best analogy yet.
Perhaps. Or perhaps you aren’t aware of the things that happened that caused the FCC to move to the net neutrality approach. Unless you are under the impression that nothing whatever led to the FCC adopting the net neutrality rule?
Are you under that impression?
Not everyone is in agreement with you that there were not ‘lots of accidents’ before net neutrality rules were implemented. But more to the point, a rule can be made in the absence of current abuses to prevent foreseeable abuses later on.
There have been many cases of ISPs favoring or obstructing certain content:
I’m not sure I or anyone truly knows what will happen with the end of current net neutrality rules; I suspect that the truth is somewhere in between the propaganda of the big telcoms on one end and Silicon Valley on the other. At first I suspect that the Verizons and Comcasts of the world will act cautiously so as to make people feel that nothing has changed - and who knows they might even offer better value initially to convince us that the new normal isn’t that bad. But somewhere along the way, they’re gonna screw it up and cause a backlash that will either result in a flood of bad press and cancelled service or even criticism from their supporters in congress. I remember not long ago when Verizon pulled unlimited data plans and people went nuts. I suspect something similar will happen again in the future. People are used to the free internet.
I’m curious about this. Could I get a cite?
Are you thinking that a govt granted monopoly is any different? Or is your focus on the idea that some ISPs may not be monopolies at all?
So is this at all like only being allowed to view some tv channels?
The argument that we got along fine without the net neutrality law before we had it, and the law just makes for intrusive government and red tape that hurts the little guy so therefore we can repeal it, makes some sense to me, and is somewhat compelling.
On the other hand, I think it’s a good law that protects everybody. Why repeal it?
If sometime in the future murder is rare and not a problem, and someone comes up and says “Let’s repeal the law against murder. It’s clogging up the law books and nobody is murdering so it’s just a waste of time.”
I would be suspicious of their motives.
The only reason to go to the effort to repeal a law is if it is in the way of something you want to do.
Repealing this law will allow entities to do things that they want to do that they currently can’t.
With relation to blocking or charging for specific content this makes me really uncomfortable.
I hope I’m wrong.
So, no meaningful response?
I doubt it’s quite like cable in that regard - there are just too many websites for providers to pick and choose which ones are included and which ones aren’t. I suspect that what’ll probably happen is that, in addition to paying for Internet Domain names, websites will probably have to pay carriers annual (or monthly) fees to guarantee that their website gets through at a certain speed. The bigger websites will probably be able to pay it no problem; the smaller local websites might find that to be an unpleasant surprise though. So local businesses (restaurants, repair shops, etc) that advertise through Facebook and have their own websites and do any significant business online will now have to factor that into their business model. A lot of these small business owners are Trump lovers, so it’ll be poetic justice when they get a notice from Verizon or Comcast telling them what Making America Great Again means for their internet service and marketing efforts. Those who can’t pay…yes, they could get shut off, just like websites get shut off for not paying domain fees.
On the consumer end, there might be monthly caps on the amount of data that consumers can use. Go over that limit, and they might either find their net turned off or more likely, they’ll just pay for additional data and get a whopper of a bill the following month. Right now, home internet pretty much offers unlimited data; it’s just the speed that distinguishes one consumer from the next. But that could change. It could end up like wireless, where they pay for data plans. I suspect that there won’t be any major changes at first because they will want to see what pricing packages work and which ones don’t. But gradually, over time, we could see major changes. As I posted earlier, though, my guess is that Verizon or Comcast will do something dumb and show everyone why net neutrality was such a big deal.
Eventually, I suspect that some of the grievances that the telecoms have had, like consumers using the internet to cut the cord, will probably be addressed at some point. It could be that the end of net neutrality has a not so bad solution that forces Silicon Valley and Big Telcoms to work together and become less adversarial. I don’t entirely blame the Telcoms for wanting to protect their turf. It’s their infrastructure that’s being used by cock, aggressive San Francisco start-ups who believe that they’re disruptors and as such are entitled to do as they please. I just wish it wouldn’t come at the expense of the consumer.
Here’s a tidbit for you: THERE IS NO COMPETITIVE MARKET.
Many people only have a single provider. Most people have a duopoly, and in many of these situations one of the offerings is technically inferior to allow advanced services like streaming.
Saying that “the market will adjust” in this situation is ignorant.
Make no mistake, a big driving force in this is the realization by cable providers that the future of cable television, and by extension their revenue, is bleak. Therefore, they are looking to recoup these cost in other ways. The net neutrality rules had hindered their ability to create content packages for access to particular sites, which they would ultimately charge extra for. There will also be backroom deals between the ISPs and the content providers (Netflix, Facebook, Apple, Google, etc) to offer their services, and with that comes negotiation and, likely, lawsuits and interruption of service.
But the implications go much, much further. Let’s say you have an ISP that is owned by a Christian. Think Hobby Lobby. There is no guarantee in place that that service provider can’t block access to content that they deem “against their religion or family values”.
Same with political views, etc.
Putting rules in place that say the ISP must be agnostic to the data their users are accessing is important.
I expect there to be an apocalyptic battle between some of the Internet tech giants (Google, Facebook, Netflix, Apple, etc) and the ISPs in the coming years.
On a political level, this just kills the GOP with the younger generation. At my daughter’s school today, kids were live-streaming the FCC hearing… yes, 15yo’s were live streaming this… and when the ruling came down the boos were universal, loud, and spread throughout the school as the news was relayed.
One kid came to my wife and said “These idiots are messing with my phone! And I supported them!”
So… yeah, go ahead, piss off the kids by fucking with their phones. Good move, GOP.
It isn’t so compelling when you realize that the rules were put in place in response to growing abuses by ISPs in the years leading up to it:
The GOP will just say they support net neutrality, promise to reinstate it, but then conveniently forget about it or say there are more pressing issues at hand after they get their votes.
This seems unlikely, mobile phone providers of internet service generally offer plans for unlimited data, so I doubt that ISPs will introduce limited plans. And if they did offer something like a low cost, low use of data plan to consumers who might like such a thing, would it be so bad?
I will concede that if someone is predisposed to like the absence of regulations, they may obtain a fleeting moment of pleasure and feeling of righteousness due to the world moving a little bit in the direction that they would prefer.
But for people who disagree with that opinion, or have no opinion on that matter whatsoever, what is in it for us?
Will our costs go down? Will service improve? Will new technological breakthoughs occur that we cannot conceive of today? I still think I generally disagree with the doomsday scenarios that my ISP has just been chomping at the bit to rid itself of Netflix and instead offer its own streaming service consisting only of 1940s newsreels and “The Goonies 2: Electric Boogaloo.” But I’m at a loss to how to describe the expected benefit to me of eliminating net neutrality.
It’s looking pretty clear that Trumpism is masking a fundamental and presumably long-term shift away from the GOP by under 30s, hell maybe under 40s.
Everything the old white guys do alienates the young more.
It’s not surprise they want to shut down access to the very material likely informing the fundamental shift. A lot of that would be of international dimension.
Or, as I saw it put on Twitter earlier today:
Very suspicious indeed.
So you’re just saying “regulations = bad”, rather than actually proposing how this is going to result in a real world benefit to anyone but the ISPs.
I think we should get rid of regulations on water quality. I mean, regulations are bad. If everyone starts getting poisoned, then maybe we can revisit it then. Maybe not. Depends on who’s in power.
This is the big lie they’ve been feeding people. The idea that neutrality was some new takeover of the internet imposed by the Obama administration in 2015. That is simply false.
The internet has always been neutral. Since the creation of the commercial internet off the NSFNet backbone in the early 90s, the internet has required neutrality by bylaw or regulation. Neutrality is the norm. Not having neutrality is the radical new dangerous change.
What happened with neutrality is that the FCC had been enforcing it against various attempts to infringe against it over the last few years. They were taken to court by various ISPs. In one case, in 2014 (sorry, forgot the actual name of the case offhand), the court ruled that the FCC didn’t actually have the regulatory authority to enforce neutrality.
So then the FCC had two options: give up enforcing net neutrality, or re-classify ISPs as title 2 telecommunication services in order to clearly give themselves the power to enforce neutrality regulations over the ISPs. They took the latter.
This was a move to maintain the status quo, but the right wing lie machine has spun this as “Obama administration takeover of the internet! We’ve been fine without neutrality regulations all along, so why do we need them now? The internet is just fine!”
That’s the big lie, and not very many people are correcting it, which drives me mad. If people understood that we just wanted to keep the internet great as it always has been, rather than giving unprecedented control over to some of the worst companies in the world, they’d almost certainly be for neutrality.