerns raised during the public comment stage.
And maybe later, after everything has been ruined, if we're lucky, at the future congressional special committee on FCC commissioner misconduct hearings, Kucinich or someone will rake Wheeler and his buddies over the coals for failing to address those concerns.
I'm very suspicious of this as an engineer. I suspect it is very hard to tell the difference. In a competitive environment, we can more easily discover the difference. I strongly prefer imposing competition at the last mile rather than the EFF's suggestion of Title 2 + forebearance...
Compare this to a place like Tokyo, where there's a vast number of real competitors for both last-mile infrastructure (wires / low-level communication) and ISP services, and perhaps even more critically, those two components seem to be largely decoupled. That decoupling seems like it would go a long way in helping to avoid the sort of net-neutrality shenigans than seem to be occurring with U.S. ISPs these days, by dramatically decreasing barriers to entry for new ISPs.
They then go away, rephrase, and we're on the defensive again. Eventually, people who only defend will capitulate. You can't win if all you do is defend.
It would be hard to be less clear than this. When you have a comma-separated list of things you want a rule against, you need to either repeat the word "against" or risk having people at the FCC, who may just be dumb enough to make the mistake, think that you mean you want a rule against only the first thing you mention.
A naive reading of this (again, this is the FCC) would be that you mean we DO need access fees and paid prioritization, which I guess is the opposite of what you mean.
Even if net neutrality were approved, I don't think that unless there are other technological revolutions that open new sectors up like the PC or the Internet were, that subdivisions of large companies will be responsible for most new stuff, taking the most of the market for itself anyway and making competition harder, as we can see today in many ways. It'd just be a (very positive) way to preserve the current state of things a while longer, but not something capable of keeping the Internet "flat" in the long term.
startups would struggle to compete against those who were
able to afford paying for a fast lane--or an exclusive
fast lane. Even the slightest discrimination or paid
prioritization significantly affects startups, as
microseconds matter with both webpage-loading and
real-time content.
If a "fast lane" cost as much as using a CDN, then presumably most startups wouldn't have a problem with it.
"It's the economy, stupid" has seemingly been replaced with "It's my economy, stupid", as the mating call of the political class.
> The fate of reddit may have been very different if Comcast had discriminated against our little two-person-startup in favor of the NBC.com news portal and the sites of other news giants.
Comcast could say, "Well, you're directly competing with our website, and you're putting hostile articles about us on the front page. We'll just throttle your access until your users get frustrated and leave." They're not the government; they can refuse service to whomever they please.
If the FCC doesn't create rules that enforce net neutrality, this is a reality. And what's more is that no one can stop them otherwise because many people have no alternative to Comcast. As the South Park episode goes, "Oh, you must be really bummed. I guess you could switch services... oh... wait, you can't. We're the only one."
(nipple rubbing intensifies)
Basically, if you have the resources, you can enforce dominance in the market with money. One of the cool things about Internet startups right now is that the barrier to entry is pretty low - anyone with a laptop, an Internet connection, and some pretty cheap web hosting service can create the next Facebook. The lack of net neutrality changes that.
http://transition.fcc.gov/Plan-for-Orderly-Shutdown-Septembe...
Proponents of net neutrality are asking the FCC for new regulation on the internet in order to prevent ISPs from prioritizing certain traffic over others. If we were to shut down the FCC, ISPs would be unrestrained.
In other words - the problem with the FCC is not that it is actively doing bad things, the problem is that it is not doing the job we would like it to.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/reddit-cofounder-alexis-oha...
But yeah, I don't see his name on the partner list;
Could someone explain?
I'd like to have it, but I'd rather not see it enforced, because I believe private property rights are more important than anything else.
Should we really be able to force someone to use their property an a way that serves the public interest?
If so, where do we draw the line?
If ISPs start taking money to throttle bandwidth, alternatives will be established. Perhaps, widespread public wifi will become more prevalent--I don't know.
But, what I do know is that forcing companies--even if they are big corporations to use their property in a way we deem in our best interest is a slippery slope.
Want to call broadband an public utility? Good, then make it one. But, do it officially...
And what private property is at stake here? We gave ISPs hundreds of billions of dollars to build our infrastructure and on top of that they failed to hit the access and speed goals. This comment shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the problem. This needs to be admitted before anything else.
>Should we really be able to force someone to use their property an a way that serves the public interest?
Of course. This is the slippery slope fallacy at it's finest. I can't stand when arguments are discussed in talking points. The world is complicated, we need to find the right balance of personal liberty and society's needs. Retreating to talking points is easy, but it doesn't solve any actual problems.
Yes, that's the price of a government-granted monopoly.
> If so, where do we draw the line?
If you don't have a government-granted monopoly, you don't have to be neutral. For example, that's how the Internet backbone works.
Yes doing the trenching and tunneling through various neighborhoods is disruptive and requires heavy machinery, etc. but that's just to create a hole in the ground. Once some conduit is laid (as a public good by the municipality?) it should be relatively easy for new carriers to come in and pull fiber or what-have-you. You just have to make the channel big enough for e.g., several cables and then you lease the space to the x highest bidders for five years at a time where x > 1.
There are probably better ways to finance things and minimize the disruption, etc. but overall it doesn't seem infeasible to me.
Yes. And this happens all the time in a million different contexts. Taxes. Easements. Speed limits on cars and trucks. You are constantly being told what you can and can't do with things you own.
"Freedom" isn't letting you do whatever the fuck you want to do with whatever happens to have your name attached to it. It's balancing individual rights with our collective rights so we all (ideally) maintain the freedom to live our lives as we wish.
The BBC is required to maintain "balance" over political issues.
Should Google return the same results to all queries (ie no search bubble allowed?)
Should Facebook (indeed any advertiser) be required to serve the same advert no matter what the profile of the incoming request? I mean Billboards are public broadcasts not private to me, why should online advertising be different? I know it is but that's not the point.
I support net neutrality as it is commonly defined, but I think there are many other "neutrality" issues that we gloss over happily. I doubt very much Google will be happy removing the search bubble, and I would be interested in how much it affects the quality of results.
If I don't like Google, I can use Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc. Same with Facebook.
Or I can start my own. Starting a search engine or social network is easy. Getting any market share is hard, since Google and FB are doing a good job, but they know how easily they could be overtaken if they screw up.
I can't start an ISP because I can't use the existing infrastructure and I can't afford to build my own. But Google Fiber shows that if I could start one that doesn't suck, I'd probably have a relatively easy time getting customers, because the competition is so bad.
I agree though, Google and FB make some choices we probably don't like, but it's impossible to regulate everything (and most people wouldn't want to), so we leave it for cases where the free market has proven not to work.
"Net neutrality" isn't about content neutrality, exactly. It's about common carrier neutrality. Common carriers are essentially required to grant equal access to anyone who wants to use their service. They're neutral in that they can't say "no" to anyone. The idea being that it gives someone too much power to be able to block access to a critical service at their whim. (Say, for example, the phone company wanted to stop connecting phone calls between anyone they thought might be politically against their interests.)
"Balance" has nothing to do with it. If 90% of an ISPs users want to download pictures of cats, the ISP is not required to also force users to download an equal number of dog pics. Or to force content providers to offer an equal number of cat and dog photos.