Slashdot Mirror
Tech Giants Rally Today in Support of Net Neutrality (theverge.com)
From a report: Technology giants like Amazon, Spotify, Reddit, Facebook, Google, Twitter and many others are rallying today in a so-called "day of action" in support of net neutrality, five days ahead of the first deadline for comments on the US Federal Communications Commission's planned rollback of the rules. In a move that's equal parts infuriating and exasperating, Ajit Pai, the FCC's new chairman appointed by President Trump, wants to scrap the open internet protections installed in 2015 under the Obama administration. Those consumer protections mean providers such as AT&T, Charter, Comcast, and Verizon are prevented from blocking or slowing down access to the web. Sites across the web will display alerts on their homepages showing "blocked," "upgrade," and "spinning wheel of death" pop-ups to demonstrate what the internet would look like without net neutrality, according to advocacy group Battle for the Net. But most of the pop-ups The Verge has seen have been simple banners or static text with links offering more information.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
20 years ago major ISPs were not directly competing with content providers, so there was no financial incentive to fuck with traffic.
It wasn't until data services started to compete with traditional telecom services that this became a problem. For example, VoIP, which used an internet connection instead of POTS lines, could make long distance calls for basically the same price as local calls (or even less if both parties had VoIP service). This became a direct competitor to the phone companies which, at the time, were also internet service providers. The result? VoIP traffic became snarled, making it less useful, less desirable, than traditional phone services.
Now, all the major ISPs are also content providers; they have their own streaming services, their own search engines, sometimes their own shopping networks. They have every incentive to leverage their control over the access to the internet to hinder their competition.
Network Neutrality is about ensuring fair access. It's about preventing service providers from abusing their position as gatekeeper to stifle competition, whether by traffic tampering or charging fees to make them less competitive.
=Smidge=
Im Modding so posting this anon.
In the first 20 years there were literally hundreds or thousands of providers. Changes to the FCC definition of a phone line removed them from the common carrier status as well as the requirements that the phone company provide the service to mom and pop ISP's. So back then if AT&T tried to block something everyone would simply change to another ISP.
I ran ISP's back in the 1990's and you would not believe how many times the conversation about "Common Carrier" came up. At the time all the ISP's I know of operated on the belief that it applied to them, especially when dealing with Usenet. Because it meant we would not be responsible for the content of usenet stored on our servers.
We are repeatedly told , "net neutrality protects the little guy" â" a notion made rather suspect by the concern of the giants like Amazon.
I don't see a conflict here.
Amazon offers an on-demand video streaming service. Verizon offers an on-demand video streaming service. Verizon ALSO controls access to these services for its customers. Without Network Neutrality there is nothing to prevent Verizon from either snarling Amazon's traffic (making their service lower quality), and/or charging Amazon more for the speed/bandwidth everyone else is getting by default (making them less competitive on price).
So of course Amazon and others have a financial stake in this. The "little guy" does, too, since they're the ones who will end up paying more for inferior service at the end of the day.
The other side is new companies (aka the "little guys") that may be able to bring something innovative and new to the market, but would be hindered by anti-competitive practices by ISPs. Imagine, for example, if the major ISPs were all already offering video hosting and streaming services before YouTube was a thing... and decided that the fledgling YouTube would have to pay extra for the speed and bandwidth they needed to operate...
And if you want proof-in-the-pudding that Network Neutrality is a good thing, just look back to the bad old days before POTS providers were classified as common carrier. Once the Telecommunications Act of 1996 kicked in, competition increased and telephone service prices (especially long distance) dropped significantly, because the owners of the copper now had to treat all traffic - including the traffic of their competitors - equally.
=Smidge=
They can afford to pay AT&T whatever fees get extorted.
But they don't want to pay. Also AT&T can charge high extortion rates.
. If people can't access Google on AT&T they will switch to someone else. That can't be said for podunk rivals.
Switch to who? Most ISPs have monopolies in their markets.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Forced "neutrality" hurts them none. To cause them actual pain, promote competition. Government regulations help incumbents — be they cabbies under threat of Uber, hoteliers hurting from AirBnB, or the etablished ISPs facing off would-be competition.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The write-up this. If you wish to dispute it, you need to offer citations. When did the regulations about to be abolished come into effect?
Er? Please read up on the history before you comment.
How is this wrong?
Okay let's start out that everyone pays for a connection. Netflix pays Level 3. You pay your ISP. You pay for a Netflix subscription. Your ISP should deliver Netflix if you want; however, your ISP wants to charge Netflix to send you data that you and Netflix already paid to send. Is that simple enough?
So? Why should it be the concern of the government and the citizenry, what these private companies do?
Why should it be concern of the government if private companies are wronging the citizenry? Is that the exact question you are asking?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Nothing other than my switching to XFinity or someone else available in my area, you mean?
The good old competition argument. That would be great if there was actually someone else available. Most areas only have 1 or 2 ISPs. Both ISPs are probably content providers too, so they will both be violating neutrality. We won't have real competition on ISPs so long as they are tied to telecoms, which are natural and regulatory monopolies.
Point is, they are not "little".
No, you've taken the statement out of context and twisting words. The term "little guy" means customer and startup web sites. Yes, neutrality protects "big guys" too, but that doesn't invalidate the point or make the statement wrong.
Are you saying, YouTube became a thing after 2015? Seriously?.. Really?..
No. Smidge204 did not say that. Seriously, really. He didn't.
Bullshit. There are plenty of examples of violations of net neutrality from before and during the period when the FCC rule went into effect (and that's a very tiny list... it doesn't include Comcast throttling Netflix until Netflix paid up, ISPs who block or throttle BitTorrent, all the "zero-rating" games being played by wireless providers and a plethora of other violations.
Take your astroturfing somewhere else.