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Reddit, Twitter, and 200 Others Say Ending Net Neutrality Could Ruin Cyber Monday (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the avengers,-unite dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: More than 200 businesses and trade organizations have signed a letter to the FCC asking that the agency reconsider its plan to end net neutrality. The letter is signed by an array of big and recognizable tech and web companies: that includes Airbnb, Automattic (which owns WordPress), Etsy, Foursquare, GitHub, Pinterest, Reddit, Shutterstock, Sonos, Square, Squarespace, Tumblr (certainly to the displeasure of its owner, Verizon), Twitter, and Vimeo, among quite a few others. The letter is being released on Cyber Monday and speaks directly to the internet's constantly growing role in the US economy. "The internet is increasingly where commerce happens," the letter says. It cites figures saying that $3.5 billion in online sales happed last year on Cyber Monday and $3 billion on Black Friday. Throughout all of last year, online purchases accounted for $400 billion in sales.

46 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Finally, a convincing argument by HalAtWork · · Score: 5, Funny

    Finally, a convincing argument to end net neutrality

    --
    Twinstiq, game news
    1. Re:Finally, a convincing argument by Eldaar · · Score: 1

      Possible FCC Reactions:
      Oh, repealing net neutrality would hinder a free and open exchange of ideas to promote democracy and mutual understanding? That's too bad, and we disagree because....

      Wait, it might cost corporations money? Oh, maybe it is a bad idea, after all.

      ---


      Yeah, it turns out that many current officials in government will only listen when money is on the line.

    2. Re:Finally, a convincing argument by Phusion · · Score: 1

      After reading this head line, I more or less thought the same thing.. "well, they plead for sanity and that didn't work, so it's time to explain how much money they could lose"

      --
      640k ought to be enough for anyone.
    3. Re:Finally, a convincing argument by jellomizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I am a supporter of Net Neutrality. However off the wall statements doesn't help the cause. Being that I expect 80% of Cyber Monday is via Amazon, and 15% going via other big names. That these companies are willing to pay for premium access. What is more worrisome, is that in today's political climate. That pressure can be put on the ISPs to Slow down companies that they don't like. Currently CNN by the Trump administration. But when the Democrats get back in office, it could target Fox News. Slowing these services so they cannot stream, or express their views is the biggest problem that we face.

      But will ISP try to slow down normal online stores? No I doubt it, because they are not in direct competition of the ISPs, and both political parties wants us to spend money.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    4. Re:Finally, a convincing argument by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      If the ISP's cant afford to offer people full bandwidth, then they should equally cut all their bandwidth, and sell it at the speed that it actually is.

      Saying you offer Gigabit internet, while it is only Gigabit to a few sites that they choose to be Gigabit is wrong, because you are buying what you thinks is a high speed network while you actually get a slow speed network with a few choice options.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    5. Re:Finally, a convincing argument by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

      This is just /.'s what, dozenth post of editorials in favor of FCC Title II Net Neutrality rules in the last few days?

      We get it already, the /. editors are going all out to preserve FCC regulation of Internet access.

      Here's a different view, based on actual economics and studies and stuff...

      I'm one of the ones who think the FCC regulating Internet access under Title II just leads over time to established/entrenched interests using that to preserve the status quo and prevent innovation and change which might disrupt them in favor of consumers, but hey, as long as /. has a soap box, they're going to keep shouting their view over and over and over again until even people on their side are going to be so annoyed they will stop listening.

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    6. Re:Finally, a convincing argument by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 1

      I'm one of the ones who think the FCC regulating Internet access under Title II just leads over time to established/entrenched interests using that to preserve the status quo and prevent innovation and change which might disrupt them in favor of consumers, but hey, as long as /. has a soap box, they're going to keep shouting their view over and over and over again until even people on their side are going to be so annoyed they will stop listening.

      What a fantastically empty arguement! I love it. I really do. Title II leads to established/entrenched interests, right? Pretty much what we have right now. Gotcha. OK, so what then? REPEAL NN so those entrenched players can now go hogwild and do whatever the hell they want with the internet? Yeah, that makes sense.

      I think most of us don't really care much about the established/entrenched status of internet access. It just is, it's not going to change, no law will change that, and probably shouldn't even be trying. We just want those entrenched/established players kept fair and unbiased, is that really so bad?

      While we're on the subject of 'what ifs', how exactly do you envision a post NN world? A bunch of new ISP's popping up all over the place to compete with the big guys? Really? I mean come on, finish what you started, where does repeal of NN lead? Be realistic!

    7. Re:Finally, a convincing argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They can cut the bandwidth equally, with hatchet, axe, and saw.

      Sounds like a noble law.

    8. Re:Finally, a convincing argument by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      I am a supporter of Net Neutrality. However off the wall statements doesn't help the cause.

      Same trouble with opposing climate change. It's certain to be bad, but it's too abstract to get many people to care. Specific bad things to motivate people are predictions, and when people find out it's only POSSIBLE, not DEFINITE, they feel like they've been lied to and excuse themselves to go back to apathy.

    9. Re:Finally, a convincing argument by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

      You don't seem to understand how government commissions work... how they've always worked. Try looking up the history of a few of them, it's a pretty well known cycle.

      Some "reformer" says, "Hey, here's this problem, let's have a government commission make some regulations about it!" and people go, "That does sound like a problem, great idea!"

      So the regulatory commission takes it on and "solves" it with some regulations. They aren't exactly what the reformer's crowd would have done, but after some input from those being regulated, they're fairly close.

      Then some time passes, the original people aren't paying attention anymore, because it was solved with some regulations, right?

      Guess who keeps attention with dedicated employees and lobbyists? Guess who has all the industry expertise to provide to the Commission? Guess who can give great jobs after their "public service" is over? Guess who gets to tweak the rules and regulations over time to ensure they are benefited at the expense of any newer companies who want to do things differently, or who can't afford to pay for all the compliance costs now required?

      And that's how you end up with yet another regulatory body captured by those it's supposed to regulate. The wikipedia article has at least 14 U.S. examples listed, with more from other countries.

      How you solve this public choice problem is that you don't give them the power to make the rules and regulations in the first place. Then they can't do anyone any special favors and bias the regulations in favor of entrenched interests.

      But hey, as long as you can get a bunch of short-sighted people to be their patsy "reformers" to start the crony government process, I guess these companies can just get whatever they want done, right?

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
  2. Please by sexconker · · Score: 1

    Please reconsider.

    Instead of doing anything to stop you, we'll just pretend we care and ask you to stop. We don't want established players such as ourselves to have a death grip on the industry. No, not at all. So please, won't you reconsider?

  3. It's not that bad by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

    If cyber monday and black friday only get 3x an average day in sales, that's like the difference in mall sales between a Saturday and a Monday.
    I would have thought the difference was bigger than that.

    1. Re:It's not that bad by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      There's several malls around here like that.
      They're not in the main city where most people work, so during the week they don't have a lot of customers. Unless it's school holidays.

  4. Competing with AT&T is almost impossible... by MikeDataLink · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Invest in your own network infrastructure, folks.

    Well now, this is the problem isn't it. It would take billions to start a company to compete with the likes of AT&T, Verizon, and Level 3. And they will use their power to stand right in front of you at the city council meetings explaining why you shouldn't be allowed to use their poles that we the citizens paid for.

    So yeah... let's get started building our own ISPs... It's going to be a long road.

    --
    Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
    1. Re:Competing with AT&T is almost impossible... by sdinfoserv · · Score: 1

      Have you paid attention to google fiber? It collapsed due to the incredible costs and fewer than expected sign ups. Furthermore it's not the job of government to compete with enterprise in a free market system. And ultimately in those areas where voters have chosen to allow new competitors, the communications cabal's (AT&T/Comcast/Verizon) have beaten them in the court room.
      unfortunately, we do not have a free market system. The oligarchy is using its quickly amassing wealth to fund further plundering of our rights for it's own riches. Till we change how elections are funded, expect this process to accelerate.

    2. Re:Competing with AT&T is almost impossible... by rogoshen1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      free market..
      telecom industry..

      Thanks, needed a pick-me-up on this shitty Monday afternoon.

    3. Re:Competing with AT&T is almost impossible... by shentino · · Score: 2

      Good luck fighting incumbents who like to run crying foul to state legislatures into banning you from even entering the market.

      One of the few times that the feds could use "interstate commerce" and actually do some good with it.

    4. Re:Competing with AT&T is almost impossible... by Sniper98G · · Score: 1

      The massive costs they have been incurring have been because of interference from the incumbent players. They got bogged down for years in some places trying to get permission to install their fiber on poles. They ended having to trench a good bit of the fiber, which made the costs skyrocket.

    5. Re:Competing with AT&T is almost impossible... by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Re "government to compete with enterprise"
      A group of people in a walled community or a more wealthy city want to build their own new network.
      Build a local network to a well connected network location.
      Then open that network to any ISP, telco that they can attract. Pay the ISP's to connect and to keep the network connected.
      Local people build a network than pay the private sector for the "internet".
      Not really seeing the hidden hand of big government other than to ban such locally funded networks waiting to be created all over the USA.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  5. Surprise by argStyopa · · Score: 1

    Store located on Elm Street claims making Elm Street less accessible will be catastrophic.

    News at 11.

    --
    -Styopa
    1. Re:Surprise by djfunkisdead · · Score: 1

      If I had points, AC, you would get at least one. Bravo, good sir.

    2. Re:Surprise by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Thank you!

    3. Re:Surprise by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      Store located on Elm Street claims making Elm Street less accessible will be catastrophic.

      Store located on Elm Street claims making Elm Street less accessible will be a nightmare.

      FTFY

      And if it happened, would Black Friday have to be moved to the 13th?

  6. If it is that important then ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful
    OK. This is how the law makers are going to think.

    If it is that important to these players, and if they are handling that much of commerce, why the hell they did not spend enough in lobbying (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) to "educate" me using the proper channels (i.e K street firms staffed by ex senators and reps). The way I see it now, all these firms are making this load of money and they are not paying proper tribute, no no not tribute, campaign contributions, to us. Under what premise these companies expect any help from us? What part of pay to play they don't understand?

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:If it is that important then ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      True, where the heck is Google, Facebook, and Amazon? They and their founders have deep pockets and grease their palms.

  7. *sigh* What's that old saying? by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    "beware of Greeks bearing gifts"?

    Can we still say that on the internet?

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  8. This is because of secret reasons by micahraleigh · · Score: 1, Interesting

    And if you have to ask how net neutrality is protecting cyber monday then we're just going to accuse you of being stupid, mostly because we don't have any case to explain this.

    1. Re:This is because of secret reasons by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

      You walked right into that one.

      No one makes a case for saving net neutrality because there isn't one.

  9. Re: The mostest irony EVAR by peragrin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Again you are being stupid about the topic.

    What would happen is amazing paid comcast $500 million to priotize their traffic for cyber Monday? So that Wal-Mart traffic ended up going half as fast as shopping at Amazon?
    How much wouild that affect buying habits?

    Net neutrality is there to prevent that kind of scenario. Where the big rich stores get extra fast service and everyone else loses out completely.

    Stupid conservatives don't know what they are fighting. Because all they listen to us fox news.

    --
    i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
  10. Trying too hard by DeplorableCodeMonkey · · Score: 1

    There is no way in hell the ISPs are going to mess with eCommerce except where it pertains to bandwidth-heavy goods and services. That would be so greedy and such an assault on ordinary users that it would make the average Republican voter become open-minded to nationalizing the big ISPs and making utilities out of them. It would rank right up there on the level of stupid as fining grandma for downloading family photos and using Facebook to talk to her grandkids.

  11. So who do you want... by Kazoo+the+Clown · · Score: 1

    So who do you want controlling your access to the free market? Verizon, Comcast or AT&T?

    1. Re:So who do you want... by Dragonslicer · · Score: 5, Funny

      So who do you want controlling your access to the free market? Verizon, Comcast or AT&T?

      Wait, I get a choice?

    2. Re:So who do you want... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      So who do you want controlling your access to the free market? Verizon, Comcast or AT&T?

      Wait, I get a choice?

      No, not really. Just the illusion of choice.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    3. Re:So who do you want... by burtosis · · Score: 1

      The illusion being it's possible to chose someone who provides bandwidth, service and pricing that is half decent.

    4. Re:So who do you want... by Xyrus · · Score: 1

      Actually, rolling back net neutrality might be a good thing. Think about it. People are saying we're becoming zoned into all of our devices. We're always online, we don't talk to people anymore, so on and so forth. I think this is exactly what's needed to get us back to real socializing.

      So let the big ISPs start treating the internet like cable. Let them charge $20 for acces to facebook, $50 for access to netflix, etc. Internet access is already ridiculously expensive when compared to other developed countries, and this will just make it more expensive. With the middle and lower classes being treated like a coastal village in a Viking raid, there won't be many who will put up with it.

      I'll miss the internet. It was great while it lasted. But the second they let corporations rub their fetid greedy taints on it that was the beginning of the end. Now with a full blown cast of neo-fascist corporate kleptocrats in charge, it really is only a matter of time before it's destroyed in the name of profits.

      Tired of winning yet Trump voters? Just wait until they pass their precious tax plan and they shove that big ol' rusty spiked dildo straight up your ass. Since none of them can do math, it will be especially precious to hear all the bitching about that when they finally realize just how much they're getting screwed with that deal.

      --
      ~X~
  12. Re:The mostest irony EVAR by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    Where's that eye rolling emoji support on Slashdot when you need it most?

    Then I would use it on your post. Thanks I'll be here all week. Try the fish and tip your waitstaff.

    But seriously having rules to keep ISPs from preventing a free and open internet is exactly what's needed considering how they have tried to mess with it before. It's like those ridiculous warning sign label you've seen: "Do not lift lawn mower when it is running." It's ridiculous but you have to think there's a reason they are there. Some idiot cut his fingers and sued because there wasn't a label.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  13. Re: The mostest irony EVAR by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    Technically 1/2 the speed probably wouldn't be a big difference for online stores. I doubt it would be that noticeable. 30mbs vs 15mbs or even 2mbs vs 1mbs.

    Where it would be more of an issue is for, the time sensitive releases. Such as a new iPhone that gets sold out in 5 minutes online, or The hottest sale which has a quick time to buy. So the ISP can slow down access to that site, so you don't get the deal, then if you still want it, you may go to the next lowest priced version who happens to be paying you for the speed.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  14. The FCC is not above the law by volkris · · Score: 4, Informative

    Fortunately, the FCC isn't empowered to make such decisions on their own. The tech companies need to be speaking to Congress if they want the laws changed, and legislators will work on legislation to change the US government policy.

    I assume the tech giants, knowing how our government is set up, understand this and are just using their letter as a publicity stunt.

    In any case, we absolutely should not promote the idea that regulatory agencies have such a free hand to implement whatever policies they can be convinced to implement.

  15. Re:A boycott - cancel your internet NOW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Right on!

    I'm with you. I just cancelled my inter

    [NO CARRIER]

  16. Re:Reddit's stance confuses me. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    In my experience and opinion, Reddit's discussion platform has been one of the least-neutral and least-open and least-free discussion platforms that I've ever encountered. If you don't express the "correct" opinions, you'll often be modded down. It's not unusual to be completely banned from subreddits merely for expressing a unique or unconventional opinion.

    Let me translate: "I posted child porn and calls for Jews to be exterminated and subreddits banned me!"

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  17. Re:Reddit's stance confuses me. by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

    How about going to /r/space and being shadow banned for unpopular (but backed up with numbers) opinion because you happen to have worked on rockets and you end up arguing with a 6th grader who watched star trek and played Kerbal space program.

  18. Re: The mostest irony EVAR by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

    How much wouild that affect buying habits?

    Not at all

  19. Re:A boycott - cancel your internet NOW by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

    You first. I'll keep mine, as I don't live in USA.
    I'll just chuckle to myself as the internet over there gets renamed to Facebook

  20. Re:Reddit's stance confuses me. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    How about going to /r/space and being shadow banned for unpopular (but backed up with numbers) opinion because you happen to have worked on rockets and you end up arguing with a 6th grader

    The problem came when you tried to get the 6th grader to meet you at a public restroom.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  21. Re:Audio, Video sharing has been the victim of NN by bugs2squash · · Score: 1

    It's the new company that you have not heard of yet that you should worry about. Entrenching the incumbents is a conservative value, disruptive ideas must cease. If only they had gotten to this earlier youtube and netflix could have been nipped in the bud.

    --
    Nullius in verba
  22. Re:Reddit's stance confuses me. by Mashiki · · Score: 1

    Let me translate: "I posted child porn and calls for Jews to be exterminated and subreddits banned me!"

    What can get you banned from /r/politics: "Trump is doing okay." What can get you banned from /r/europe: "Migrants are causing a surge of crime" - including crime statistics with country of origin. What get's you banned from /r/canadianpolitics: "illegals surging into Canada are taking resources from Canadians already struggling."

    Sure is a lot of CP and calling for "jews to be exterminated" are you sure you're not just projecting? You know like all those left-wing feminst progressives that claimed gamergate was doing something, but instead down the road they were raping women, calling in bomb threats to synagogues, operating fake porn modeling agencies, and so on. Yeah...tough luck on that one I guess.

    --
    Om, nomnomnom...