One Supreme Court ruling from 1905 is not particularly compelling.
I have yet to see an adequate response from Bricker, D’Anconia, ITR Champion, et al. to what I think the fundamental argument is.
We have evidence that, before the 2015 Title 2 regulations were put in place, that broadband providers did interfere with internet services that competed with their own content or services–that’s why the regulations were promulgated in the first place. Most of the large ISPs are also content providers and have incentives to discriminate against competitors, not for broadband service, but content.
I have nothing against free markets, in principle, but there is no free market in broadband service in most places in the US. Panera has no incentive to screw around with sandwich production, because there are a thousand other sandwich shops ready to do it properly, and I can go to one of them instead. But I can’t do that with ISPs, nor can most other Americans.
If you think NN stifles the market in some way, explains to me which market it stifles. I’d be happy to get rid of it if I had 5 or 6 equivalent choices for broadband, at least some of which are not vertically integrated monopolies or near-monopolies. Force Comcast to lease out its cable to other ISPs (like the Baby Bells in the old days of land line long distance), and I’m right there with you. Explain why we shouldn’t regulate these providers in some way so as to blunt their monopoly power. Ajit Pai didn’t do it, and no one here seems to have done it.
Besides the problem of vertically-integrated ISPs discriminating against internet content and services that compete with the ones they own, there is the problem of the large content and service providers that can pay for access to the ISP’s customers being able to entrench their own market power because competing startups can’t pay the toll. Again, which “free” markets are helped or hurt by the presence or absence of NN?
Why not? Is there a more recent ruling that overturns it?
Cite that SCOTUS decisions have an expiration date.
Expanding a bit - I did a bit of wandering around on the web, with the search term “broadband market share in USA”.
The top 5 broadband providers account for 91% of the market share. The top two* have 81%! This was as of the third quarter of 2017. How is there any possibility of market forces affecting the broadband market in any way, shape, or form in this situation?
I’d really like to see Bricker and D’anconia address these points.
*Comcast and Charter, if you’re interested.
Foo. Too late to edit. I searched for Internet Service Provider market share in the USA, not broadband.
While I’m here, I’ll note that the majority of Americans polled do not want net neutrality revoked. Example here - note that it is a PDF.
And, I would bet, they actually have a larger market share in the geographic areas they serve. Cable companies are legacy local monopolies in most places–that’s how they were incentivized to lay cable in the first place, in exchange for a certain amount of local regulation (and Cable Access Channels, of course).
NY Senator Chuck Schumer Has a Plan to Keep Net Neutrality in Place
The article also says
By the way, somebody in this thread posted a link to a map of ISPs available at given addresses, and I’m blessed if I can find it again. Could someone lend a hand?
Bo, I’ve seen that. I think it’s worth a shot, along with the many suits that are going to be brought by seventeen or so state Attorneys General.
Between the two, if I were running Comcast, I’d stand pat for now. On the other hand, forward planning over short-term profit doesn’t seem to be a virtue in the corporate world anymore.
This decision is best used before 1978.
So the business of communicating data across state and international boundaries would not ordinarily be considered interstate commerce, if not for rotten liberals ruining things for pig farmers everywhere?
That’s what you’re going with?
Not growing wheat affects interstate commerce? That’s why you’re going with?
The nearest I can tell from the anti-NN posters here, there is no adequate response, or they devolve to “regulations are bad” or they think that the interference that led to NN in the first place is not compelling enough, or they just ignore it.
ISPs are indeed not growing wheat.
And you’re saying… what? That businesses that don’t grow wheat cannot be engaged in interstate commerce?
This conversation sounds like a retarded mix of Monopoly and Settlers of Catan.
I said enough with the personal cracks. You should learn to listen.
Warning issued. Don’t do it again.
What I see is this: at present, major ISPs get their revenue from their subscribers. They perceive that there is an additional source of potential revenue from the back-end, the services that their subscribers are using. Net neutrality prevents them from tapping into that back-end revenue source – essentially, charging the web sites out there for access to their network.
Once they have the leverage to do that, they will. And it will not matter whether or not there is competition; everyone will have to do it, in order to keep their footing. Most of us will not observe this change, because it will be basically out of view. Some sites will have to shut down because the vig is too much, while others will stay afloat by increasing their advertising/clickbait load, probably to the point where ads become more intrusive, more difficult to avoid and content will shrink relative to them. That page you used to be able to read by scrolling will become one that has a half-dozen “next”/“back” buttons, in order to maximize your ad exposure.
The ethical/ideological question you face is whether it is acceptable to block someone’s access to a potential revenue stream. Bearing in mind that the increase in revenue will make the major ISPs even more powerful, because money is power in America’s political system.
More powerful major ISPs will cull whatever competition there currently is in that particular marketplace, will reduce the ranks of available services on the internet (somewhat, at least), and, by making nearly all of the content ad driven, will constrain what is in the content (cf. commercial media, which must tread carefully around stories that might be bad for their advertisers).
The question is, do the ISPs “deserve” to be able to pull in this additional revenue? Do the subscribers “deserve” to have access to a wide-open, wild network that has not been sanitized by market forces? There you have a salient argument in favor of NN. You decide whether it may have any merit.
No. It was participation in the thread. Now, drop it or continue it as you please, but the fact remains that I answered a point made in a post, the answer hurt the views you wish to advance, and so you tried desperately to rule the answer out of bounds.
“Less regulation is better,” is the reason. Why am I not allowed to use that as a reason?
Of course I cannot speak for D’Aconia, but I pointed out that the preamble was not a source of federal power. I didn’t suggest that no court decision had ever mentioned its words.
Jacobson upheld the state power of plenary legislative authority, if I recall correctly (on mobile now) when Massachusetts sought to fine people who didn’t get inoculated. No federal power was in play. And of course Massachusetts doesn’t gain any legislative power from the federal preamble.
I don’t recall hearing of this Ellis case and will look it up this morning. But I will offer a confident prediction now: it won’t be about the exercise of a federal power grounded in the Preamble, either, because I am confident that you don’t know what you’re reading, and simply did a search for the preamble’s words in court opinions, thinking that this might mean something.
Always willing to learn, though, so perhaps I will discover a hidden Supreme Court case that vests federal power based on the Preamble.
Then, a kosher pig will learn calculus.
But Bricker, this is surely an academic argument because I’m certain you agree that the commerce clause is the perfect authority for Congress to regulate ISPs if it wishes to.