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Comment by fuligo | Hacker News Reader

This is why I fear net neutrality (and the internet as we know it) don't stand a chance.

A lot has been accomplished with public awareness and public outcry has repeatedly averted disaster - so far. But the proponents of this come back with another attempt at least once a year, in both Europe and the US, and they have money on their side. It's amazing net neutrality has gone on as long as it did, against vast corporate and political interests.

Whereas net neutrality advocates have to beat this back every time everywhere, their opposition has to be successful only once, and only in one of these regions, for the whole thing to fall.

It is, I'm afraid, just a matter of time.

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It's very true it's a war. Each win we get against idiot corporations is a battle won, but the war rages on. Hard to say if it'll ever be "won."

It's especially hard when so many people are spouting stuff about how the free market will solve this (if I got a dollar every time "free market" was the drooled out answer to a complicated problem...). It's like we have to convince a critical mass of our peers of the benefits of free speech every time the issue comes up.

However, it's still important we fight each battle, each time one rears its ugly head, wherever it happens, with whatever resources we have available. The internet is too powerful a tool to be left in the hands of greedy slimeballs. It's the great equalizer. Anyone can have a voice, and anyone can listen to that voice, whether you're a giant corporation or a 12 year-old kid with a good idea.

It's worth the struggle.

I don't claim the free market can solve the problem. I claim that, at least in my (European) country, the free market has avoided it. I live in a city of a few thousand, I have four ISPs offering me fiber service, I'm paying $30/month for 100mbps plus TV and free phone calls, and I have absolutely no evidence that any of ISPs is trying to slow down some traffic.

I'm not ideologically opposed to net neutrality regulations - I think they can be a useful tool after you fuck things up, like the US did.

What I dispute is the idea that suddenly everyone has that problem just because the US does. How about letting each country implement its own net neutrality laws if and when they're needed?

The free market would solve it. ISPs do not operate in a free market.

The problem is that the capital expenditures required to wire up houses creates natural monopolies; no government interference required. The free market will dysfunction in such a situation.

The capital expenditure required for downtown areas may not be that high, though. Government may extend the natural monopolies to rich, urban areas by requiring ISPs to wire up poor areas, thus increasing capital expenditure.

Government may make the natural monopoly worse (or better), but the problem is a natural part of the business.

I'm gonna drop a train on you. Unless you're seriously suggesting living in an anarchic society where might means right, there is no such thing as a "free market." There are only differing levels of regulation. At a very minimum you need some body to enforce contract law. More specifically to this issue, you have the problem of running lines to peoples' houses. With no regulation and no sharing of poles/lines, you'd have very high barriers to entry (read: monopolies, bad for consumers) and dozens or hundreds of poles and lines in every yard (bad for the environment and the people who live in it). So okay, you build a few lines and enforce the line owners to share the lines equally to create a "free market" in the service provider space. But now you've introduced regulation and destroyed the "free market" in the line and pole provider space.

Boy, this is complicated, isn't it? It's almost like "free market" isn't a magic incantation that fixes everything.

Hence my replying to the parent

" Each win we get against idiot corporations is a battle won, but the war rages on"

a) We don't "win". We just "don't lose". Yet. b) You are doing a great favor to them, thinking they are "idiots". The truth couldn't be further from the truth. They just have different goals than we have.

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