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Reason: How To Break the Internet (in a Bad Way)
Widespread public sentiment favors the FCC's move to impose rules intended to establish "net neutrality"; an anonymous reader writes with a skeptical viewpoint: "No decent person," write Geoffrey Manne and Ben Sperry in a special issue of Reason, "should be *for* net neutrality." Across the board, the authors write, letting the FCC dictate ISP business practices will result in everything they say they're trying to avoid. For instance, one of the best ways to route around a big firm's brand recognition is to buy special treatment in the form of promotions, product placement and the like (payola, after all, is how rock and roll circumvented major label contempt for the genre). That will almost certainly be forbidden under the FCC's version of neutrality.
Reason(tm) is the reason I do not call myself a libertarian.
I don't want ANYONE buying promotions into my IP stream! I want my ISP to do their freaking job and shift packets from the source to me, without molestation and without interest or undue visibility into the contents.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
"(payola, after all, is how rock and roll circumvented major label contempt for the genre)" It's difficult to take someone's opinions about net neturality seriously when they don't understand the difference between broadcast media and on-demand media.
Wrong level of abstraction. The constraint is imposed on ISPs not web service providers.
Payola was and is a clearly illegal practice. If corporations are choosing to perpetrate something like payola and say its "because of net neutrality", that would be their rationalization for having broken the law, rather than evidence of a bad law. If there were no payola in radio, God forbid, then DJs would themselves have to choose music based on how cool or groovy or mellifluous it is, rather than on who was kicking them back the most.
The observable behavior of the anti-net neutrality companies speaks very clearly for the reason to have net neutrality rules.
If lack of competition is the disease and we use regulation to mask the symptoms, won't we end up with more regulation while the disease persists?
"Whenever faced with a problem, some people say `Lets use regulation.'
Now, they have two problems."
(With apologies to D. Tilbrook)
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
1) net neutrality is pushed by a coalition of commies and rent-seeking aristocrats, so you should be against it
2) no one in government understands the Internet, so whatever they do will be wrong
3) even if you are a commie, you should know that the market always responds to what the consumers want in spite of corporations attempts at anti-competive practices, so we can trust the ISPs to always do what is best for us
No, we supported the FCC action because the ISPs left us no choice.
Ideally, I wouldn't want the government to get involved. However, the ISPs have a monopoly on wired, broadband Internet access (duopoly in some areas). If you want wired, broadband Internet access, you need to take what BIG_CABLE_ISP will give you. If communities aren't served by BIG_CABLE_ISP or BIG_TELECOM_ISP, they can't form their own broadband efforts because said big companies will lobby state legislators to ban these efforts as "bad for competition." (As in, should they ever decide to expand into these areas, they would actually have competition and that's bad.)
This still wouldn't have been enough to support FCC action, but the ISPs got greedy. They saw Google, Netflix, and others making money online and thought "people are using our connections to buy stuff so why doesn't some of that money go to us?!!!" (Completely ignoring that some does in the form of ISP service bills.) They tried to charge companies extra to reach customers via "fast lanes" lest their data be regulated to an unusable slow lane.
In a perfect world, customers could just vote with their wallets and switch ISPs, but they couldn't due to the monopoly situation above. So the FCC stepped in. First, they instituted extremely weak rules that would basically allow the ISPs to do whatever they wanted. Verizon took offense to there being even weak rules and sued. They won, but the courts told the FCC "if you want to do this, you need to use Title II." So in winning, Verizon actually lost.
In short, we didn't want to go to the FCC. We just wanted things to operate the way they always had been operating. But the ISPs' greed forced action and then Verizon's greed forced stronger action.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
bad writers paid by bad people to promulgate bad policies to screw almost everybody. that is the billionnaires trying to take back the plantations from the 99%.
if you read that fishwrap, do exactly the opposite.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
A private company paid a bunch of money to another private company and users got the same video streaming performance they used to have before private company B starting throttling private company A's ability to deliver content that was already paid for by the users to both companies involved.
FTFY
That's an interesting re-intreptation.
On the other hand, I could just as easily say that one private company paid a bunch of money to another private company (after already having paid yet another company a bunch of money to send the same data), and users final got the service that they already paid a bunch of money to that second company to receive.
Because, you know, that's what actually happened.
My sig can beat up your sig.
I went to Sperry's twitter page.
The amount of Libertarian derp is stunning.
Didn't bother with the other author.
Title II is in effect because the ISPs decided to not play nice with their customers. If everyone liked Comcast, for example, instead of calling it the absolute worst company in customer service, we would never be here.
The days of the mom-and-pop ISP with direct personal service and "organic growth" of the Internet has been over for more than a decade. And what has taken their places are large customer-fucking entities with abysmal customer service and that absolutely refuse to upgrade infrastructure but instead put caps on use to deal with the demand. And for that they demand ever higher payment. This is after we threw billions at them to install last-mile fiber that they never installed, but instead handed out to the shareholders.
In the People's Libertarian Paradise of Concord, NH, we have exactly *two* "broadband" providers, both of which suck massively, one of which doesn't even offer broadband as currently defined (=>25Mbps). Comcast and Fairpoint (unfairpoint, fairly bad point, etc)
That's why we are here. This is "why we can't have nice things."
Screw both of these guys and Reason magazine too. If not outright corporate shills, they are at least useful idiots.
Quislings come in all forms.
--
BMO
I can't tell if you are being sarcastic. All net neutrality does is ensure the playing field stays level. You have to keep in mind that cable companies/broadcasters want to be the sole content provider, and they want you to pay them for it. They don't want Netflix; they don't want YouTube. You may not be old enough to recall when the cable providers tried very hard to degrade service to customers requesting Netflix because it was eating into their own pay-per-view model. When that didn't work, they decided to extort money from content providers and degrade the service until they got paid. Comcast was caught unambiguously doing this.
As netizens, we want the packets we request delivered unimpeded and unscrutinized to our browser. Tiered pricing takes care of getting video at the desired quality over simpler sites. If I'm only browsing eBay I'll get the low-end. If I'm viewing Netflix, I'll have to pay for the turbo-whatever. That should be my choice as a consumer.
Net neutrality makes it far easier for smaller players to compete. They don't have to have the muscle to negotiate with major ISPs they would otherwise need to in a non-nn environment.
Pointing to the LA Times article is weird too, if you weren't being sarcastic. It's basically a highly speculative non-issue, endorsed by a representative whose top contributing industry is the movie/television/music industry. The top 3 of Rep Walden's 4 contributors are the National Association of Broadcasters, Comcast, and 21st Century Fox. I wouldn't exactly call him "impartial" on the matter.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
The internet not being beholden to ISP business practices.
ISPs are, and should be treated as, conduits of data which has nothing at all to do with their damned business practices.
Or, you know, supported by corporate ass kissers who would have us believe that whatever the fuck corporations want is somehow good for us, when it's only good for corporations.
But the net neutrality movement has had less to do with class struggle than with the familiar delusion of technocrats everywhere: that government can "design" a better future if only it pulls the right levers.
Ah, here goes more bullshit and antigovernment everyone-but-me-is-elitist crap which suggests that preventing companies from acting like douchebags is crippling to companies who want to be douchebags.
Look, this is libertarian economic drivel which says corporate rent-seeking assholes should be able to extort a cut of someone because they have a successful product, and that it is really important for ISPs to be able to spy on your content to maximize their ad revenue.
Yes, because we don't want a fucking internet where you have to be kicking up some payola to some greedy asshole who did nothing other than say "nice innovation you have there, shame if something happened to it".
You know what needs to change? Companies who sell the newest stuff as if they really have it, refuse to invest in upgrading their infrastructure to keep it relevant, and then piss and moan when their outdated business model of "do nothing and keep charging more" proves to be useless.
This whole article is written by a corporate apologist who is changing the definitions of "innovation" and "stale business model" to make it sound like encumbant ISPs who are too lazy/cheap to be able to to charge a toll (in the form of payola or blocking traffic) so they can piggy back on the success of companies who actually make stuff.
This is entirely about saying "we should be able to gouge NetFlix, because they've come up with something cool and we haven't".
This is arguing for the right to be a parasite middleman, by companies who are otherwise collapsing under their own crushing weight of incompetence, laziness, and the feeling of being entitled to revenue they do not generate.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
So, you know that's not how it worked, right? Comcast told Netflix: "We want you to give us money." Netflix said: "That's what your customers are for, and they're paying you." Comcast said: "Fine, then we'll SLOW YOU DOWN." - they then proceeded to actually throttle (decrease) Netflix' bandwidth. Customers through Comcast said: "Netflix, why you suck so bad? Your service sucks!" and started to go to Amazon Prime instead. Netflix went: "Well, that's lame. Comcast, can't you restore us to normal?" Comcast said "Haha, that's funny, no." Netflix finally went: "Fine, we'll give you an absurd amount of money, so we don't lose more customers." Comcast said "Okay" and RESTORED THE ORIGINAL CONNECTIONS. You can see this on visual network speed graphs.
They didn't pay for more bandwidth. You ALREADY paid for that bandwidth (say, 5mbit down). Comcast decided they didn't want to provide you 5mbit worth of Netflix, though, without Netflix ALSO paying, even though Netflix had already paid whoever they have as an ISP on their end.
This wasn't Netflix running out of bandwidth and having to increase their uplink speed, and it wasn't the consumer running out of bandwidth and having to pay to increase their download speed. This was Comcast deciding that Netflix was causing you (and your peers) to use too much of your already-paid for bandwidth. Comcast couldn't keep up with the consistent and simultaneous demand on what you supposedly had access to. So, instead, it throttled Netflix (which users saw as being Netflix's problem - hey, Netflix can't keep up!) and then charged Netflix to unthrottle (which users saw as Netflix "buying more bandwidth" so Netflix could keep up). In reality, it was Comcast that essentially oversold their bandwidth (you can have 5mbit down! oh, wait, nevermind, we can't supply all this bandwidth all at once; hey, a lot of it is being used by Netflix, maybe we could get them to pay more so it doesn't look like we were unprepared for demand on services we sold!)
This isn't unlike an airline overselling their flights. The difference is that when a flight fills up and customers who already paid for their tickets can't actually fit on the plane anymore, the airline doesn't start charging the destination more because the destination is using too much space on their plane. They give the customers who can't get on the plane at the very least a free transfer, and I think they get a free future lfight or something, too? Or a refund + flight? Something like that. In other words, the airliner realizes that part of overselling means that you have to deal with the consequences that occasionally come up with overselling... and "deal with" doesn't mean "charge someone else for your own lack of space that you sold as though you had more space than you actually did."
TL;DR: Comcast oversold their bandwidth and decided to make Netflix pay for it.
"The primary reason there is usually only a very small number of ISP's that serve a particular area is simple, and it doesn't involve tin foil hats or conspiracy theories. It is that building broadband infrastructure is fucking expensive. Everything from the hardware, to the permits, but especially the construction."
Humm... probably that's the first time something like that has happened ever before.
Let's see... The reason there are a very small number of truck transportation companies is because building highways for the trucks is damn expensive.
Hey, this gives me an idea! What if cabling and services on top like Internet access get managed by different entities!? What if we consider cabling a basic infrastructure just like roads and let them be publicly managed and subsidized by the services on top of them?
Clearly, the authors of the paper feel that payola, corruption, and a lack of competition are good things.
Which is kind of the problem with articles from reason.com, which is so droolingly and un-flinchingly geared to a particular kind of fantasy economics as to make it something bordering on religious dogma.
Those who believe it are 100% convinced that it is perfect, complete, and any disagreement with it is heresy.
In fact, as someone who got over the flavor of the Ayn Rand koolaid and saw it for what it was, that's pretty much how it works. It's irrational, it defies both logic and evidence, totally ignores human nature ... but somehow it's holy fucking writ.
But you just keep acting like the other guy is beneath contempt and loudly saying things like "ah, but you would say that because you're a leftist who hasn't yet realized governments are tyranny, and our fictonal free market will solve all problems."
There is really nothing more irrational than someone defending this kind of crap.
This is the base of Rand Paul, which means they've drank so damned much of the koolaid there simply is no alternative, and they'll just go apoplectic trying to use their circular logic to defend it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The article is full of colorful language about network neutrality advocates, but also some sound reasoning that is unfortunately based on technical misunderstandings or misinformation. Once you look past the mischaracterizations (it's a political piece, after all - you speak to your audience and insult everyone who disagrees with you before you even consider making a point!), it's actually not that bad. There are lots of items in it that I'd like to respond to, as if I could fix the author's misunderstandings, but I'll just pick a one:
The more good content that providers make available, the more consumers will demand access to sites and apps, and the more ISPs will invest in the infrastructure to facilitate delivery.
That's what we want, but that isn't what is happening. The ISPs have little economic incentive to invest in infrastructure since they are mostly monopolies. That's why Comcast chose, instead of upgrading their bandwidth when customers started watching Netflix, to pressure Netflix into co-locating servers within Comcast's network. They only could do that because they are a monopoly. Comcast customers could not choose to switch to another provider, and Netflix cannot choose to route around Comcast.
One would think that after 10 years of political teeth-gnashing, regulatory rule making, and relentless litigating, there would by now be a strong economic case for net neutrality—a clear record of harmful practices and agreements embodying the types of behavior that only regulation can pre-empt. But there isn't.
This sounds like someone citing their ignorance on a topic as evidence that something didn't happen. In general, the authors need to recognize that: :-) Clearly they never had to dial-up to Prodigy to see one "web site" and then use Compuserve to see another one, then dial AOL to email someone else.
- ISPs are tied to cable/telecom monopolies.
- ISPs can't pick different "business models" without impacting individuals' free speech.
- We learned these lessons from what came before the internet.
- We've had real issues without Network Neutrality.
It will be interesting to see how "broken" the internet is in 10 years. Usually those predicting doom and gloom fade away. We shall see, eh?
In short, we didn't want to go to the FCC. We just wanted things to operate the way they always had been operating. But the ISPs' greed forced action and then Verizon's greed forced stronger action.
A very reasoned response. Internet access has no resemblance to a free market, at least not like Hayek, Friedman, Mille for any of the other great Chicago gang would define it. The incumbents want to use regulators to maintain their market dominance and eliminate real competition, something another Chicago guy wrote about as well. Open up the last mile to real competition and then you can argue that ISPs should be allowed to charge providers for faster service. However, as long a they maintain a monopoly or duopoly position then regulation is appropriate to ensure everyone gets the same treatment.
The problem underlying this fight is the big ISPs are realizing the connection will be the valuable piece in the future, and not merely a profitable Haddon to there cable business. As Apple, Amazon, Netflix et. al. chip away at the core cable business they (the cable companies / ISP) are looking for ways to protect revenue steams. Preventing others from entering the ISP space is critical to maintaining that revenue stream; and why they are willing to spend big dollars on lawyers, lobbyists and campaign contributions to do so.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
1. Pick a problem, any problem.
2. Claim it can be solved with laissez faire capitalism and will be worsened with any form of government intervention.
3. Ignore any evidence to the contrary.
In this article, the author acts as though the threat of data discrimination from cable and phone companies is fantastical speculation. But it's already happened, and so many times. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... In most markets, people only have one or two choices for a broadband connection, so they can't vote with their dollars effectively to resolve the problem. Much as I enjoy the elegance of free market principles, the Invisible Hand is not gonna fix this one.
Personally, I'd really rather have a competitive marketplace, where I could take it into my own hands and say, "If you won't provide me what I need, I will go to your competitors." In the current environment, they will just say, "What competitors?"
Since we don't have a competitive marketplace, we get regulation instead. This upsets some people. I am not one of them.
www.wavefront-av.com
The primary reason there is usually only a very small number of ISP's that serve a particular area is simple, and it doesn't involve tin foil hats or conspiracy theories. It is that building broadband infrastructure is fucking expensive. Everything from the hardware, to the permits, but especially the construction.
The problem with that theory is that I was actually alive and paying attention when the local monopolies were created...and your argument is EXACTLY the argument made by the various cable companies to get the government to GRANT them a monopoly in the various local areas. What nobody in government thought about (and if you tried to say it, you were called a crackpot) was, if cable was a natural monopoly, why did they need the government to grant them a monopoly? Wouldn't the company that did the best just end up with a monopoly?
Except that isn't what happened. What happened was that local municipalities were allowed to grant local monopolies for cable service. Then once every area where it was profitable to offer cable service had cable service, the big players began buying up everyone else. It didn't matter that they had lousy service, they had a monopoly, and the local municipalities discovered that they no longer had any leverage because they could no longer take the franchise for the local area back and give it to someone else because there was no one else.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison