Worst case scenario for no net neutrality?

Great Debates
21

ISPs are utilities. At least that’s how they should be treated.

Just as a electric utility is only in the business of providing electricity, ISPs should only be in the business of offering bandwidth. What is there was no “electric neutrality”? What if electric utilities got to decide what kind of electricity they provide to different customers? What if they made different tiers?

With the basic tier you get electricity that randomly varies between 20 - 400 volts. But if you upgrade now for only $99.99 (plus fees) you can get the generous new random 40 - 160 volt plan! Or, for those who demand only the best, the new UlimateElectric plan offers pure 120 volt AC current to your family’s home 24 hours a day for as little as $299.99 a month! (Plus fees. Prices may be higher in some localities).

22

Why is there no worst case scenario in which ISPs shut off access to all households that don’t agree to the terms of service that include jus primae noctis?

23

Google didn’t fail in any meaningful sense of the word fail. The pause in Google Fiber deployments is because the future of internet delivery is wireless, not because they failed.

Amazon wouldn’t have to expand to rural areas. They just have to take enough market share to make charging for Amazon not worth it to the ISPs.

24

I think a worst case scenario would have some elements of what people have mentioned. Maybe something like this: One Frightening Chart Shows What You Might Pay For Internet Once Net Neutrality Is Gone. I’m not comfortable with the merging of last mile ISPs and content sources (e.g. the Comcast / MSNBC style thing).

In general I’m of the opinion that open markets can do an excellent job of driving down prices and improving services, but require a transparency and simplicity to do that job well in the consumer sphere. So I’d prefer ISPs to be dumb pipes, who have to compete only on reliability, speed, price, etc. rather than complex content bundling “deals”. Also, the internet as-is is an incredibly level playing field for companies to fight and live or die by the services they provide, much to everyone’s benefit. I think this has been a pretty huge productivity and quality of life gain.

I’m deeply uncomfortable about anything that threatens that, and allows a stodgy old cable company to be the gatekeeper. For a variety of reasons, regulatory, physical constraints, capital costs of starting a new ISP, etc., I do not believe they’ve faced the intense competition and low barriers to entry that make life so difficult (in a good way for the rest of us!) for internet companies at large.

Fortunately, I’m actually a lot more optimistic right now about this worst case scenario not coming to fruition. There seem to be a lot of interesting things going on in the wireless world, and we may be close now to having extremely fast residential internet over cellular style networks. I think that, and the outrage and consequent risk of a too-strong-to-resist push back to dumb-pipes-through-regulation model may be enough to keep us on the right consumer friendly path.

25

I figured the OP was looking for realistic worst-case scenarios. Scenarios where the ISPs cut their own throat seem implausible to me. But, if you’re looking for a really worst-case scenario, I guess the absence of net neutrality causes Google to work on ways around the throttling net neutrality. They make their network software smarter and smarter until it becomes self-aware and decides to eliminate the threat of throttling by destroying humanity. It takes milliseconds for it to hack into US and Russian nuclear networks and then launches all the nukes.

Eventually, a leader emerges named John Connor…

26

Look, I believe in capitalism and that market mechanisms are typically the best way to get the best product most efficiently. But, there are markets that have very high natural barriers to entry. ISPs have to have some sort of regulation on them. Net neutrality seems to be the simplest and most transparent – they provide the pipes and the consumer chooses the content. They can do content-agnostic load leveling when necessary. They can charge more for higher speed access in general or for more uptime, but not based on content.

Barring net neutrality, a good second method may be to require them to lease out the pipes at cost. Phone companies were required to do that and there was real competition in the long-distance market for a while.

Wireless internet is not ready for prime time yet. So, between now and the real availability of wireless internet, net neutrality seems like an easy interim solution. It’s how the internet has worked from its development until now, with some bumps along the way with some ISPs throttling content such as Netflix.

The US is out of the top ten for most measures of internet access (average speed, top speed, high speed access). So, the absence of NN rules until a couple of years ago didn’t lead to all the innovation and expansion that Ajit Pai is predicting. However, the existence of de facto NN did lead to Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, Hulu, and so on.

27

Anyway suppose the throttling was not of the Amazons and Googles, but of small players without the resources to bribe or fight back ?

28

I am a customer paing for 45Mb comcast service.

I use it how I see fit, if lots of us choose to use netflix, we are using what WE paid for. Netflix should not be hit for that. Netflix paid for the massive outbound services that they need to deliver content, ISP’s are making money both ways, WTF are they complaining about.

29

Why do I have the feeling that without net neutrality that it will result in ad popups on your computer if you want the ISP services.

30

The tech industry is littered with barely competitive markets with high barriers of entry. Intel or AMD. NVidia or AMD. Windows or OSX. iPhone or Android. Google Search or a handful of minor players. Online ads: Facebook or Google. Uber or Lyft. Who does Youtube really compete with? Why is it that ISPs have to have some sort of regulation beyond what these other markets have?

I don’t get this immense focus on net neutrality. We have already seen content based filtering. Youtube, for example, changed their revenue formula based on advertiser’s complaints cutting some channels revenue drastically. Google cut Fark off from ad revenue for five weeks based on a comment. Facebook filtered their trending news stories.

31

Raise your hands, everyone that has internet service bundled with their cable/satellite service. Let’s pick on Comcast. They might be your ISP. They own NBC and Telemundo, as well as a bunch of actual stations. NBC news, CNBC, MSNBC, The Weather Channel, Bravo, E!, USA Network, Chiller, Syfy, NBC sports, Golf Channel, MLB Network (partial ownership), NHL Network (partial ownership), and a ton of other stuff.

So Comcast decides to drive people back to cable TV, and away from Netflix/Hulu/Amazon prime. They throttle those, just enough to make the buffering annoying. They slow down the loading of stories from CNN or HuffPo, or BBC, giving the NBC family of news sources an advantage.

And that doesn’t include any additional charges. How about a statement like “Streaming music services and on-line games use an excessive amount of the available bandwidth. In order to allow us to increase the capability of our network to handle these additional demands, we will be adding a $5 per month fee, to allow access to these services.”

32

If you study how Youtube handles revenue, ignores copyright infringers, punishes those NOT violating copyright and so on you would not use them as an example of how to run a business.

33

[Bolding mine]

YouTube is not an ISP. Google is not an ISP. Facebook is not an ISP.

ISPs are utilities. THAT is why they are fundamentally different From Windows, OSX, Uber, Lyft and YouTube. They utilize an infrastructure that is not practical to duplicate. Like electricity distribution lines and municipal water mains.

34

I agree that there are barriers to entry in many industries, and not just tech ones. Do I have to respond to every one of your examples, or can I pick an easy one? When Uber’s CEO was on a Trump panel, the outrage was so high that they had to come up with an easier way to cancel your Uber account. People were switching to Lyft in droves. It turned out that many Uber drivers are also Lyft drivers, so Uber’s dominance is not much of a barrier at all. Another e-taxi service could do the same thing if Uber and Lyft started to, say, double their prices or skip certain cities. YouTube competes with Vimeo and others. It’s not a very fair competition, but if YouTube started become draconian in their policies or started charging for uploads or viewing, you can be sure people would switch. If my ISP started becoming unreasonable (pricing, services, whatever) and I only had one, my choice is internet or no internet.

35

Ok, I’m more awake and have more time for a reply. However, I’m writing this on my phone on a crowded train, so please excuse typos, missed words, etc. Hopefully, what I’m trying to say will be clear from context.

First, you engaged in some form of fallacy. Listing other firms that haven’t been subject to regulations is not necessarily an argument that this firm shouldn’t be either. Also, most ISPs aren’t tech companies. They are are telecommunications companies, or in Comcast:s case, also media companies. Fallacy aside, I will try and address your statements, even though they weren’t arguments. Telecoms and media companies have been subject to all kinds of regulations. AT&T was broken up, media companies have content restrictions, etc. But, tech companies have also been subject to regulations as well. Microsoft had to separate their browser from their operating system. IBM faced antitrust regulations, as has Google.

Second, it’s not right that you get to list a series of company names without describing why they are relevant to this conversation. However, I’ll try and address those as well. I assume you agree that ISPs have monopoly power, since you seem to imply that these tech companies have similar power.

The idea that Intel and AMD are not in competition is ludicrous. They have completely substituteable products and face stiff competition from ARM.

Nvidia and AMD similarly face competition from Intel and their on board GPUs.

Windows was actually sanctioned for being a monopoly, so I guess you’re agreeing with net neutrality rules in that case.

IPhone and Android is less interesting because Android has tens of companies competing with each other, so within Android space, there’s tons of competition.

I know almost nothing about online ads, but Google must have some competition, since this very board uses some crappy competitor. Adults sites must also do the same.

Facebook itself overthrew MySpace, which would have seemed dominant at the time.

Uber and Lyft of course compete with each other, and with taxi companies, car service, public transportation, and personal transportation. And, as I mentioned, the barriers to entry there is not high, as Uber found out.

YouTube competes with other video sites like Vimeo, but also with content producers and other general sites. News sites already host their own video content, as does NBC, Hulu, HBO, Netflix, Facebook, Vevo. If Google shuttered it, generic video could go to Vimeo and Facebook, music to Vevo, news to the news organizations, video clips to the content creators, cat videos to Facebook and Instagram, etc.

Almost a third of Americans only have one ISP.

Ok, I’m at Hoboken. Gotta go.

36

“Never” seems a strong word :slight_smile:

37

Comcast has its own streaming service. Why wouldn’t they try to force you to buy movies and shows from them instead of Netflix? Seems like smart move by Comcast.

38

Yeah! You know, like back when Google tried the same thing, had moderate successes in the places that are extremely condusive to a successful ISP business (i.e. not rural areas), and backed off because it was too expensive and they didn’t have access to the same advantages existing ISPs did.

I think we had this discussion before. The idea that a tech company would just up and start an ISP is not plausible. That’s the whole reason why ISPs are different! The startup costs are immense, and you need need need cooperation from the local government in order to make it happen. It’s less like “I’m going to make a competitor to Apple” and more like “I’m going to make a competitor to the London Sewer System”.

Google couldn’t do it. It’s not plausible to believe that others could.

Because making a competitor to youtube requires:

  • an ISP that will host me
  • Coding expertise and time
  • An advertising budget

I could make BudgetVideo if I wanted to. It wouldn’t be particularly difficult, although making it a viable competitor with Youtube would be difficult due to how well-established Youtube is - just ask DailyMotion or Vimeo how that’s going. On the other hand, Facebook straight-up murdered MySpace, so it’s not impossible. These web services are not the substrate they are built on. They are replaceable. ISPs are the substrate.

Making a real, viable competitor to Compcast requires:

  • 140 Billion Dollars
  • The help of local governments to be allowed to use existing infrastructure and/or dig up/build your own
  • An advertising budget

It’s the difference between building a competitor to the local swimming pool and building a competitor to the local plumbing, including entirely new pipes going under everyone’s house. And please note that the ISP playing ball is the condition for the competitor to youtube existing in the first place. These ISPs can, without net neutrality, effectively make it so that websites do not exist for the customers of that ISP.

Again, we’ve been over this.

Because if you don’t like the local swimming pool, you can go to the swimming pool across town. If you don’t like the local plumbing, well, ask the residents of Flint, Michigan how that turned out for them.

39

This is probably the best example. Why didn’t a competitor run all new pipes to all the houses in Flint and have people switch water companies? Same for a new ISP. It’s all pipes.

40

The internet devolves into television that lets you order advertised items from your sofa.

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