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Re: Net Neutrality

#19
Assuming we're all adults here who can disagree without being rude, I'd like to provide something like another perspective for comparison. I think there is a reasonable argument to be made in favor of choosing not to impose yet more top-down, central-planner control of yet another part of the commercial infrastructure.

TL; DR: 1) "Net Neutrality" was not imposed until 2015, just two years ago at this writing; it's not some decades-old policy that must be preserved because we love to respect tradition. 2) Why does anyone think the sensible concept of "those who use more should pay more" must not be permitted to apply to broadband service? 3) ISPs don't provide broadband for free because they have costs: hardware, software, staffing. Those costs are generally stable; those costs don't magically drop just because some regulator decreed that ISPs can only charge So Much for the services they offer. So imposing arbitrary price controls on broadband services thus results in either fewer service offerings or higher average prices to the typical consumer. That is the exact opposite of what any consumer-focused citizen should want.



The term "net neutrality" was invented by Tim Wu in 2003. Over most of the time since then, Internet service providers have been free to set charges that pay for all their costs plus earn a profit. But ISPs being able to set different rates for different amounts of usage has not prevented the expansion of access to the Internet at a rate keeping pace with population growth (despite the Great Recession). I think it's fair to say that Internet usage has done Just Fine without "net neutrality" interference. http://www.pewinternet.org/.../american ... net-access.../

The exception to this period has been the Obama administration's sneaky "reclassification" of broadband as a utility in 2015 as a way to claim that it falls under existing regulatory law that permits FCC regulation, include pricing controls. The vote by the current FCC leadership scheduled for December of 2017 will decide whether to rescind this policy, but that continues to leave this important question in the hands of unelected bureaucrats. Until Congress gets off its collective backside and passes appropriate "hands-off" legislation preventing the FCC from playing further games with regulatory scoping, ISPs will continue to be subject to FCC whims that may change with each new administration.

There is zero reason to believe that allowing federal bureaucrats to impose price controls -- an action that has never been necessary or effective outside short-term wartime exigencies -- will do anything of any benefit to consumers. In fact, the opposite is more likely: ISPs, arbitrarily forced to deliver one same-sized, same-cost pipe to everyone, may reasonably be expected to limit some services they might otherwise have provided so that they can continue to meet their costs and make a profit. (If someone wants to debate this "profit" point, that would be a fine subject... for a different thread. ;) )

In fact, charging more from those who use more is precisely the mechanism by which prices can be kept low for those who use less. Interrupting this process by summarily preventing service providers from recouping their costs from the high-volume users is likely to raise costs to the general public -- the exact opposite of what is claimed by advocates of regulating ISP prices.

In short, no, "net neutrality" regulations are not needed. Like so many other things done by an excessively large central government, this is a solution in search of a problem. Access to the Internet had no problem keeping up with population growth while these regulations were not being imposed. For all the imperfections of ISPs -- ask me about my three-year running battle with AT&T -- in general they've done a good job, without price regulation, in delivering broadband services to a majority of the U.S. public. There is no reason to think that imposing price controls on ISPs will help consumers, and some reason to think it harms customers as ISPs either restrict services to continue to meet costs and make a profit or are forced to raise prices to low-volume users. It is economically irrational to arbitrarily prohibit a service provider from charging more from those who use more.

So, for what it's worth, there's a perspective from the other side of this question.
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Re: Net Neutrality

#20
But the issue isn't about internet users having to pay more if they use more data (which makes sense and hasn't really got anything to do with net neutrality) it's about content providers having to pay extra to be able to get traffic (at all or at a normal rate). Not necessarily even based on traffic volume either, just on what the ISP decides.
Wouldn't even be fair if it was based on volume (which, I stress, need not be the case whatsoever), since the cost for that is already paid by the internet users who already pay more if more data is used.
And about internet users to be asked to be paid bonuses not for using extra data (which, again, is fair and does not violate net neutrality) but for using data from certain sources (which does not cost the ISP more money whatsoever)
Last edited by Dinosawer on Thu Nov 23, 2017 4:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Net Neutrality

#22
Flatfingers wrote:
Thu Nov 23, 2017 1:58 am
A2) Why does anyone think the sensible concept of "those who use more should pay more" must not be permitted to apply to broadband service? 3) ISPs don't provide broadband for free because they have costs: hardware, software, staffing. Those costs are generally stable; those costs don't magically drop just because some regulator decreed that ISPs can only charge So Much for the services they offer. So imposing arbitrary price controls on broadband services thus results in either fewer service offerings or higher average prices to the typical consumer. That is the exact opposite of what any consumer-focused citizen should want.
then why are they asking for monthly connection fees?
if they cant provide the service they are selling for the price they are selling it for thats their own fault.
i pay for x mbit/s, how is it fair from them to ask for more than the contract says when i actually use what they sold me?
same argument on both ends of the pipe, youtube or netflix or whoever pays for their connection by bandwith. if that doesnt settle the costs the service requires why is the price how it is?

covering costs would be an argument if ineternet connections were free, but as it is both ends of a transfer already pay for the bandwith they are using the whole argument is "but i want more money for a contract i already finalised!"

Flatfingers wrote: I think it's fair to say that Internet usage has done Just Fine without "net neutrality" interference.
until ISPs noticed that video streaming services crash their calculations of how much they can underprovision their network and still sell "full" bandwith to all their customers.
namely that a lot of customers are now actually asking for a lot of the bandwith simultaneously/all the time.
which then caused the blackmailing event of netflix to get them to pay bridge fees for the transporter they already rented where netflix' bandwith to end users was artificially reduced until they coughed up some additional fees.
Flatfingers wrote: The exception to this period has been the Obama administration's sneaky "reclassification" of broadband as a utility
so classifying the most important communications system on earth as a common utility like telephone is "sneaky"?
Flatfingers wrote: leave this important question in the hands of unelected bureaucrats. Until Congress gets off its collective backside and passes appropriate "hands-off" legislation preventing the FCC from playing further games with regulatory scoping, ISPs will continue to be subject to FCC whims that may change with each new administration.
thats the only argument that has any merit. enforcing the equality of all speech (information exchange) as a federal law instead of some buerocratic body's regulations would be the better solution here.
but in lieu of proper ruling i prefer the at least governmentially (read publically) infulenced body over a pure profit-oriented corporate dictature :D

Flatfingers wrote:arbitrarily forced to deliver one same-sized, same-cost pipe to everyone
which is not what net neutrality is about. its that you dont arbitrarily have to pay more for the same pipe because the other end didnt pay additional ransom on top of their pipe fees

Flatfingers wrote: In fact, charging more from those who use more is precisely the mechanism by which prices can be kept low for those who use less.
what are the connection fees for then?
i pay more for a 100mbit connection than a 30mbit connection.
so where are the ones that use more not already paying more?

Flatfingers wrote: Interrupting this process by summarily preventing service providers from recouping their costs from the high-volume users is likely to raise costs to the general public -- the exact opposite of what is claimed by advocates of regulating ISP prices.
again NN isnt about regulating ISP prices, its about treating all bytes on the web the same. regardless of source or origin.
both ends pay their connection fees (else they wouldnt have a connection at all), so let them exchange data without extra obstacles.
Flatfingers wrote: In short, no, "net neutrality" regulations are not needed. Like so many other things done by an excessively large central government, this is a solution in search of a problem.
so you are fine with comcast throttling your netflix access despite the burden on their network being identical as if you were downloading a large file from dropbox?
because netflix didnt pay up the protection racket in additon to their connection fees


edit: the FCC ascribed to maintaining equal treatment for all services in the internet as early as 2005, its not a new concept. the ruling only enabled them to actually enforce rules based on their policy
http://www.techlawjournal.com/topstorie ... 050805.asp
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Re: Net Neutrality

#25
I wish I could find something to say on the subject of net neutrality. I think I might be a fence sitter on this subject. Of course, that could be perceived to be my position about many things that are "discussed" on these forums.

Actually, having a discussion about any subject on these forums usually feels like a mental assault course. I know it's the nature of this Community to want to pull everything that is said to pieces but I can't function in that way. Is there such a thing as a pragmatic pollyanna?

:shifty: Or am I just derailing this thread?

Edit: That's interesting, it seems that there is such a thing as pollyanna pragmatism. Nice! :D
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Re: Net Neutrality

#27
An "I'm going to try to pick apart all of the reasons you offered supporting your belief, but I'm not going to give you the same courtesy of explaining my own reasons" response is just arguing. There's no point in responding if it's just going to elicit more arguing.

"You've explained the specific reasons for your belief, now here are my reasons for my different belief" is a conversation worth having.
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Re: Net Neutrality

#29
Flatfingers wrote:
Tue Nov 28, 2017 12:26 am
An "I'm going to try to pick apart all of the reasons you offered supporting your belief, but I'm not going to give you the same courtesy of explaining my own reasons" response is just arguing. There's no point in responding if it's just going to elicit more arguing.

"You've explained the specific reasons for your belief, now here are my reasons for my different belief" is a conversation worth having.
so then how are the people who are using more not paying more?
which is not a belief question but one with a perfectly straight answer.
and the question on which your whole statement rests upon.

you want to hear my reasons? here they are:
i dont want any existing or potential services be (dis-)advantaged because my isp decides that they are the preferred solution (for example because the preferred ones pay extra tolls on top of their connection fees, or the non preferred ones hold political views that the ISP doesnt like)
i dont want any existing services or companies to become entrenched because they can pay the addional non-crappy-connection fees and any startup just gets lost in packet prioritisation
i want to be able to utilise any connection i already have to communicate with whoever i want with the connection speed i pay for
i dont want to pay extra to be able to use a connection to a specific endpoint without having to pay additonal fees because its a non preferred service.
("hey you want to use youtube instead of the totally awesome totallynottheISPvideo? pay five bucks extra!", "you want to play with your friends through steam? pay five bucks to get the full bandwith for gaming", "you want to use GoG? too bad, steam paid us not to allow that")
i want to be able to use any service that exists on the internet without interference from a third party

because all of that becomes a thing the second NN falls for good.
ISPs get allowed to interfere with any lawful content because they dont like it

and before the "It hasnt happened before!" point comes up.
it has happened, and the FCC acted on it and shut that behaviour down
http://whatisnetneutrality.org/timeline
Last edited by Cornflakes_91 on Tue Nov 28, 2017 5:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

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