web Why Net Neutrality Needs To Go

[Denim&Venöm 19,883]

Many exclaim that the attempts to repeal Net Neutrality are just attempts for ISP corporations to monopolize the internet. Big business controlling the lives of consumers.

But if anything is the result of corporate greed, it's the net neutrality bill. 

All it does is force the logistical burden of companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google onto the customers. The ISPs are offering an express lane for the astronomical amount of content those web companies provide, but that has to be maintained. 

Think of it like a toll road. A semi-truck has to pay more to use the road than a car does since the truck takes up more space and damages the road more often. So they'll need to pay more to maintain the road. NN pretty much says the trucks can pay as much as the cars and everyone driving a car now has to be the ones paying for the trucks. 

It's the government interfering in the free market, telling companies what to price or construction barriers for entry, instead of letting the market, consumer demand and competition sort things out.

It's similar to the state laws on big box retailers. Laws in the 1930s were established to keep a company like wallmart from low balling their competition, forcing them out of business, then jacking up the prices in a monopoly. All the big stores have to mark up their prices 6% over what they payed, so they can't lower prices and take losses. Sounds like a good idea at first, until you realize that now a barrier for entry has been made for newcomers. Say that does happen. Walmart takes out the competition and jacks their prices back up. What that does is offer an opritunity for a competitor to march on in, offer lower prices for their goods and sway the customers to their side, forcing walmart to make concessions. But since there's now a 6% mark up, only the big retailers can remain and competition is stifled. 

That's what's happening. NN is stifling competition. The government is telling the consumer what to want. It's socializing the internet. And in socialism only the big companies profit. You're afraid of big business taking control when NN is gone? Big business already is in control with Net Neutrality established. Amazon, Facebook, Google and others now get to maintain their iron grip and stifle their competitors, while tossing the burdens of their services onto the customer. 

The internet is not supposed to be free. The internet is not supposed to be fair. there are going to be winners and losers. But get rid of NN, and we, the consumer, will have a choice and our money will go towards a better internet, instead of maintaining a substandard one. 

Equality of status cannot be forced. Just like in Soviet Russia, everpony equal. Equally poor. 

So let the market settle itself out and let the consumer decide how the internet plays out.  Don't forget, Net Neutrality has only been in effect for 3 years. Were ISPs throttling content and hiking prices before that? 

Net Neutrality stays, the very future you fear will probably look like this:

Thing is, you can still fight for Net Neutrality, while being against the bill of the same name. 

 

In the end though, we can't be 100% sure what will happen. It can work out. It can be disastrous. But let's wait until something actually happens before we all over react and take up arms. this will be tied up in court for years, will be changed by the next administration, then changed again by the one after.

I doubt little, if anything will change for the internet user from how things were in 2014. 

 

[KrazyDashie 1,847]

though I wouldn't be surprised if we pay for internet and the internet stays the same, or even worse as it was before. in most cases, they don't really care of what consumers think of their product, and only the $$$ they get from them. where I live, we have a toll bridge that's brand new, and it still has many problems. during the winter ice builds up on the top and the massive ice chunks fall down and smash windshields below. if I remember correctly, its been 3 years since we had it, and two winters it was the same problem (winter is just starting so im not sure if it will happen again) even with tolls... and promises that it will be fixed, it hasn't been.

 

that's my opinion anyways

[DuskSong 742]

Quote

" Think of it like a toll road. A semi-truck has to pay more to use the road than a car does since the truck takes up more space and damages the road more often. So they'll need to pay more to maintain the road. NN pretty much says the trucks can pay as much as the cars and everyone driving a car now has to be the ones paying for the trucks."

This statement is a clear false equivalence fallacy and being that these two situations are inherently very different, you can't say that applying the same fix to both situations would work. And yes, ISPs have always had jacked up prices in the US, have throttled sites, have tried to extort money out of businesses before.

Here's a long ass list of violations of net neutrality before rules were put into place- showing that ISPs can and WILL try to force consumers to use their services. This so called "Free Market" you think will happen with the removal of government controlled NN will create a market controlled by gate keepers.

Spoiler

MADISON RIVER:  In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked the voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. Vonage filed a complaint with the FCC after receiving a slew of customer complaints. The FCC stepped in to sanction Madison River and prevent further blocking, but it lacks the authority to stop this kind of abuse today.

COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers.

TELUS: In 2005, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, Telus, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766 unrelated sites.

AT&T: From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such “over-the-top” voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009.

WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream’s own search portal and results.

MetroPCS: In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top-five U.S. wireless carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon’s court challenge against the FCC’s 2010 open internet ruling, hoping that rejection of the agency’s authority would allow the company to continue its anti-consumer practices.

PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that several small ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire would intercept a person’s search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to another page. By skipping over the search service’s results, the participating ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites. 

AT&T, SPRINT and VERIZON: From 2011–2013, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile-payment system that competed with a similar service called Isis, which all three companies had a stake in developing.

EUROPE: A 2012 report from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications found that violations of Net Neutrality affected at least one in five users in Europe. The report found that blocked or slowed connections to services like VOIP, peer-to-peer technologies, gaming applications and email were commonplace. 

VERIZON: In 2012, the FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using tethering applications on their phones. Verizon had asked Google to remove 11 free tethering applications from the Android marketplace. These applications allowed users to circumvent Verizon’s $20 tethering fee and turn their smartphones into Wi-Fi hot spots. By blocking those applications, Verizon violated a Net Neutrality pledge it made to the FCC as a condition of the 2008 airwaves auction.

AT&T: In 2012, AT&T announced that it would disable the FaceTime video-calling app on its customers’ iPhones unless they subscribed to a more expensive text-and-voice plan. AT&T had one goal in mind: separating customers from more of their money by blocking alternatives to AT&T’s own products. 

VERIZON: During oral arguments in Verizon v. FCC in 2013, judges asked whether the phone giant would favor some preferred services, content or sites over others if the court overruled the agency’s existing open internet rules. Verizon counsel Helgi Walker had this to say: “I’m authorized to state from my client today that but for these rules we would be exploring those types of arrangements.” Walker’s admission might have gone unnoticed had she not repeated it on at least five separate occasions during arguments.

Quote

 

"The internet is not supposed to be free. The internet is not supposed to be fair. there are going to be winners and losers. But get rid of NN, and we, the consumer, will have a choice and our money will go towards a better internet, instead of maintaining a substandard one. 

Equality of status cannot be forced. Just like in Soviet Russia, everpony equal. Equally poor. 

So let the market settle itself out and let the consumer decide how the internet plays out.  Don't forget, Net Neutrality has only been in effect for 3 years. Were ISPs throttling content and hiking prices before that?"

 

Why shouldn't the internet be free? With the last bit of this quote, you say to let the market settle itself out and let the consumer decide how the internet plays out, a clear contradiction of you saying the internet shouldn't be free. The thing is, when ISPs are unregulated and allowed to stomp on smaller business and control what services are favored, you have the opposite of this "free market" and big business will rule. Your claim of big businesses such as Google and Amazon having to take logistical burdens, but mind you- BOTH of them support net neutrality (also Facebook) so your argument there also falls. The idea of Title II protections and NN give the internet a utility classification, as any developed nation should do- it's almost required for all jobs these days. Having ISPs who have admitted to allowing monopolies (Staying out of eachother's cities and areas for building new infrastructure) with only 1 or 2 actual choices is why we need to uphold these protections. Strip them away and these ISPs will start charging more to access certain websites or services, and the highest bidders will win. That's the opposite of a free and open market.

 

So, to wrap it up- Google, Amazon, and Facebook all support NN, there is no logistical burden and no evidence provided to claim there is. Second, ISPs in America have created monopolies and before NN was put in place, there were lots of shady things done by ISPs that would violate these protections today. Your argument of Google, Amazon and Facebook being monopolies and trampling over smaller businesses is the only thing that could've had credibility- but you also provided no evidence that they have, and there are alternative places to shop, alternative media outlets and atlernative search engines, but they got to where they are by offering higher quality options compared to competitors. ISPs here don't- Comcast is one of the most hated companies in America, prices for internet are screwed up (1TB caps are very popular now, with $10 per 50 gigs over that cap), and they didn't get so big by being popular, no, it costs a lot of money to build networks and infrastructure, they were just the first to do so, and these big ISPs have agreed to stay out of eachother's way. Google, Amazon and Facebook got to where they are by being good services we all love. ISPs got to where they are by being the early bird and then screwing us over. You see start ups on the internet all the time finding success- but you never see new ISPs in America, because of backroom deals and the costs of laying new groundwork for internet. Until there's more choice with quality ISPs that won't act like the rest have- we need Title II and NN to keep the internet open for all. You never see stories of Google, Amazon, or Facebook trampling competition as stated earlier. But ISPs have monopolies, and that's why they tried to shut down Title II, so they could continue to act like monopolies and screw over the American people.

Edited December 3, 2017 by DuskSong

[Libra 11,691]

My complaint with net neutrality is that its a no win situation.

i mean, we can eliminate NN, sure. But i dont want my local Service Providers to start putting games and social media behind monthly paywalls. It would be like having EA but your provider.

If we do choose to protect NN, then that opens up a potiential problem, in which it ends up cutting out small businesses, since they cant compete with it.

however, ive also seen that any solution could potientiwlly lead to both of what i stated. So basically, i see net neutrality as a damned if you do, damned if you dont issue.

[Mirage 24,774]

@Denim&Venom Thank you for posting that. People need alternate perspectives to think about on this issue. The opposition to Net Neutrality feels way too sheepish for my liking, and like you have clearly shown, it has already caused tremendously dangerous monopolies and mega-corporations.

[Azure Envy 1,093]

32 minutes ago, Denim&Venom said:

The internet is not supposed to be free. The internet is not supposed to be fair. there are going to be winners and losers.

It's nice that we're able to have an open discussion about this on MLPF. That I don't have to pay for a social media package to even get here. That I can say what I want here without and oppressive government firewall blocking/monitoring every word I type.

The internet is supposed to be free, open and accessible to everyone. It's an opinion that I share with the inventor of the WWW:
https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equals-change-blog/posts/the-web-belongs-to-all-of-us-qa-with-the-web-s-inventor-sir-tim-berners-lee/

As he describes in the interview, the key barrier keeping people off-line is the cost. So we need to do something about that.. so maybe we need to think outside the box. Maybe this isn't the best or only answer, but there are people out there doing something about it. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/4/15539934/spacex-satellite-internet-launch-2019

Interesting article on arguments against it: https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/19/these-are-the-arguments-against-net-neutrality-and-why-theyre-wrong/

[Mirage 24,774]

2 minutes ago, Fennekin said:

My complaint with net neutrality is that its a no win situation.

i mean, we can eliminate NN, sure. But i dont want my local Service Providers to start putting games and social media behind monthly paywalls. It would be like having EA but your provider.

If we do choose to protect NN, then that opens up a potiential problem, in which it ends up cutting out small businesses, since they cant compete with it.

however, ive also seen that any solution could potientiwlly lead to both of what i stated. So basically, i see net neutrality as a damned if you do, damned if you dont issue.

With all due respect, many of these kinds of charges, fees, and blocking are all conjecture. Consider the investment potential an new ISP will have if they can provide a 'free and open' service to trounce the cable ISP's charging extra for certain web site access.

Remember that competition works in our favor - mandates and regulations work for 'them'.

[CypherHoof 26,483]

3 minutes ago, Fennekin said:

My complaint with net neutrality is that its a no win situation.

i mean, we can eliminate NN, sure. But i dont want my local Service Providers to start putting games and social media behind monthly paywalls. It would be like having EA but your provider.

If we do choose to protect NN, then that opens up a potiential problem, in which it ends up cutting out small businesses, since they cant compete with it.

Actually it's more the other way up - newcomers to the market can't afford to compete with the amazons, netflix etc of the world, because the big players can afford to pay the danegeld that the ISPs demand in order to be allowed to send data to you, that you are already paying to receive.

And that's the real crux of the issue - the ISPs are already charging you to send and receive traffic, they would also like to charge content providers to be allowed to be the ones you talk to. If they were planning on charging you less, then that would balance out - the increased charges from content providers would match the reduced prices of ISP access - but they don't. They plan to double-charge, and keep it.

But in the end, the providers will have no choice but to pass those extra charges on to you - so the prices of everything you access - online gaming, streaming sites, everything - will go up, and sites that currently do not charge at all will need to begin, or be cut out from the market by being shaped down to uselessness.

[Mirage 24,774]

3 minutes ago, Azure Envy said:

The internet is supposed to be free, open and accessible to everyone. It's an opinion that I share with the inventor of the WWW:
https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equals-change-blog/posts/the-web-belongs-to-all-of-us-qa-with-the-web-s-inventor-sir-tim-berners-lee/

Nothing is free. The 'internet' requires trillions of dollars of infrastructure and hundreds of thousands of career professionals to maintain. The money has to come from somewhere, and if you force only certain people to pay, like businesses, you're still paying for the internet, but using a rather unfair tactic do to so. 

[Azure Envy 1,093]

Just now, Mirage said:

Nothing is free. The 'internet' requires trillions of dollars of infrastructure and hundreds of thousands of career professionals to maintain. The money has to come from somewhere, and if you force only certain people to pay, like businesses, you're still paying for the internet, but using a rather unfair tactic do to so. 

Free as with no restriction, not necessarily for zero price.

[CypherHoof 26,483]

3 minutes ago, Mirage said:

With all due respect, many of these kinds of charges, fees, and blocking are all conjecture. Consider the investment potential an new ISP will have if they can provide a 'free and open' service to trounce the cable ISP's charging extra for certain web site access.

Remember that competition works in our favor - mandates and regulations work for 'them'.

No company spends the amount of money on lobbying for NN to be removed (and then removes the statement about being anti-fastlaning from their website, as charter did) if they don't see it as bringing them in more money in the long term.

the only place they can reasonably get that from is their own customer base - and if not directly (via their current deceptive billing practices) than by charging for the other side of the data flow too, knowing that that price will need to come from the people consuming the service, as those companies need to make a profit too.

[DuskSong 742]

10 minutes ago, Fennekin said:

My complaint with net neutrality is that its a no win situation.

i mean, we can eliminate NN, sure. But i dont want my local Service Providers to start putting games and social media behind monthly paywalls. It would be like having EA but your provider.

If we do choose to protect NN, then that opens up a potiential problem, in which it ends up cutting out small businesses, since they cant compete with it.

however, ive also seen that any solution could potientiwlly lead to both of what i stated. So basically, i see net neutrality as a damned if you do, damned if you dont issue.

Protecting NN is the protection of an open and free market online, and while I agree to some extent the power that big businesses such as Amazon, Google and Facebook have, startups still happen online and these businesses don't have a track record of attempting to stifle competition- unlike ISPs, so it's really not a "no win" situation, because if you repealed Title II protections, that wouldn't change, and would then create more problems than retaining the protections we currently have in place.

[Libra 11,691]

5 minutes ago, Mirage said:

With all due respect, many of these kinds of charges, fees, and blocking are all conjecture. Consider the investment potential an new ISP will have if they can provide a 'free and open' service to trounce the cable ISP's charging extra for certain web site access.

Remember that competition works in our favor - mandates and regulations work for 'them'.

Im okay with that. What im not okay is with the possibility of the "pay $5.99 to access youtube package!" However, ill just wait and see.

[DuskSong 742]

1 minute ago, CypherHoof said:

No company spends the amount of money on lobbying for NN to be removed (and then removes the statement about being anti-fastlaning from their website, as charter did) if they don't see it as bringing them in more money in the long term.

the only place they can reasonably get that from is their own customer base - and if not directly (via their current deceptive billing practices) than by charging for the other side of the data flow too, knowing that that price will need to come from the people consuming the service, as those companies need to make a profit too.

That's the problem- corporate greed. They spend that lobbying money because they see more money in the long term. And then yes, they want it from their customer base. They want to extort every penny. They already make a profit, and this argument is only promoting corporate greed.

[Mirage 24,774]

8 minutes ago, Azure Envy said:

Free as with no restriction, not necessarily for zero price.

Free and open access - yes. I completely believe in that. It shouldn't be any different than our highway system - which means, some places may need to charge a 'toll' for the magnificent content/speed they can provide...and it better be good of I'm going to pay 'extra'!

7 minutes ago, CypherHoof said:

No company spends the amount of money on lobbying for NN to be removed (and then removes the statement about being anti-fastlaning from their website, as charter did) if they don't see it as bringing them in more money in the long term.

the only place they can reasonably get that from is their own customer base - and if not directly (via their current deceptive billing practices) than by charging for the other side of the data flow too, knowing that that price will need to come from the people consuming the service, as those companies need to make a profit too.

Oh come on now Cypher - look at the media storm about this - there is fierce opposition to this! Remember that many telecom companies also own media outlets!

@Denim&Venom practically risked his life posting his views in opposition to the opposition.

7 minutes ago, Fennekin said:

Im okay with that. What im not okay is with the possibility of the "pay $5.99 to access youtube package!" However, ill just wait and see.

I wouldn't be okay with that either. I don't think anyone wants that - which is why I suspect all this is much ado about nothing...

[Celli 4,343]

@Denim&Venom Oh look, another post from you showing you don't understand it at all.

I'll quote myself here:

You wanna know my biggest issue with repealing net neutrality? Ajit is getting rid of all regulations. That means when these ISPs' exclusivity contracts expire, there's nothing stopping them from making new ones. The ISPs know this, and they will want to take advantage of it.

ISPs already have a monopoly. They have exclusivity deals in the areas they reside. Taking away regulations means they get to continue having a monopoly, stifling all competition.

@Denim&Venom

Edited December 3, 2017 by Celli

[CypherHoof 26,483]

5 minutes ago, Mirage said:

Free and open access - yes. I completely believe in that. It shouldn't be any different than our highway system - which means, some places may need to charge a 'toll' for the magnificent content/speed they can provide...and it better be good of I'm going to pay 'extra'!

Oh come on now Cypher - look at the media storm about this - there is fierce opposition to this! Remember that many telecom companies also own media outlets!

@Denim&Venom practically risked his life posting his views in opposition to the opposition.

There is heavy opposition to this - but there is also profit to be made.

Net Neutrality doesn't stop ISPs traffic shaping, imposing caps, or both - clearly, as they already do this. Nor does it stop them selling better bandwidth, higher caps, unlimited packages at a higher rate - because again, they still do this. It prevents them from traffic shaping video streaming (say) down to unacceptable speeds, then charging content providers - selectively - to be able to stream at the full speed you are paying for, so as to get paid twice for the same bandwidth.

It also stops them from selling a competing service (to, say, Netflix) and then turning around and breaking the competing service so that their own service is your only real option.

[Libra 11,691]

9 minutes ago, Mirage said:

Free and open access - yes. I completely believe in that. It shouldn't be any different than our highway system - which means, some places may need to charge a 'toll' for the magnificent content/speed they can provide...and it better be good of I'm going to pay 'extra'!

Oh come on now Cypher - look at the media storm about this - there is fierce opposition to this! Remember that many telecom companies also own media outlets!

@Denim&Venom practically risked his life posting his views in opposition to the opposition.

I wouldn't be okay with that either. I don't think anyone wants that - which is why I suspect all this is much ado about nothing...

I dont want the internet to become the gaming industry, where a majority of content is locked behind paywalls. 

[Mirage 24,774]

4 minutes ago, CypherHoof said:

There is heavy opposition to this - but there is also profit to be made.

Net Neutrality doesn't stop ISPs traffic shaping, imposing caps, or both - clearly, as they already do this. Nor does it stop them selling better bandwidth, higher caps, unlimited packages at a higher rate - because again, they still do this. It prevents them from traffic shaping video streaming (say) down to unacceptable speeds, then charging content providers - selectively - to be able to stream at the full speed you are paying for, so as to get paid twice for the same bandwidth.

It also stops them from selling a competing service (to, say, Netflix) and then turning around and breaking the competing service so that their own service is your only real option.

Profit is good - just ask the Peoples Republic of China.

The consumer is king in this industry. If ISPs start treating the internet like TV, all hell will break loose.

[DuskSong 742]

1 minute ago, CypherHoof said:

There is heavy opposition to this - but there is also profit to be made.

Net Neutrality doesn't stop ISPs traffic shaping, imposing caps, or both - clearly, as they already do this. Nor does it stop them selling better bandwidth, higher caps, unlimited packages at a higher rate - because again, they still do this. It prevents them from traffic shaping video streaming (say) down to unacceptable speeds, then charging content providers - selectively - to be able to stream at the full speed you are paying for, so as to get paid twice for the same bandwidth.

It also stops them from selling a competing service (to, say, Netflix) and then turning around and breaking the competing service so that their own service is your only real option.

Yes, the Title II and NN rules don't stop data caps- that was never it's purpose. It is to prevent slowing, paid prioritization and throttling. The thing that happened to Netflix was not "Selling", it's services were slowed down to extort money out of Netflix so the normal speeds would return. That's corporate greed and cheating the free and open market we strive for with Net Neutrality protections put into place since. Again, the first sentence of what you said is in favor of corporate greed- corporations don't need more money, they're already well off without getting even worse with their greed.

[Mirage 24,774]

1 minute ago, Fennekin said:

I dont want the internet to become the gaming industry, where a majority of content is locked behind paywalls. 

I totally agree with you.

[Libra 11,691]

Just now, Mirage said:

I totally agree with you.

However who knows? I could just be making something out of nothing.

and for that, and the sake of my sanity, im just going to end my input here.

[CypherHoof 26,483]

3 minutes ago, Mirage said:

Profit is good - just ask the Peoples Republic of China.

The consumer is king in this industry. If ISPs start treating the internet like TV, all hell will break loose.

Hasn't so far.

ISPs have managed to roll back the very definitions of high speed internet, so that what Americans are offered outside the major cities is the worst and most expensive in the west (mobile isn't much better either). competition in the US is a joke, so your choice is largely take it or leave it.

But essentially we are talking here the last mile to and from the internet, not the internet itself. The internet itself will still go on quite happily for the rest of the world; it is just the US customers who will have to pay twice for content the rest of the planet only pays once for.

Edited December 3, 2017 by CypherHoof

[Mirage 24,774]

Just now, Fennekin said:

However who knows? I could just be making something out of nothing.

and for that, and the sake of my sanity, im just going to end my input here.

It's okay man - it is a difficult issue. The sad part of all this are those that are trying to convince others it's simple.

[Libra 11,691]

9 minutes ago, Mirage said:

It's okay man - it is a difficult issue. The sad part of all this are those that are trying to convince others it's simple.

I iust dont get it, and i probably never will get it.