So you have an opinion, but seem unable to generate a cogent argument for it.
Wonderful. I'm done here
no more open internet :'( sad day in history
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Wonderful. I'm done here
I guess what you could add is that what you are saying is complete and utter bull ****.
There are only two issues the government is trying to regulate with Net Neutrality
1) who actually profits from the money you pay?
and
2) how many stakeholders does it take to make a copyright party?
On the first point, content providers believe they should be the ones to profit from their content. ISP's (Verizon started it but it was bound to happen) wanted to get their fingers into the batter. The government sided on the point of view (well lobbied by content providers) that ISP's should basically be seen as utility companies and not as content providers.
On the second point, if ISP's and content providers were not "pigeon holed" to some extent then the complex puzzle surrounding copyright law would never reach a conclusion because the big players would be able to point their fingers at the other guys. By taking ISP's off the list of stake holders, then they can contain the copyright discussion to the role of content providers. This is clever chess, in my book. Divide and conquer.
For consumers, nothing AT ALL changes. You pay your money, you watch your netfix. It's that simple. The ENTIRE discussion about net neutrality has no impact whatsoever with respect to the actual delivery of internet service to your living room. It's all a bunch of smoke and mirrors to get people to pick sides in a discussion that doesn't even involve them!
R..
One of us is deep into the weeds. . .
Net Neutrality has nothing to do with the ownership (copyright) of the content that passes through an ISP, but whether the ISP can offer preferential pricing to deliver selected content.
The fear is that as content owners and content deliverers continue to merge, and lacking a competitive marketplace (where consumers go move to an alternate content deliverers) innovation will suffer.
For a worst case scenario lets say the Koch brothers (or George Sarros on the other side) uses their considerable fortunes to purchase controlling interest in one of these merged content providers/deliverers. Could they use this power to freeze out content they deemed "inconvenient"?
drrich2
Contributor
I wonder just how feasible this would be in terms of blocking assess to political views? Some time back, Facebook got accused of basically applying some censorship favoring leftish content over rightwing, which IIRC they denied but went to algorithm-use instead of human reviewer to avoid appearance of bias.
In theory, if a large network owned, say, the cable modem system for an area, and that network owned or had a financial interest in Fox News or CNN, could it then make distribution cheaper for the rival (& politically opposed) provider?
Yes, but realistically, considering public backlash against Facebook as mentioned, what real world practical impact will it have? Will we watch the 'favorite' in HD and the rival news in standard definition?
As for Diver0001's argument, if I understood correctly (apologies if I didn't), it's not direct copyright of content being referred to, but rather you're going to pay, say, Netflix $x/month either way, but eliminating net neutrality would let Verizon, Comcast or whoever tell Netflix your huge data streaming is a burden on our networks, and if you don't want your transmission rate throttled some, you'll pay us a cut.
Not unlike when cellular carriers throttle high-bandwidth users with unlimited data plans whose usage is far outside the mainstream.
I don't have a strong sense of how this is going to shake out the real world.
Richard.
Nice diversion. . . so you're abandoning that bit about competing copyright stuff?
Given the current political tribe mentality, you're more than capable of answering your own question. Besides, all they would have to do is offer "preferred" content a more "convenient " pricing package.
So here is your take away question. . . What problem is removing Net Neutrality solving?
The better question is what does it put back on the table again for further debate... and the answer will surprise you.
On this one issue the ISP's were being maneuvered into the position of being seen and legally treated like a utilities company. This is a situation that the ISP's are not happy with. The big issue at play here is who gets to profit from the content being delivered to your computer. So to answer the question of what problem it solves, you need to follow the money. Who profits from relegating the ISP's to the role of a utility? I think there are good arguments to be made on both sides of the table, apart from the issue of money.
In the (much) bigger picture, rescinding this decision is a good idea because of the much more important debate it puts back on the table, namely, what role SHOULD government have in regulating a free market. This is a debate about principles.
Your government (I assume you are American) has long held a strong belief, particularly among conservatives, that less regulation is good for the market, good for government and good for people. There are good reasons to think that. A free market, when left free, will find its own equilibrium. There has been a LOT of research done on that and the principle seems to be a solid one provided that monopolies or cartels are not at work.
Regulation is intended to curb abuses, but in this case it was not done for that reason. It was done to give one set of big companies a competitive edge over another set of big companies.... it was a result of political lobbying and NOT a reaction to abuses. In fact, a LOT of regulation falls into that category. Conservatives generally believe that this is the WRONG use of regulation
So what we're seeing here is simply one example of a policy of deregulation that the Trump administration has been aggressively perusing from the moment he got into office.
So when you back off the micro-issue here, The more important issue isn't whether or not you'll have to look for a new ISP because your old one is slowing down your porn videos as some kind of big-brother-esque micromanaging of your life.... It's about a much more important issue in the big picture..... namely WHEN should the government regulate a market and WHY.
R..
I think you have some valid points, maybe, but:
- An ISP is a utility and just like my gas provider has no say what I cook for dinner with that gas they provide it should have no say on what I do with my internet connection.
- An internet content provider is another thing. Not the same thing as an ISP. Those content providers who are also ISPs can function just fine as two businesses and where they try to use their de facto ISP monopoly in areas to force their content upon you, they shall not imho. Any argument that they do not or would not do that seems strange to me. They do and they would ... imho. Worse they can control where you connect to or influence how hard it is ... and they shall not... E.g. I like my foreign news once in a while... Ever spent serious time in China and enjoyed the internet there? No thank you.
- Your porn example appears like an uncharacteristically low blow from you compared to what else I saw from you on SB. Not really necessary here - or?
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Many policy makers would agree with you. For at least a decade policy makers have been trying to classify ISP's in a way in which they can understand them (and regulate them). Most are now settling on the idea that an ISP should be seen in terms of policy and in terms of legislation as a utility. There is a great deal of wisdom to that standpoint because it simplifies some other difficult policy issues, such as the copyright issues I referred to before. Moreover, the importance of internet to society and to the economy can not be understated so governments are clearly looking for ways to get a grip on how to manage that. Defining ISP's as a utility has VAST advantages at this level of abstraction.
My apologies. I could have said "America's Got Talent" videos instead and it would have come across differently. The principle is the same. I actually thought this thread was in the "Pub", which has a more "base" level of discourse. I was looking for an example that would resonate with the readers I thought I was addressing but clearly the audience was not what I expected it to be.
R..
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fair enough...
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