Kill Net Neutrality and You'll Kill Us, Say 800 US Startups (google.com)

A group of more than 800 startups has sent a letter to the FCC chairman Ajit Pai saying they are "deeply concerned" about his decision to kill net neutrality -- reversing the Title II classification of internet service providers. The group, which includes Y Combinator, Etsy, Foursquare, GitHub, Imgur, Nextdoor, and Warby Parker, added that the decision could end up shutting their businesses. They add, via an article on The Verge: "The success of America's startup ecosystem depends on more than improved broadband speeds. We also depend on an open Internet -- including enforceable net neutrality rules that ensure big cable companies can't discriminate against people like us. We're deeply concerned with your intention to undo the existing legal framework. Without net neutrality, the incumbents who provide access to the Internet would be able to pick winners or losers in the market. They could impede traffic from our services in order to favor their own services or established competitors. Or they could impose new tolls on us, inhibiting consumer choice. [...] Our companies should be able to compete with incumbents on the quality of our products and services, not our capacity to pay tolls to Internet access providers."

Comments

Why the fuck would he care?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's one of Trump's cronies. They're all in it to get rich together. You think they care about some place where a bunch of hippies share open source code or hipsters try to sell pretty trinkets for peanuts? Fuck no.

Welcome to America made great again. Better get used to it, because it's gonna get a whole lot worse before it gets any better.

Re: Why the fuck would he care?

[Maritz]

should not have to fund these lazy entitled bums at the bottom who buy designer shoes with their salaries and then claim welfare because they can't afford food.

Do you get mad about real stuff, too?

Re: Why the fuck would he care?

[Anonymous Coward]

And folks say the humanities are a waste of time.

Re: Why the fuck would he care?

[pr0t0]

I'd like to suggest a different approach as to how you view your hard-earned wealth. View it not as a treasure trove to place behind you and defend with sword and shield against the hordes clashing at your gates. Instead, think of it as a wellspring that affords you the privilege of helping others in times of drought.

It's easy to stand where you stand and call people on welfare "lazy". But you couldn't be counted among the top 1% if there was no 99% below you. You are fortunate to live in a world where the education you gained, the knowledge and skills you acquired, and the choices you made, led to doing something that people were willing to pay enough for to put in you in that bracket. There are nearly as many reasons for a particular person to be impoverished as there are impoverished people. To label them all as lazy, is well...that's kind of lazy, and simplistic thinking.

You worked your ass off so you could live a life that wasn't focused on survival. The ability to help others not focus as much on survival is a gift. It's a gift of a society built upon, for good or ill, inequality; the same society that placed a high enough value on your chosen profession to remunerate you in the way it did.

But your money isn't the reward for your hard work. The reward is the ability to help others.

Re:Why the fuck would he care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing that any non-progressive voice on Slashdot gets voted down, as flamebait.

Every time someone says something like this you know that THEY are the ones who are biased and are the sort who seek validation in the number of people who think the same way.

For me, I've been in the Internet business since before most of you had graduated from middle school.

What do you want, a cookie?

And the Net was fine with light-touch regulation, all the while. But suddenly, we get a heavy handed liberal progressive in the White House and the light shines upon the problem and NOW we need to regulate and control everything.... including what you can say and write??? Yeah, that was the next foot-fall, regulation of "equal speech".

In the early days of the Internet, there were like 50 dialup ISPs all competing for your business. These days, you're lucky if you have TWO choices for an ISP. Any time a group of people get fed up with shitty service from one of those ISPs, and decides to do the "free market" thing of creating their own co-op ISP, the Comcast and AT&Ts of the region will bury them in lawsuits. Then they'll bribe conservative lawmakers to pass protectionist laws prohibiting anyone other than the incumbent ISP from being able to offer service. Also, companies like Comcast didn't own NBC/Universal, making them both a content PRODUCER and content PROVIDER.

The "light regulation" you talk so fondly about is what led to the situation we have today. In situations like with Comcast, they have every incentive to try and hobble competing services like Netflix and Hulu. So in order for those companies to just be on an equal footing, they have to pay a toll to Comcast to NOT be throttled into oblivion. That doesn't even get into how Comcast's streaming videos don't tend to count against your bandwidth cap, while Netflix does, EVEN IF Netflix has some CDN servers inside Comcast's network -- which they had to PAY Comcast to do, where ISPs that AREN'T content producers were generally happy to let Netflix put some servers inside their network because it provides better service for their customers.

My personal belief is that the free market finds a way to convey services that are in-demand and perceived as having value, from the consumers perspective. Look at all of the examples (e.g. the music industry fought digital music and streaming, VoIP, on-demand TV, etc. etc.)

All of those things are directly threatened by the reversal of net neutrality regulations. I'll just keep picking on Comcast as a stand-in for all major ISPs. Say Comcast wants to promote it's own "triple play" packages with phone and TV service, so they start throttling any other VoIP provider and Sony's TV service competitor to DirectTV Now. Under the free market/light regulation system you're so fond of, there's nothing stopping Comcast from doing this, and in most parts of the country, you don't even have the option to just move to another ISP.

Now you might be able to make an argument that the free market has been stifled in regards to a healthy number of competitors. If you can create a scenario where everyone has at least 3 choices for broadband providers, I think you'd find a lot of the liberals and progressives you like to blame for everything would be happy to revisit the idea of net neutrality and whether it's still necessary.

Re:Why the fuck would he care?

[atrimtab]

So you think that every road should be a toll road where the owner that road can discriminate on who can use that road or crowd out those that won't pay the latest toll?

The free market does not work where a monopoly, duopoly, or a small oligopoly exists. The players will simply set prices and policies in the same way that gas stations watch each others prices across the street from each other.

This is why utilities are all regulated to prevent the purposeful discrimination and market distortions created by rent seekers seeking maximum advantage.

I've been in the ISP business also. Net Neutrality is a good thing for everyone except the toll road owners.

Re:Why the fuck would he care?

[WheezyJoe]

Chairman Ajit Pai says net neutrality "hurt investment" and "small internet providers don't have 'the means or the margins' to withstand the regulatory onslaught" of net neutrality.

So, obviously, all you startups are just wrong. Because he said it. Good Mr. Pai and his holiness overlord Trump are looking out for you, and you should grovel in appreciation.

Someday, the Republicans will deregulate... the NFL. No refs, no rules. Football played the way it's meant to be played: all out war, with guns!

Well, bye.

[rsilvergun]

Seriously, the last thing major investors (the kind that run Goldman Sachs) want is disruption. Just keep the gravy train going and fire off a little war every now and then and they're happy. Nobody wants another Google, Netflix or Square changing the landscape. Well, nobody Congress is listening too anyway.

Re:Breaking News

[Anonymous Coward]

[Sorry, your ISP requires a Slashdot® SuperPremiumExpansionPack to view the content of this post]

Re:We need free bandwidth

[The Cisco Kid]

If you think these companies don't pay for their Internet connections, you are deluded.

Re:We need free bandwidth

[sdinfoserv]

meanwhile Comcast, leader of the Cabal, experienced revenue growth of 7.91% from 74.51bn to 80.40bn while net income improved 6.52% from 8.16bn to 8.70bn.
With a gross margin of a mere 69.5%, the CEO could be heard screaming blocks away "MORE MORE MORE", as the board room followed in his lead and a chant broke out.

Tone down the trolls?

[irving47]

I think network neutrality is a good thing. And I'm willing to bet most republicans and even slightly right-leaning people that will read these comments on /. feel the same way. Now might not be the best time to alienate them/us further with "Moscow Donald" remarks and more demonization.

Just a thought, guys.

I paid for them

[goombah99]

They are sending data to me. I paid comcast to get it. COmcast can't say what data I should be able to get. They are a common carrier not a gate keeper.

I will say it again (we killed Trusted computing )

[Billly Gates]

Remember 13 years ago when we all posted links to our American representatives and with their phones and email exploding the DRM trusted PC requirements went away from a potential bill.

Can you all afford 3 minutes of your life

Ok most senators and congressman are too stupid to know what net neutrality is. They gain their information from experts ... experts brought to by lobbyists from Cox, Comcast, Time Warner, to educate our politicians what this issue is. They are simply ignorant.

So here is the link for your congressman. Here is the link to your senator. The people who read these are called scriptwriters and if they get thousands of angry emails I can guarantee you it will at least get your politicians attention.

When I linked this in 2003 or 2004 here Slashdot posted a story a few days later stating congress was confused, dumbfounded, and shocked. The bill died :-D

If you have a Republican write professionally that you do not want big brother government to trample innovation and stop jobs. Explain your I.T. position and career and explain your employer and startups already pay extra for bandwidth and this amounts to a bribe. End it off with if the United States won't allow us to be a leader in technology another cheaper country like China or India will who do not have these problems with Net Neutrality and can operate simply on bandwidth uses without double and triple dipping.

If your senator and or congressman is a democrat explain politely that this is a terrible bill that will hurt lower income internet users and new startups. Explain your I.T. position and career and explain your employer and startups already pay extra for bandwidth and this amounts to double dipping which will hurt America's competitive advantage. Also mention the top 5 technology companies are active Democratic donors to your party including Facebook, Google, and Microsoft and that if America fails to take initiative for regulating tax payer infrastructure then another country with more freedoms like India or China will take the jobs instead and this will help lower income consumers by keeping prices lower.

 

Re:We need free bandwidth

[UnknowingFool]

"Our business model depends on the fact that we don't pay for network infrastructure upgrades." - Internet content companies.

Only people who don't understand net neutrality would say that. How do you think these 800 start-ups get the Internet? They pay for it just like every other business. What they can't pay for is privileged or special access because ISPs want more money.

Re:But but, it'sâ a Republican idea!

[Z00L00K]

Republicans are conservatives so they only care for big established business, never for small business and startups unless they can show a huge profit or impact the trade balance.

Re:big businesses asking for special favors

[Anonymous Coward]

I stand up a server in a datacenter. Then I pay for throughput, do I not?
I install a computer in my home. Then I then pay for throughput, do I not?
Then we've got Tier 1,2 and 3 ISP's all motivated to build a fair and honest market for clearing throughput. If Netflix wants to consume 50% of a data centers throughput, it's all already paid for, lock stock and barrel.

Let me tell you what this debate really is about.

In a world where everyone has a 100Mbps bidirectional internet connection, you can download 3TB of data, or 360, 8GB DVD's, in 3 Days; that's a year's worth of movie watching. What happens when someone torrents the last 50 years of TV and an app to organize it all? That's the hard death of their business model.

I am seeing 2PB (2048TB) of storage in a 2U rack, today; in 8GB DVD's, that's 262,144 DVD's. An 80 year old has 29,200 days in their life. Today, that storage is a million bucks. What happens in 10 years when it's $150? Someone goes into business cloning and selling them for $200. The collapse of their model is inevitable.

We've changed from connecting residential properties to the internet over a public utility, POTS, to connecting residential properties to the internet using a private utility, cable. And these companies want to charge pay-per-page-view pricing to their customers, as well as keep them from blocking ad's. They want to dice and slice the internet and serve it up piecemeal. They want to be the content billing service. Once they have done that, then they own the distribution channel lock stock and barrel, they can do anything they want.

We literally have rural customers none of these companies want to touch with a 10 foot pole being sued for running their own municipal fiber. Why are they so afraid? How does a community running their own internet lines affect them in the slightest? This kind of activity only makes sense in a 3rd world country, and that's exactly where we are headed. If we were getting away from ad's, everyone would have a voluntary supercookie they'd use for billing. Bam. Done. I Guarantee you, you'll pay per page view, and you will still have ad's, but the ISP will prevent you from blocking them. You will have zero privacy, your comments and user-generated content will be confiscated or censored at their whim. All just like a 3rd world country.

Re:I will say it again (we killed Trusted computin

[Gravis Zero]

Ok most senators and congressman are too stupid to know what net neutrality is.

The head of the FCC is saying it needs to be done away with. Pai isn't ignorant, he knows exactly what he's doing. This isn't an accident, this is malicious.

Re:Favorable?

[Maritz]

Why wouldn't we just deal with the issue when it happened rather than making a bunch of rules for everyone to follow and hiring police to enforce them on everyone?

Applied to a wider context, this is pretty much why our species is doomed. No pre-emption. All reaction.

Re:Favorable?

[Maritz]

Everything but the IP header is not addressed to them and therefore interpreting it in any way should be considered illegal wiretapping.

They greased the right palms. End of story.

Re:big businesses asking for special favors

[peragrin]

Content owners have to pay for bandwidth too.

Without net neutrality isps want content owners to pay twice. First for their own outbound connections, and again to distribute those connections to the people who asked for them.

Right now Netflix was to pay their isp. Comcast wants to charge Netflix money for delivering Netflix content to Comcast customers who want to watch Netflix as oppsoed to Comcast own services

Netflix then has to back charge you the customer who ends up paying three times for the same bandwidth to watch a show on Netflix.

That is net neutrality. And only idiots are against it

Meanwhile, in Uganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of third world countries: Here in Uganda, we have nationwide infrastructure sharing that includes towers, 2.4/5G meteo WIFI APs, metro fibre, and backhaul fibre. We have MVNOs, nearly ubiquitous mobile coverage, an extremely competitive market, a healthy interconnection ecosystem, and a growing amount of local traffic. We're in a race to the bottom for prices, and a race for the top in service quality. Glad I don't live in America.

Even worse than that

[drinkypoo]

Of course they care if net neutrality will kill off 800 startups. The government loves to kill off small corporations, small business, etc. Big corporations lobby for laws which benefit them and harm new players. These 800 startups would have better stayed quiet, because all they've done is just give just one more reason to kill net neutrality.

Only a total cuck dumbfuck could believe that our government supports free trade.