A total United States nightmare where major ISPs charge for every website you visit no matter the size or traffic, serve as untouchable de facto censors for any information or opinion their board doesn’t like, and driving small and large internet based companies out of business before turning their eyes on any company at all with an online presence and charging them for wanting eyeballs?
A utopia of innovation and expansion previously held back by Obama rules that over a decade of previous internet existence showed were unnecessary, where those people who monopolize entire networks for their terabytes of streaming video games and porn finally have to be held accountable?
The former. Unless you have a major stack in a large telecomm, there’s nothing in the change that’s going to be beneficial to you; it just means that the one or (if you’re lucky) two ISPs in your area can now control where you go on the Internet and how much you pay for it. What’s possibly worse is that the changes are going through despite the fact the public is largely against them and has been vocal about it; they screw over everyone but a few universally despised companies; and there are plenty of rich, powerful companies like Google and Amazon lobbying against them. In other words, it’s simply a huge hand-out to certain companies at the public’s expense, and your opinion doesn’t matter to them in the slightest.
There’s a reason the ISPs themselves shouldn’t want this: As common carriers, they can’t be held liable for the things that people use them for. Their only job right now is to carry data packets from point A to point B. They aren’t responsible for checking those data packets to make sure they’re not kiddie porn, spam, solicitations for hitman services, or personal communications suborning perjury. They’re home free on responsibility for all that.
If they AREN’T common carriers, as the removal of net neutrality will do, then they’re responsible and liable for all of that and more. ANY illegal thing that moves through the series of pipes they own can be held against them in court.
It’s infinitely simpler to just be a common carrier in this case. Which makes me wonder who, exactly, this HELPS.
The ISPs opposition to net neutrality isn’t about censoring data or picking internet company winners and losers. They don’t really care about that. This is all about getting access to sweet sweet user data. As common carriers, they can only use that data to provide the service. If they aren’t common carriers, they can start tracking what sites you visit and sell that to advertisers.
I mean, I would sorta understand if this was a matter of major corporations vs. the public interest. But even big corporations really hate this. This is pure anti-government hysteria.
Anybody up on the state of the art of wifi mesh networks? Wasn’t Google doing something with that? Could ISPs end up driving the adoption of technology that leapfrogs their vast jumbles of wires?
But with the Republican-majority FCC likely to vote on December 14 in favor of rolling back the order, what might the American internet look like without net neutrality? Just look at Portugal.
The country’s wireless carrier Meo offers a package that’s very different from those available in the US. Users pay for traditional “data” — and on top of that, they pay for additional packages based on the kind of data and apps they want to use.
Really into messaging? Then pay €4.99 ($5.86 or £4.43) a month and get more data for apps like WhatsApp, Skype, and FaceTime. Prefer social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Messenger, and so on? That’ll be another €4.99 a month.
…So, basically, that thing that net neutrality opponents were quite convinced would not happen is totally happening.
It will take us back to the dark days of 2014, it was practically Ragnarok, all of us who lived through it are suffering from PTSD.
Nothing will probably happen at first but then folks who play alot of online games or watch alot of streaming movies will pay slightly more and get better speeds while those of us who just surf the internet will pay slightly less and get the same speeds we always have. Eventually the new investments that this attracts will make everything faster for everybody.
What surprises me about this is that we haven’t heard anything from banks, who I suspect will be among the earliest targets.
ISPs will go after the biggest targets first. That means bank transactions. With no rules in place, ISPs are free to charge, say, Wells Fargo and Visa an extra penny for every card scan and verification during a point-of-sale purchase. Millions of transactions a day. And you know that the banks aren’t going to take it in the shorts; they’re going to pass the cost along to Joe Consumer. This is where we’re going to feel it first.
Why, what incentives would an ISP have to censor content its customer’s are allowed to see?
The most likely outcome is the cable model where you pay one fee for basic and if you want premium channels you pay extra for those. If it were illegal to charge extra for premium channels there would be no HBO and no Game of Thrones. Is that a future you want to live in?
I’m not particularly concerned about the end of net neutrality. I suspect for most people things will continue on before, largely because aside from following the governments rules, companies have a vested interests in not pissing off their customers, and most of the fear-mongering I’ve heard about net neutrality sounds like things that are going to piss off their customers, so they probably won’t do that. Am I wrong?
How easy would this be for a future president to reverse? Let’s say Trump loses in 2020. Could the president at that time just fire Ajit Pai and install someone else at the FCC that would return us to the way things are currently?
Help me understand something: If your middle paragraph is correct, why weren’t ISPs getting sued to hell and back prior to the Open Internet rules? It’s only been in place since 2015, right? Why weren’t they getting sued / prosecuted for distributing kiddie porn in 2014?
