Do you have any idea how capitalism is supposed to work? It’s free and open competition between businesses. The more competitive it is, the better product and prices you get.
Getting rid of Net neutrality means only the rich well established companies have a chance to sell their products in this set up. New start ups will have a tough time competing. And you need the new start ups to keep the big well established companies on their toes. The loss of net neutrality means another move towards monopolies. In the past 20 ~30 years the US government has allowed so many mergers and acquisitions that there is hardly any competition remaining. For example, there were about 80 different companies big and small in the external hard dive business. Some went out of business, but most were gulped up by the three remaining big corporations; Seagate, Toshiba & Western Digital. They control about 99% of the market now. Aren’t you curious why these are the only three brands available when you go to a store? Before you tell me about another brand, please do a search and I am sure you will find they are still made by the above three. IBM for example, made by WD.
The legalized corruption in the US has made it less competitive as big business basically tell their bought politicians how to run the country. The US government has a rule to send out bids for work contracts, whether that is product or services. Guess who lands these contracts. The big conglomerates who paid off politicians. That is not true capitalism. To ensure capitalism, the government needs to be in charge. Not the other way around.
I am a capitalist, and I can tell you, the US is no longer how a capitalist society should work.
I should add that cable companies are very much monopolistic. There are very few places in the US where you have a choice which cable providers you can chose.
And now, you want to allow them to slow down traffic to various sites?
Not only that, it allows them to sell your browsing history indiscriminately, without your permission.
That seems unlikely. The “supply” side of the internet is rapidly consolidating into a handful of major providers. A hypothetical new video service is going to be hosted on Amazon or Google or Microsoft. It’s hard to see a future where those companies are pushed around by ISPs.
You are right about the consolidation. Again. US government allowing big companies to gobble up and dominate, but the internet being global, there are companies emerging out of other countries. And they are already reaching the US. Alibaba out of China, for example, are now bigger than Amazon.
Yeah, but that’s why Amazon will pay Comcast and AT&T to block connections from end users to Alibaba. And maybe Target and WalMart while they are at it.
But the point was that these giants aren’t going to be bullied by ISPs. It doesn’t matter if the host is Alibaba or Google or Amazon. They are many times the size of the biggest ISP and don’t need the government’s protection. If I start “treis’ wonderful world of videos” I am going to pick one of them to host my content and, therefore, won’t have any issue reaching consumers.
Can you cite any situation where something like this has happened? A radio or cable network, for example, being paid off to not run someone’s ads. Or a store being paid not to carry competitor’s products. Or Fedex, UPS, et al being paid not to deliver competitors packages.
The reality is that these are blatant violations of the Sherman Antitrust act and would be clearly illegal even without net neutrality.
That’s what I am arguing against. No internet start up is going to have a tough time competing due to access to end users. They will use one of the big boys to host their service and the big boys aren’t going to be bullied by ISPs.
I kind of doubt that. AT&T, Centurytel, Verizon, these are not mom&pop operations. On top of that, they will get to manage the switches. If a company wants to get through an ISP’s routers smoothly, they will have to pony up the vig. Even a small ISP will have noteworthy leverage on the router switches. I think you drastically underestimate the potential for destructive profit that internet “deregulation” opens up.
Even if they did have leverage, I don’t see that it’s the government’s place to step in and protect the richest companies in America. If an ISP manages to extract a vig from Amazon, well, all that means is Amazon digs in its couch cushions and pays it. AWS alone made three billion dollars last year.
You do realize that this amounts to saying “hey, I don’t see it that it’s the government’s place to step in and protect people from the Mafia. If Paulie “The Wrench” Stompanato manages to intimidate local businesses into giving them protection money, well, all that means is that they have to pay it”. Do you stand by this ?
The rules do not take “is your company making actual money ?” into account, and neither should they.
What happens to the companies that can’t afford protection money? They’re certainly more vulnerable than amazon is. Amazon will be fine, as will google, and the other giants. What about the next google or the next spotify or the next netflix that never makes it to the market because the ISPs didn’t allow people to access them?
Yeah, this is what happens at grocery stores now. Big food manufacturers pay large fees to ensure their products are placed in prime locations in the store. Smaller startups and such cannot pay such fees and end up with their items in non-prime locations in the store.
The problem is there is no meaningful competition that Amazon can turn to. Indeed, Amazon has nothing to do with the last mile of internet connection to their consumers.
Amazon’s consumers have one, maybe two choices for an internet connection. As a result there are no companies to offer a better deal. You get what your ISP gives you and that is the end of it.
In your example, the mafia is strong and the business owners are weak. And the mafia does illegal things. In the case of ISP vs Amazon it’s a business negotiation. Your analogy isn’t apt.
As I said before, those companies will use AWS or Google or Microsoft as their host.
Ok, but that is nothing like any of the situations I mentioned or the original claim you made:
Can you explain what this has to do with Net Neutrality?
I think the fact that you can’t see the similarities shows that you don’t really understand what Net Neutrality is or what ISPs will be able to do without it.