Nobody's Neutral In Net Neutrality Debate

ygslash writes Michael Wolff at USA Today has a long list of the many stakeholders in the net neutrality debate, and what each has to gain or lose. The net neutrality issue has made its way into the mainstream consciousness, thanks to grassroots activism and some help from John Oliver on HBO. But it's not as simple as just net neutrality idealists versus the cable companies or versus the FCC. One important factor that has raised the stakes in net neutrality is the emergence ("unanticipated" by Wolff, but not by all of us) of the Internet as the primary medium for distribution of video content. And conversely, the emergence of video content in general and Netflix in particular as by far the most significant consumers of Internet bandwidth. So anyone involved in the distribution of video content has a lot to gain or lose by the outcome of the net neutrality struggle.

Comments

Nobody's neutral because it''s important

[gurps_npc]

Similarly, if you ask people any of the following questions, almost everyone will have answer:

Is slavery wrong?

Is the First Amendment a good idea?

Is the Second Amendment a good idea?

Are civil/gay/religious rights a good idea?

Etc. etc. Important things matter and people care about them. That's why we call them 'important'.

"Stakeholders"

[mrchaotica]

Who are the stakeholders? Well, let's see:

• Telcos
• "Big Data" Internet companies
• the FCC
• the Public

Only one of these "stakeholders" have opinions that actually matter, and that stakeholder sent "a groundswell of 3 million citizen comments, most of them, presumably, against the FCC's approach" [and in support of regulating ISPs as Common Carriers].

I think we're done here.

Re:There is no "controversy"

[Jason Levine]

In the case of Time Warner Cable/Comcast and other ISPs who also provide TV services, this is by design. The last thing they want is for you to realize that you don't need to pay them $100+ a month for a thousand channels - only four of which ever have anything decent on. They don't want you to decide that you'd rather stream videos from Netflix, YouTube, Amazon VOD, etc. The speeds they give you are "good enough" for normal web browsing. Any faster risks their monopoly Internet service provider business hurting their non-monopoly TV business and that can't be tolerated.

And just to make sure that Internet video doesn't supplant cable TV, they'll institute caps and "fast lanes" to kill off Internet Video, and keep charging you hundreds of dollars every month. Cable TV service - as it stands now - is going to be dying business a generation from now. The cable providers see this too and are working as hard as possible, short of actually innovating with their service (e.g. IP Television service or ala carte), to stave off the death for awhile longer.