You should care, because my comment was in response to another comment.
The comment I was responding to said: “…the Government protects your right to freely choose and freedom of speech from corporations, by telling corporations not to regulate the internet.”
Now, Twitter is a corporation, and its content is distributed via the Internet.
I agree that Twitter is itself not The Internet, nor is it an ISP. But it is a service that has great influence and reach and uses the Internet as the method to reach its readers, as well as the method by which it gains content from its contributers.
For these reasons, my observation in reply to “…the Government protects your right to freely choose and freedom of speech from corporations, by telling corporations not to regulate the internet,” was relevant.
The Preamble states the purposes and the spirit of the Constitution, things that are also interspersed in the following text and amendments. It’s supposed to have meaning or it wouldn’t be there. You can point and laugh “It’s not legally binding! Ha ha!” if you want, but that doesn’t make your position right - it just points out how misguided it is.
What an outstanding misunderstanding and misrepresentation of what net neutrality actually is and means. In your inept hypothetical, net neutrality wouldn’t mean “treating every ingredient alike”; it would mean that a customer who asked for a thing would receive that thing, without delay or discrimination. Panera wouldn’t reroute you to Pepsi when you asked for lemonade. Panera wouldn’t sell scones to people around you and not sell to you because you didn’t pay a premium for scone access. Panera wouldn’t leave you sitting there with a load of other angry customers waiting for macaroni salad because their macaroni salad supplier didn’t pay Panera enough to supply the macaroni salad that week.
The analogy is terrible, so I’m ending it there.
A libertarian rag, eh? Libertarians always think less regulation is good. “The magical market will make everything work out!” No, it won’t, especially in an area like internet access where the regulations protect how companies are permitted to utilize a public good. The internet is ours. We made it. The Department of Defense started ARPANet to facilitate military communication. It was made with taxpayer dollars. It’s necessary, as things are at the moment, that private companies control access; however, it’s also reasonable for the people to demand that they do so reasonably and responsibly, by not discriminating against content, source, or destination.
Is that what you think net neutrality is about? ISPs already offer a wide range of plans with varying speeds and data caps. That is not the issue. That’s not in the same neighborhood as the issue.
Funny you should bring that up. Sure, fares are down, along the heavy routes. On the smaller routes, not so much. The number of competitors grew at first; then, most of them went out of business or were bought by the big airlines, including some major players like Eastern, TWA, Braniff, and Pan Am. Today, thanks to the deregulation, there are what, four major airlines to choose from? And one stated goal of the deregulation was to “open up competition”.
I predict that the effects of losing net neutrality will be subtle for a long time. For example, ISPs will charge the banks an extra half-penny for credit card transactions, just because they can selectively discriminate against the traffic now, and they’ll justify it by saying it’s because of the high volume. The banks will pass the increases on to the merchants, who will pass it on again to the consumer. The prices of consumer goods will subtly but steadily increase, as the ISPs shift more of our dollars into their pockets through a few intermediaries.
That’s the danger of losing net neutrality. Small evils that happen in the shadows, that are felt everywhere.
No, it is not at all relevant. The topic that you started was on the matter of net neutrality. Twitter plays absolutely no part in that issue. It does not even qualify for a “… but, but …”
Most of this is either not factual, or not relevant. The internet may or may not be a public good - it’s certainly debatable. The internet is not “ours” in any sense of recognizable ownership. “we” made it may be true, but it’s irrelevant. The DoD started ARPANet, but that’s also irrelevant. Taxpayer dollars were used, also irrelevant.
ISPs own their own lines, the equipment that processes traffic, etc. They should be able to control how the things they are owned are used via contractual agreements with their customers. This is true even if what they want to do doesn’t result in the most benefit for the most people, or doesn’t have widespread positive impacts. The argument against NN needs to overcome this hurdle. The idea that the internet is somehow owned by the public or that it’s a right because the UN said so may be emotionally satisfying but they don’t address the opposition to NN.
As a principled matter, if there’s a duopoly in some important good or service, do you think that the government has no more interest in regulating that service, as compared to an industry that has strong competition?
Maybe you can provide an answer to several similar posts: “Can explain why you think it’s potentially a good thing?” without using “less regulations are better” as a reason.
Yes, in the case of duopoly or other less functioning markets. I am in favor of NN - and I tried to lay out that position in post #205 and #269.
But since I am sympathetic to the anti-NN stance, and since the anti-NN side hasn’t laid out the arguments as strongly as possible, my point was an attempt to focus on the substantive issues of disagreement. Thus far there has been scant offerings of substance, IMO. Lines of argument that NN is for the greater good, or the internet should be owned by everyone, or internet access is a universal right are especially poor. Just as, why repealing NN would be better for the consumer is also poor.
For opponents of NN, the critical question in my mind is whether government regulation in areas of monopoly or a non-functioning market is appropriate. It’s a direct question that has been unaddressed in lieu of other distractions.