Net neutrality non-neutrality
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This is not a good idea:
It's a GREAT idea.
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@boomzilla That's certainly an unpopular opinion. It took me a while to realize that nowhere in the thread rules was there any requirement that the opinions had to be our own. I guess I'll start voting based on how unpopular the opinions are.
EDIT: this post used to be in the unpopular opinions thread. I was under the false impression that @boomzilla couldn't possibly not support net neutrality, so I assumed he was just posting an unpopular opinion for the sake of it. I've learned there's more to net neutrality than I thought while reading this discussion.
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@LB_ said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
That's certainly an unpopular opinion. It took me a while to realize that nowhere in the thread rules was there any requirement that the opinions had to be our own
True, but that one is my own.
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@Zecc said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
I don't know why they don't reuse one of those.
The semantics of bytecode systems tend to be tied extremely closely to the system that they're used to implement. There's always a space of things that they can't do. Well, not unless you lose other important things in the process.
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@boomzilla would you explain why you don't support net neutrality, or link me to an explanation? I'm really curious.
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@LB_ It undermines innovation and competition.
Now, would you explain why you support net neutrality? I'm equally curious. I've never heard an argument that adequately justifies the increased regulation.
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@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@LB_ It undermines innovation and competition.
Hahahahahahahahahaha
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@Dragnslcr said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Hahahahahahahahahaha
Yes, that's pretty much the expected pro-net neutrality argument.
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@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Now, would you explain why you support net neutrality? I'm equally curious. I've never heard an argument that adequately justifies the increased regulation.
From wiki:
Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers and governments regulating the Internet should treat all data on the Internet the same, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication.
This un-discriminated internet is a product I find useful. It allows me to communicate with everyone else that is connected to internet.
Without net neutrality, I expect ISPs to interfere with this ability to communicate with everyone.
I do not believe that market / competition can cause ISPs to provide the service I want.
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@Adynathos said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Without net neutrality, I expect ISPs to interfere with this ability to communicate with everyone.
Why do you expect that?
@Adynathos said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
I do not believe that market / competition can cause ISPs to provide the service I want.
I do not believe that anything else will cause ISPs to provide the service I want.
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@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Without net neutrality, I expect ISPs to interfere with this ability to communicate with everyone.
Why do you expect that?
Because they can maximize their profit by charging more for uncommon types of usage.
For example, if I want to host a web/email server, use a rare protocol, they could charge more for that or block it to make their job easier.The ISP may have its own agenda - for example Facebook's ISP provides access only to Facebook and its friends.
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@Adynathos said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
This un-discriminated internet is a product I find useful. It allows me to communicate with everyone else that is connected to internet.
Without net neutrality, I expect ISPs to interfere with this ability to communicate with everyone.
I do not believe that market / competition can cause ISPs to provide the service I want.We didn't always have net neutrality in the US. I never had a problem with the things you mention before it was established.
This reminds me of people who are against legalizing marijuana because they don't trust people to make proper decisions if left to their own devices.
We can't legalize it because people would be walking around high all the time.
You mean like they were doing 150 years ago here when it was legal?
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@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@Dragnslcr said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Hahahahahahahahahaha
Yes, that's pretty much the expected pro-net neutrality argument.
"ISPs being allowed to arbitrarily block competitors promotes competition" is pretty much the expected corporatist argument.
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@Adynathos said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
The ISP may have its own agenda - for example Facebook's ISP provides access only to Facebook and its friends.
I like that you've proven my point about innovation and competition for me.
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@Dragnslcr said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
"ISPs being allowed to arbitrarily block competitors promotes competition" is pretty much the expected corporatist argument.
LOL. Except that's not what it's been doing. And is also a good way to lose customers, providing an incentive not to do it.
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@antiquarian
I do not see any downside of having a net neutrality rule.
As opposed to penalization of marijuana, which puts people into jail and feeds criminal organizations.@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
I like that you've proven my point about innovation and competition for me.
And that is fine, we just find different things to be more valuable.
That leads us to have different opinions on this matter.
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@Adynathos
The problem with the "Net Neutrality" regulation that was implemented by the FCC in 2015 is that it doesn't impose that rule, as defined by Wikipedia.Because Congress specifically excluded the FCC from imposing that sort of regulation on ISPs, with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which classified Internet service as a Title I service that the FCC wasn't allowed to regulate in the same way as it did with phone service. The FCC has already lost a couple court cases over previous attempts to impose the Wikipedia definition of Net Neutrality, and in each case the court's decision stated "while you have the legal authority to impose those standards on a Title II service, you do not have the authority to do so to a Title I service, Congress needs to change the law if they want these rules applied."
So, in 2015, the FCC (in a strictly partisan 3-2 vote, which is something the FCC had historically tried to avoid for major rules changes, preferring 5-0 votes for such changes whenever possible) voted to unilaterally re-classify ISPs as Title II services.
What the FCC is currently proposing to do (and will likely do so by a strictly partisan 2-1 vote) is to undo that change, and return to the Title I classification as defined by Congress in 1996.
Additional information, if you want it (from a libertarian/Republican slant, though these articles are correct on a factual basis):
. http://www.redstate.com/diary/freedomworks/2014/09/16/title-ii-regulation-internet-actually-means/
. http://www.redstate.com/neil_stevens/2017/04/26/fcc-tearing-net-neutrality/Of course, on the flip side of it, there is a degree to which the big ISPs (which are also big telephone companies) are trying to have their cake and eat it too (Ars has a much more progressive/Democrat slant, but again their facts are correct here):
. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/atts-throttling-victory-may-hinder-ftcs-power-to-protect-consumers/
. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/att-defends-unlimited-data-throttling-says-the-ftc-cant-stop-it/
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@Adynathos said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
And that is fine, we just find different things to be more valuable.
I think you may have expressed the most unpopular opinion for TDWTF right there.
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@Adynathos said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
I do not see any downside of having a net neutrality rule.
That doesn't mean there isn't one.
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@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@LB_ It undermines innovation and competition.
Now, would you explain why you support net neutrality? I'm equally curious. I've never heard an argument that adequately justifies the increased regulation.
How does it undermine innovation and competition?
I support net neutrality because I don't want an internet with tiers.
Many ISPs are currently monopolies in many areas, and without competition they may get greedy and do exactly what is shown above. Fragmenting the internet would be awful not just because of the greediness, but also because of the sudden separation of access to information. It would be a step backward for communication. With net neutrality we have a way of preventing that from happening. If you're perfectly fine with the above images being a reality, then there's nothing else I can say to change your mind. Enjoy paying extra to access WTDWTF.
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@antiquarian said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
We didn't always have net neutrality in the US. I never had a problem with the things you mention before it was established.
For two major reasons. One, video services such as Netflix that compete with the ISPs' services didn't exist. Two, there was competition in the ISP market.
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@Dragnslcr said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Two, there was competition in the ISP market.
We do have anti-trust laws, you know. Maybe we should enforce those better instead of coming up with new laws.
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@LB_ said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
How does it undermine innovation and competition?
Uh...exactly the stuff you're saying that you don't want!
@LB_ said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Many ISPs are currently monopolies in many areas, and without competition they may get greedy and do exactly what is shown above.
Yes, but we don't need an awful policy like the US' net neutrality for that.
@LB_ said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
If you're perfectly fine with the above images being a reality, then there's nothing else I can say to change your mind.
Ditto.
@LB_ said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Enjoy paying extra to access WTDWTF.
Nope.
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@antiquarian said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
We do have anti-trust laws, you know. Maybe we should enforce those better instead of coming up with new laws.
You're expecting the current Administration to actually enforce anti-trust laws? I think that's an opinion likely to be unpopular with with them…
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@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Now, would you explain why you support net neutrality?
Providers are a cartel/monopoly on both internet and cable TV. They've been making Netflix artificially unpractical with throttling and caps to protect their cable business and their own streaming, that at least in my country is very inferior to Netflix.
We also have mobile ISPs here with WhatsApp not counting on your cap, that is very bad for competition with messaging apps.
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@wharrgarbl said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
We also have mobile ISPs here with WhatsApp not counting on your cap, that is very bad for competition with messaging apps.
There might actually be a technical reason for that. WhatsApp does the majority of traffic directly between peers, and since most people will be messaging others on the same network (and often people who are physically quite close) that traffic won't leave the ISP's own network and won't cost them much.
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@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Yes, but we don't need an awful policy like the US' net neutrality for that.
It's not the only possible solution, but it was the one that got closer to getting approved.
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@dkf said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
There might actually be a technical reason for that. WhatsApp does the majority of traffic directly between peers, and since most people will be messaging others on the same network (and often people who are physically quite close) that traffic won't leave the ISP's own network and won't cost them much.
But think of all the messaging apps we're losing out on!
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@dkf said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
that traffic won't leave the ISP's own network and won't cost them much.
WhatsApp traffic goes trough it's server, and they do the same for Facebook, reinforcing it's defacto monopoly.
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@wharrgarbl said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
WhatsApp traffic goes trough it's server
Thought that was just the peer discovery protocol.
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@dkf said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@wharrgarbl said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
We also have mobile ISPs here with WhatsApp not counting on your cap, that is very bad for competition with messaging apps.
There might actually be a technical reason for that. WhatsApp does the majority of traffic directly between peers, and since most people will be messaging others on the same network (and often people who are physically quite close) that traffic won't leave the ISP's own network and won't cost them much.
Then the ISP can have any data that doesn't leave that segment of their network not count against a user's data cap. Net Neutrality isn't supposed to be "All data must be the same!!1!1!", it's supposed to only prevent discrimination based on source/destination.
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messaging program is using enough data to seriously threaten data caps? Barring file sending of course.
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@coderpatsy people send videos and photos in WhatsApp all the time
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@dkf said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
You're expecting the current Administration to actually enforce anti-trust laws? I think that's an opinion likely to be unpopular with with them…
If they won't enforce anti-trust laws, there's no reason to believe they will enforce net neutrality laws, but there's a bigger point here. Whenever a law isn't enforced properly or for some reason doesn't achieve the desired result, why is the first suggestion always another law?
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In Canada we just had a steaming load of net neutrality dumped on us, with the results being as follows:
- A consumer-friendly, regional mobile provider now has to drop their unlimited music feature
- The big national mobile providers have one less thing to compete with
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@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@dkf said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
There might actually be a technical reason for that. WhatsApp does the majority of traffic directly between peers, and since most people will be messaging others on the same network (and often people who are physically quite close) that traffic won't leave the ISP's own network and won't cost them much.
But think of all the messaging apps we're losing out on!
What the fuck is this comment supposed to mean? You say you don't support net-neutrality regulation because "It undermines innovation and competition." Then @wharrgarbl gives a specific example of the lack of net-neutrality regulation hurting competition. And you come back with... what exactly? Your comment reads to me like a sarcastic way of saying "nobody cares about innovation and competition in your example." I don't get how that supports your opinion.
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@boomzilla can this neutrality stuff be jeffed out of here, it's against the topic rules
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@NedFodder said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
What the fuck is this comment supposed to mean? You say you don't support net-neutrality regulation because "It undermines innovation and competition." Then @wharrgarbl gives a specific example of the lack of net-neutrality regulation hurting competition.
Not at all. You have an example of an ISP innovating to reduce cost to their customers.
@NedFodder said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
I don't get how that supports your opinion.
Clearly. Your biggest problem: you're not separating government from private action.
@NedFodder said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Your comment reads to me like a sarcastic way of saying "nobody cares about innovation and competition in your example."
It was mostly a cheap joke, but yeah...except that you completely ignored the innovation and competition involved in the deal. Trying to command and control which innovation is good or bad is bad policy.
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@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
You have an example of an ISP innovating to reduce cost to their customers.
You also have an example of an ISP giving preferential access to one messaging platform, which harms competition and stifles innovation in the area of messaging platforms.
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@NedFodder I think @boomzilla takes more issue when the government stifles innovation and competition than when companies do it to each other.
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@NedFodder said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
You have an example of an ISP innovating to reduce cost to their customers.
You also have an example of an ISP giving preferential access to one messaging platform, which harms competition and stifles innovation in the area of messaging platforms.
Uh...yeah, that messaging app is "stifling" competitors by out competing the other apps by getting a partnership with the ISP.
And the ISP's customers get that benefit.
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@hungrier Now the music service will have to compete by being a better music service, and the internet provider will have to compete by being a better internet provider.
Am I so weird for wanting a economy where products compete with each other individually?
I.e. like when you go to a restaurant, and the food is cheap but the drinks are super expensive to compensate, because they know you have to order one of each, so they essentially price the thing as a package. But now imagine I'm allowed to sell MY drinks or food in the same restaurant alongside theirs. The prices will change to better reflect how much each product actually costs to make. It seems to me like that is simply better for (almost) everyone.
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@boomzilla But then it's more difficult for someone else to create a new messaging app even better than WhatsApp. And the ISP's customers lose that benefit.
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@NedFodder said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@boomzilla But then it's more difficult for someone else to create a new messaging app even better than WhatsApp. And the ISP's customers lose that benefit.
How? Did they steal all of the compilers as part of the deal?
Another ISP might just offer cheaper data, reducing the value of the partnership since fewer people might use WhatsApp just for that reason.
@anonymous234 said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@hungrier Now the music service will have to compete by being a better music service, and the internet provider will have to compete by being a better internet provider.
But they were competing by being a better internet provider already!
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@anonymous234 said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
@hungrier Now the music service will have to compete by being a better music service, and the internet provider will have to compete by being a better internet provider.
The internet provider was already competing by being better, which the government has now disallowed. The "music service" isn't just their one; it includes Spotify, DI Radio, iTunes, Google Play Music, and others. For any service that's not on the list they would add it as long as it had licensed music.
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@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Another ISP
What other ISP? For a large part of the country, ISP's are basically monopolies (especially high speed access). So the ISP gets a sweetheart deal from one messaging app, but there's no "other ISP" to "just offer cheaper data" where new innovative messaging apps can compete with the chosen one.
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@NedFodder
I mean, at this point, the 4G market is pretty close to being competition in the cases of the typical end user - email, web pages, and a slice of Netflix...https://www.verizonwireless.com/plans/verizon-plan/
Granted, they're not 100% THERE yet, and the de-prioritization after 22GB in a month means Netflix won't work that well during peak hours after the second movie, but there's movement in the market, and T-Mobile or some MVNOs actually offer even more "competitive" unlimited plans than Verizon at the moment.
(Of course, on the other hand, Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile are pretty heavily regulated by the FCC, so that's also kind of a counter example to the "FCC regulation will kill ISPs" argument, but I think the "there's no competition" strawman is pretty threadbare these days. Even Exede Satellite Internet Service will work fairly well for Netflix, e-mail, Windows Updates -- you can't play League of Legends on it, but that's not the primary use case for 90%+ of Internet traffic).
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@izzion said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
the 4G market
You're on mobile? Yeah, that's different.
I was thinking stuff like this:
Also, I work in the middle of nowhere. While technically there's two mobile carriers here, only one of them has any 4G coverage worth a damn, so it might as well be a monopoly.
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@boomzilla said in The official unpopular opinions thread:
Uh...yeah, that messaging app is "stifling" competitors by out competing the other apps by getting a partnership with the ISP.
And the ISP's customers get that benefit.Product bundling is bad for consumers.
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@NedFodder
Yeah, the top end ISP market isn't very competitive on a regional basis. Ultimately, for the 90% of standard users in the 90% of the US population that is covered by Verizon and AT&T 4G, mobile broadband Internet is at the point where its technology can compete with local ISPs (though the cost is generally not competitive yet, unless you're defraying the data cost over many cell phone lines, at which point you're going to hit the throttling cap even faster and Netflix will suck even more during peak hours). Obviously, for power users (VPNing in from home, playing real time online games, etc) even that isn't a viable option -- the jitter and packet loss spikes on a 4G hotspot would be bad enough that I would never be able to play League of Legends well while using my mobile hotspot.It's not a great situation. But to say there's "no competition" for Comcast in its market regions is super misleading.
Also, in many urban markets where there is a light government touch (aka no "franchise agreements" that explicitly ban competition), there's actual broadband competition - my metro area has very high coverage from Comcast Cable and Frontier DSL, and Frontier was heavily expanding their fiber optic service prior to the Title 2 reclassification, at which point that project completely stopped. (Alas, this means my current apartment is still outside of Frontier FiOS's footprint -- but they still cover a substantial portion of the central areas of town and do directly compete with Comcast, which does result in my Comcast Cable costs being lower, even in a portion of the metro area where FiOS isn't).