Bloomberg Op-Ed: The Internet 'Already Lost Its Neutrality' (japantimes.co.jp)

An anonymous reader quotes a new Bloomberg opinion piece on net neutrality: The internet will be filled today with denunciations of this move, threats of a dark future in which our access to content will be controlled by a few powerful companies. And sure, that may happen. But in fact, it may already have happened, led not by ISPs, but by the very companies that were fighting so hard for net neutrality... Our experience of the internet is increasingly controlled by a handful of firms, most especially Google and Facebook. The argument for regulating these companies as public utilities is arguably at least as strong as the argument for thus regulating ISPs, and very possibly much stronger; while cable monopolies may have local dominance, none of them has the ability that Google and Facebook have to unilaterally shape what Americans see, hear and read.

In other words, we already live in the walled garden that activists worry about, and the walls are getting higher every day... The fact that these firms were able to cement their power at the moment when regulators were most focused on keeping the internet open tells you just how difficult it is to get that sort of regulation right; while you are looking hard at one danger, an equally large one may be creeping up just outside the range of your peripheral vision.

Comments

Re:Finally some editorial balance on Slashdot

[ezdiy]

Apples and oranges.

What choices do you have to stay in touch with friends and family online? Honestly. Either you be the weird guy, or use facebook.

What choices do you have for fulltext search? Duckduckgo? Get real.

Compared to those monopolies (which are far more ingrained, because they have a true technological and first to market edge), AT&T and Comcast are fairly banal thing to fix as stuff they do, basically anyone can do with no complex know-how. Can happen either through competetive market (think ISPs in places like india or romania) which emerges with wild-west Laissez-faire approach, or *effectively* regulated state granted monopolies, which favors consumers (korea or even china).

Worst you can do is grant monopoly, and then not regulating it, which is pretty much what FCC is doing since Bell times. Just like break up of bell, the mission of FCC is to give de jure appearances, while making sure not to change anything about the de-facto state of affairs.

Re:Slavery is Freedom

[saloomy]

This. You dont have to look at anything from Facebook or Google if you don't want to. Walled gardens? Those are web sites. They are not walled gardens. Just because you can't see the code behind the UI doesn't mean its a walled garden.

Now, why its not the same thing. Call me a right-wing nut, call me whatever, but the big telecom companies are not the same thing. Big Tech didn't get subsidized to build out their sites. Sure, maybe some of them got some tax breaks by the local townships they choose to locate their next DC in, but almost all companies of a certain size bringing X jobs to the local market and investment dollars benefit from the same thing. What Bit Telecom gets on the other hand is strait-up tax-funded subsidies to build out that infrastructure. Cable companies enjoy local monopolies in various cities to exclusively lace coax cables in the ground, and don't have to share that infrastructure with anyone, unlike the ILECs (Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier), who have to allow other companies the right to use phone lines. That is why you can buy a T1 from just about anyone in the telecom space.

You, my dear taxpayer, have already paid the telecom companies to build out that infrastructure, and again, when your elected city councilperson granted them exclusive market access to provide each person with internet.

Under normal circumstances, where the telecom companies paid for their own poles, filed all their own permits, and paid for the access permits, equipment, and grew organically, I would agree with repealing net-neutrality. Companies should be able to use their resources how best they see fit.

But these companies are not operating in normal circumstances. I believe it was the Mann–Elkins Act that forced a walled-garden industry where you can only talk to other telephones in your telephone company network. The act forced the telecom companies to interchange calls and allow anyone in the country to talk to anyone. It did this, and gave the companies funds to complete the build-out of the phone network to the remainder of the country. Tit for tat. Thats what we have here, but backwards. We gave them what they asked for, and forgot to insist that we can all use these publicly funded networks to talk to whomever we want.

Bloomberg is gaslighting its readers.

[jbn-o]

Beware of gaslighting with this op-ed. The article reads to me as if to say, you haven't had net neutrality for a while now so don't complain when it officially goes away and you can't miss what you've lived without. So please quit pressuring Congress to intervene; you'll never notice a change when net neutrality disappears.

As others have pointed out, the article isn't really about something net neutrality will address. The problems with Facebook, Google, spying, and computer control via proprietary software are real problems that need to be dealt with. But net neutrality is about a different issue. Net neutrality is a necessary but insufficient (in itself) quality of network service. I don't want an ISP discriminating for me what other computers my computers are allowed to trade packets with, nor will the absence of net neutrality be fixed by charging me more for an Internet connection. I understand that ISPs in their power and rent-seeking will see this situation differently, but it's critical not to give businesses primacy. People need power to speak freely and be heard, not routed into yet another class system.