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[Grug]

What sort of safety protections does Antitrust legislation provide from the worst case scenarios?

 

[FyreWulff]

What sort of safety protections does Antitrust legislation provide from the worst case scenarios?

none, these companies already hide under "franchise agreements" where they're basically the contractor for the city's internet

 

[Chinner]

Apart from making more money, they're drawing up the draw bridge to make sure its harder to challenge their position of power. Sorry America, this is awful but if it helps the UK is on the same shit slide too.

 

[archreaper93]

In case you're being genuine, net neutrality is the concept that all internet traffics should be treated equally or neutrally. Such an attitude whether adopted through government regulation or industry self-regulation would mean that ISPs would not be able to discriminate between various types of traffic or to promote one service over another.

In practice, ISPs want neither net neutrality nor to be classified as public utility in order to promote their own services for things such as social media sites, video streaming services and much more. ISPs market this as "companies like Netflix should pay their fair share to use our infrastructure," however, Netflix already pays for its internet usage through companies such as Level-3 or its own infrastructure it has deployed.

Rather than having a "free lunch," companies already pay for the services they use. ISPs want to essentially triple-bill. They bill you, the consumer, for general internet access, then they want to charge an extra bill to services like Netflix; Facebook; Steam; etc., and finally, they want to charge you extra for using these services -- provided the companies aren't paying them extra to avoid doing so.

You can see an example of this in the mobile space, where certain services don't count toward your data usage. Future examples could be Comcast steering you toward its streaming service or AT&T steering you toward DirectTV Now.

The ultimate effect of a non-neutral internet is to discourage innovation because smaller companies can't compete with the added cost created by ISPs.

Edit: Political reasons for being against net neutrality are vague because it's driven primarily by industry lobbying. It can range from a general aversion to regulation, the aforementioned "free lunch" argument, and the bizarre idea that pricing smaller companies out of competition can actually increase competition and innovation.

Yes, I was being genuine. Thank you very much for the explanation. Yeah, that all sounds like common sense to me, and those reasons against don't seem to hold up.

I saw this on an earlier page.

The only comment not motivated by racism was "I'd rather lose my porn than my free speech"

But, if what you said is true, I don't see how net neutrality affects free speech at all. Rather, wouldn't eliminating net neutrality be a bigger hit to free speech since ISPs could charge you differently for browsing different websites, thus subtly influencing which sites you go to?

Or is this a case of "more regulation automatically equals less freedom", without actually knowing what they're talking about?

 

[Guileless]

The biggest hook against regulations is always the claim about innovation. First, the word innovation is used so loosely against regulation that it doesn't mean a thing: innovation in what way? Link that word to what companies said about net neutrality, and one wonders if "innovation" really doesn't mean new, amazing models of offering services that really are about the public good, but instead another exploitative shitpit that offers a service that's a gold wrapped turd.

Consider Mark Cuban:

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The Verizon decision [the January, 2014, court order that struck down the Federal Communication Commission's 2010 passage of net neutrality rules] has created an opportunity for the FCC to introduce more rule-making. They shouldn't. Things have worked well. There is no better platform in the world to start a new business than the Internet in the United States...

People like to use movies and TV shows as a reference to issues that could occur on the Internet. [But] the real issue is that there will be many applications that we can't foresee today. [And] we need those applications to not just have priority, but guaranteed quality of service.

I want certain medical apps that need the Internet to be able to get the bandwidth they need. There will be apps that doctors will carry on 5G networks that allow them to get live video from accident scenes and provide guidance. There will be machine vision apps that usage huge amounts of bandwidth. I want them to have fast lanes.

Nobody disagrees with the concept of a "free, open internet." The issue is whether Title II regulation is the way to get there. Cuban foresees it hindering innovation because decisions will now be made by politicians, bureaucrats, and lawyers rather than engineers and tech execs. Lawsuits would almost certainly proliferate over FCC decisions as to what constituted paid prioritization. Speaking as a lawyer myself, getting lawyers involved in a significant way won't promote innovation in anything except ways for lawyers to spend their bonuses.

But maybe Title II regulation would be beneficial; I can't tell the future. But what most people are doing is simply spinning out worst case scenarios involving the easy targets of the big companies we resent for data caps, the large amount of money we pay them each month, and poor customer service without really considering the tradeoffs in involving the federal government taking charge of a huge industry that has thrived without it to this point.

You may resume your regularly scheduled Trump bashing now.

 

[Keasar]

"Republicans, cause fuck you. "

They really go out of their way to destroy people's lives. I hope this doesn't affect us outside of USA too much.

 

[Empyrean Heaven]

Can't wait until it takes me 5 minutes to load GAF.

 

[Arrogant Bastard]

Each and every day I look back at the election and all I can muster is a stern fuck off. Seriously, if you voted for Trump you suck.

 

[Ithil]

I find it hilarious that reddit and other internet dwellings had overwhelming support for Trump even though we all knew he'd do this shit. I wonder how happy they are now?

I'm sure they will rationalize it as "Regulations are bad, we have to get rid of them! This will somehow make things better because regulations are bad!" as their money is drained from them for less service.

 

[Dr.Acula]

I'm sure they will rationalize it as "Regulations are bad, we have to get rid of them! This will somehow make things better because regulations are bad!" as their money is drained from them for less service.

If anything, looking at data and deciding if it belongs in the fast tube or the slow tube is more like a regulation than saying "everyone gets to dump their traffic freely like sludge into a river."

 

[Cotton McKnight]

Well, thank god I have a huge back-log of games. I may have to buy some TBs of space download all of them, put steam in offline mode. I may have to start reading more, and actually becoming proficient on the guitar. Maybe I can find time for drawing again.

The sad thing I am part of an up-and-coming commercial brokerage that is utilizing the web-based systems for the majority of our work. I guess I'll have to re-configure the budget on the fly when ISPs start locking stuff down.

Or I could just be paranoid, and there will be nothing to see here?

Spoiler

I'm hopeful

 

[exmachina64]

Yes, I was being genuine. Thank you very much for the explanation. Yeah, that all sounds like common sense to me, and those reasons against don't seem to hold up.

Once it became a partisan issue, the veracity of the reasons mattered less. The ISPs fought it bitterly, donated to campaigns, and took the issue to court.

I saw this on an earlier page.

But, if what you said is true, I don't see how net neutrality affects free speech at all. Rather, wouldn't eliminating net neutrality be a bigger hit to free speech since ISPs could charge you differently for browsing different websites, thus subtly influencing which sites you go to?

It would, yes.

Or is this a case of "more regulation automatically equals less freedom", without actually knowing what they're talking about?

Some conservative politicians have bandwagoned on for that reason. Obama was for in favor of net neutrality and regulation is bad, so net neutrality is bad. That came mostly from politicians who understood it less/weren't being heavily influenced by the lobbyists.

 

[wumster3000]

This is what America wanted, this is what America is going to fucking get.

America did not want this. ~3,000,000 more people voted Hillary.

 

[archreaper93]

Once it became a partisan issue, the veracity of the reasons mattered less. The ISPs fought it bitterly, donated to campaigns, and took the issue to court.

It would, yes.

Some conservative politicians have bandwagoned on for that reason. Obama was for in favor of net neutrality and regulation is bad, so net neutrality is bad. That came mostly from politicians who understood it less/weren't being heavily influenced by the lobbyists.

Gotcha.

 

[Douche McBaggins The 3rd]

I hope California takes a page from Trump and grabs those Telecom companies by the pussy and forces net neutrality in its own state. We're already fighting so much other shit that the annoying orange is trying to force,what's one more thing to fight for?