Except that those companies got started in an environment that was already net neutral. The various ISPs only started dipping their toes into getting away from that model in the last couple of years.
There is a net-neutrality-compliant way to make the additional-networking cost of Netflix be borne by Netflix customers – Have the ISP charge by the gigabyte. Netflix users will use more bandwidth, and pay for more of the infrastructure. So long as the cost is for “using bandwidth” instead of “watching Netflix” there’s nothing non-neutral about it.
If that kind of pricing scheme was in place, the ISPs would be cheering for Netflix for encouraging users to consume more bandwidth. It’s only because ISPs are resistant to that pricing scheme that Net Neutrality is an issue.
I hope, for US’s sake, that you’re rigth and I’m wrong.
They got started not in a neutral net, simply the net.
A regulator always means lobbies. If I’m Johnny NEtflix my first point of business is to make sure the FCC find WebMovieFree in violation of something a stop them from getting on.
Well, if it makes you feel any better, the companies lobbying against net neutrality were some of the least favorite companies out there (Verizon and Comcast), whereas those lobbying for it were much more popular (Google, Netflix). Bizarrely, Google and Netflix would probably benefit from a non-neutral internet, since they can afford to pay up for access, and it would keep out any up-and-comers. So, it’s possible there intentions were (at least somewhat) pure.
How do we know that this is inevitable? Why hasn’t it happened yet?
I’m undecided on net neutrality, and I’m unconvinced that the nightmare scenario that many people have suggested will really play out, or that we aren’t limiting future technology more than necessary.
The net neutrality prevents “fast lanes”, ie, paid prioritization of data. All bits must be treated the same. That seems like a really dumb idea to me, since all bits are not the same. I’d love to be able to have an internet plan where I can pay extra for some data to have higher priority. On a Skype call, I want high priority. It’s got real time requirements and if the bandwidth and responsiveness isn’t there, it’s no good. My nightly backup, eh, that can go slow. It’s got all night to complete.
I’m also not convinced that if some ISP wants to offer a limited selection of internet services, that we need regulation against that. I know plenty of people who would be happy paying less for internet service that only included Facebook and Youtube and Netflix. Because that’s all they use. Would that make it harder for new websites to compete with those. Yeah, it would.
But it’s hard for new e-commerce sites to compete with Amazon, given their vast network, logistics, and free shipping. Do we need laws saying that Amazon can’t offer free shipping? (France seems to think so).
ISPs are a natural monopoly (it doesn’t make sense to run multiple cables to every house, just like it doesn’t make sense to run multple water or sewer lines to every house so that different companies can compete), so I do agree that they should be regulated. But I’m not convinced that this regulation is necessary or prudent.
Whenever you think: “there’s no way that a reasonable person could possibly support” some position, you should probably think about it more.
It already happened. Comcast sealed its fate by giving us a glimpse of what “pay-for-priority” means going forward. The public, and the FCC, saw the dangers and acted appropriately.
I see this
as a FAR graver concern than this
Net neutrality can be undone should it prove an unnecessary stifling force to innovation. Once ISP’s have signed contracts with every major website and content provider, the game is over and there’s no going back.
Yes, but the problem is that we won’t necessarily know what we’re missing out on. Most innovation is not obvious before someone comes up with it. It’s easy to see what known evils a policy will prevent, and incredibly difficult to figure out what unknown goods it might also prevent.
Why? If we can change the rules about networks to undo net neutrality later, then we can change them to establish it, too.
Seriously, if this is so inevitable, why hasn’t it happened yet? I don’t think that ISPs or Cable companies have any virtue at all. Why haven’t they taken advantage of this if they could have?
It has happened:
I have no problem with regulations that say that you can’t throttle a particular service to customers who are paying for generic internet. I believe that that would be sufficient to solve the problem there (and I agree that it’s a problem). But it’s a problem because Verizon is cheating its customers. It’s advertising x Mb/s, and not delivering that.
But the net neutrality requirements go far beyond that.
If Verizon were to offer a lower-cost service that was up-front about the fact that Netflix would be throttled to a lower speed, I don’t see why they and their customers shouldn’t be able to agree to that.
For example, I don’t subscribe to Netflix. And both I and my ISP know that people who do tend to use a lot more data. So why can’t I sign up for the no-Netflix plan and save some money?
Imagine if there were only one way to subscribe to cable television, and it required you to pay for every channel that exists, even the ones you don’t want? People always seem to be in favor of unbundling cable, and letting people choose the channels they want to pay for individually. Why can’t we do the same for websites?
You can certainly subscribe to lower speed internet access at different price points, if that’s what you’re talking about. You could even get DSL for cheaper still, or dial up (maybe?). The reason you can choose different cable packages is that there is a limited number of stations. Would your no-Netflix plan allow you to access Hulu? Vimeo? Vevo? YouTube? DailyMotion? HBO Go? ESPN Go? All the other tv channel stations? Foreign versions of YouTube, etc.? BBC? Bloomberg? Various adult video sites? Google Play? Skype? There are thousands of channels offering video content – why single out Netflix?
Offering different levels of service to your customers, as in different download/upload speeds? Perfectly fine under net neutrality. Offering high speed internet then throttling the data coming from certain sites? Not cool.
We’ve already seen this with AOL; not just the content that was only available to their subscribers, but content that their subscribers were pushed away from (though not actually blocked from accessing.)
It was just an example. I mentioned Netflix both because it’s a source of a huge amount of internet traffic and it’s currently being harmed by anti-competitive and dishonest tactics by cable companies. Obviously, a plan like I mentioned doesn’t exist. But I’m not convinced that it should be prohibited by law. Again, I agree that it should be prohibited for ISPs to offer a plan with a certain bandwidth and then throttle some services below that. But where we differ is that I think it would be ok to do so if fully disclosed. You don’t need the net neutrality rules as they’ve been written to solve the existing problem. All you need is the FTC to take a dim view of false advertising (which I wish they’d do anyway).
But you can’t, now, offer a high speed for certain select services (like, say, Skype), without offering it for all. So, I, as a customer who doesn’t use the really bandwidth-intensive HD-video sites, end up paying higher rates than I would if ISPs were able to offer a more selective set of services to me.
I really think the parallels with cable television are relevant here. Would it be reasonable to require that all cable television providers provide all channels to all subscribers, and are only allowed to differentiate by, say, resolution? I think it would not be, and in fact that’s moving away from where I’d like things to be, which is that we pay a la carte for the shows we actually want to watch.
But when it comes to internet, things are totally switched around. Why?
I want to clarify that I don’t think that the net neutrality regulations are totally unreasonable. I think that reasonable people can disagree on this. And I, a reasonable person, think that the regulations are broader than they need to be, and I dislike the suggestion by the OP that the only people who might not agree with them are foolish. I totally agree that cable companies should be regulated. I just think these are not the right regulations. The problems that we’re seeing right now with cable companies and Netflix could be solved by regulations we already have, that is: It’s not legal to offer a certain service and then not provide it.
Because you are comparing oranges to apples. Sure, both are fruit, and they both supply vitamin C, but that doesn’t mean have to be the same color, size, texture or price. They are different technologies.
The Internet situation is about speed, not choice. If an ISP said you could watch cbs.com, but nbc.com would be blocked, the parallel with TV channels would be more appropriate.
Isn’t that exactly the horror story example that the OP says is inevitable? That ISPs will only allow you to connect to specific websites?
Why is it a reasonable to allow that with respect to television and not with respect to website access?
I realize that television and internet are not exactly the same, but when reasoning by analogy, things are never exactly the same. To argue that my analogy is bad, explain why it misses the mark.
Do you understand my argument that regulating television the way we’re going to regulate internet would result in less consumer choice and higher bills (You’d have to pay for all channels, regardless of what you actually wanted to watch)? If not, I’ll try to explain further.
If so, why won’t these sorts of regulations on the internet result in the same thing?
Question: could a lack of net neutrality affect non-customers?
I thought a major part of NN was not the direct relationship between the ISP and the end consumer, but between ISPs and whatever traffic happens across it—that a midwest ISP can charge a California startup (who pays a different ISP to connect to the Internet) to send their packets on to me (who also pays a different ISP to connect to the Internet).
Different technology, Man.
Besides, prohibiting a connection is different from slowing one connection compared to another, although IRL, it may be only an academic distinction.
That isn’t an argument. It’s the start of an argument, but you need to explain which differences are relevant, and why that means the networks should be regulated differently.
Again, it’s different, but is it different in a way that’s relevant? If you’re drawing that distinction, does that mean you’d be ok with an ISP that blocks certain sites, but not one that slows certain sites? If you think both are bad, then the distinction seems to be irrelevant to the discussion.
Which was only allowed to happen aftertrust busting regulations helped to break up the monopolies. This is exactly the sort of thing that is being suggested by the net neutrality rules.
Why? If net neutrality rules aren’t in place, than the only viable competition will be those who have the ability to make a deal with the ISP’s, which can squash any new or innovative idea that they find is contrary to their business interests.
Except when they don’t as with the examples above. The problem is that people get the idea that the only constraints on free trade come from the government, when in fact the vast majority are produced within the market world itself. Net Neutrality is really a government regulation whose sole purpose is to prevent a defacto and much more harmful corporate regulation.
Generally I prefer government in charge rather than the corporations, since the primary goal of the government is to keep Americans happy so they can be reelected, while the primary goal of corporations is to simply extract as much money as possible from Americans by any means necessary.
Cable’s not a good example for one main reason - it’s through proprietary networks, so there’s no contention for bandwidth or anything like that. Whatever programming you get from Cox, Comcast, etc… is what they negotiated with the content provider, and you’re paying the cable provider for access, NOT HBO, or Cinemax or History Channel or whatever.
With the internet, it’s different, in that you’re paying one outfit (your ISP) a fee for access to the network, and another outfit (say…Microsoft/Xbox Live) for your content.
The whole issue of net neutrality is that your ISP doesn’t get to interfere or editorialize and decide that they prefer their customers to Sony’s gaming platform so they throttle back the Xbox Live connections to the point where they’re nearly unusable, and we’ll set Sony up with the lowest latency and highest bandwidth we can, in hopes of driving business toward Sony and away from Microsoft.