One Year After Net Neutrality Repeal, America's Democrats Warn 'The Fight Continues' (cnet.com)

CNET just published a fierce pro-net neutrality editorial co-authored by Nancy Pelosi, the soon-to-be Majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, with Mike Doyle, the expected Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, and Frank Pallone, Jr. the expected Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The three representatives argue that "the Trump FCC ignored millions of comments from Americans pleading to keep strong net neutrality rules in place." The FCC's net neutrality repeal left the market for broadband internet access virtually lawless, giving ISPs an opening to control peoples' online activities at their discretion. Gone are rules that required ISPs to treat all internet traffic equally. Gone are rules that prevented ISPs from speeding up traffic of some websites for a fee or punishing others by slowing their traffic down....

Without the FCC acting as sheriff, it is unfortunately not surprising that big corporations have started exploring ways to change how consumers access the Internet in order to benefit their bottom line.... Research from independent analysts shows that nearly every mobile ISP is throttling at least one streaming video service or using discriminatory boosting practices. Wireless providers are openly throttling video traffic and charging consumers extra for watching high-definition streams. ISPs have rolled out internet plans that favor companies they are affiliated with, despite full-page ads swearing they value net neutrality. And most concerning, an ISP was found throttling so-called "unlimited" plans for a fire department during wildfires in California.

Make no mistake, these new practices are just ISPs sticking a toe in the water. Without an agency with the authority to investigate and punish unfair or discriminatory practices, ISPs will continue taking bolder and more blatantly anti-consumer steps. That is why we have fought over the past year to restore net neutrality rules and put a cop back on the ISP beat. In May, the U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan bill restoring net neutrality rules. Despite the support of a bipartisan majority of Americans, the Republican leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives refused our efforts to bring the bill to the floor for a vote.

Fortunately, the time is fast coming when the people's voices will be heard.
The editorial closes by arguing that "Large corporations will no longer be able to block progress on this important consumer protection issue."

Comments

Re:Just give it up already

[Anonymous Coward]

The world was fine before NN, the world is fine after it, focus on things that matter. Like going outside for once.

Where do I go to find shilling opportunities like this? How well does it pay?

Re:Just give it up already

[K. S. Kyosuke]

The world was fine before NN

You mean before the Internet as a whole? Sure... for some people, at least.

Re:How are you even posting this?

[UnknowingFool]

Didn’t the Internet come to an end? I was told it was an Internet armageddon, and I wouldn’t be able to post this comment without paying an extra surcharge to Verizon or some other bogeyman. But here I am, paying no such surcharge.

That you know about. Tell how much of your Netflix monthly fee goes to pay off the likes of Comcast and Verizon? What about Amazon Video?

Re:How are you even posting this?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

A list of attacks on net neutrality that you've missed

Do democrats call for common carrier?

[fustakrakich]

If not, fuck 'em. This is theater. The democrats warn 'The drama continues'. SNAFU

You were told nothing of the sort

[rsilvergun]

you were told there would be less competition, increased prices, bad outcomes for rural communities and a general tightening of mega corporation's control of the Internet. All of this is continuing apace nicely. Now, Net Neutrality is only one, albeit substantial, part in all that.

This is what drives me nuts about right wingers. Everything has to be simple, black and white. This is why we can't do anything about climate change. Because the damage not painfully, stupendously obvious.

It's the same folks who will argue, with a straight face and without irony or ill intent, that we can repeal regulations that were put in place to stop a problem because the problem no longer occurs... somehow completely missing the point that the problem stopped occurring because we put regulations in place to prevent it.

This is how we got the 2008 market crash. Regulations in place to prevent risky investment banking from mixing with safe mortgage banking were relaxed or eliminated in the name of "unleashing the free market" and "job creation". Those regulations were there for a reason. What's worse is because removing the regulations didn't immediately crash the economy folks act like it was middle class folks buying homes that crashed the country and not the billionaires gambling on them (nevermind that most of the defaults were not on people's primary residence but were investment properties themselves).

The world is a complicated place. Bad things happen for complex reasons and if you want them to stop happening you need to listen to experts because they spend years studying a problem.

TL;DR: For every sufficiently complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant and wrong.

Re:You were told nothing of the sort

[Kohath]

Fearmongering is not complex.

Re:You were told nothing of the sort

[Bruinwar]

Not true. Community Reinvestment Act was never about making loans to people with bad credit. The "regulations being ignored" started 2002 by George W. Bush:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re: You were told nothing of the sort

[Anonymous Coward]

It's bitztream the custom EpiPen-hating, autism-hating, Musk-hating, Qualcomm-hating, Firefox tabs-hating, Slashdot editors-hating Slashdot troll!

Re:You were told nothing of the sort

[Kohath]

Fearmongering is not complex.

No, it's an effective political tool which works all to well on left leaning voters.

It actually works across the political spectrum. People should grow the fuck up and stop letting themselves be manipulated by anyone who tells them a story. Being fooled into mindless states of emo anxiety every day is a waste of humanity.

Re:How are you even posting this?

[Rick Schumann]

Try actually lifting your head and looking around you instead of staring at the ground all the time and shuffling your feet, muttering to yourself under your breath, and maybe you'll see what's actually going on around you.

Re:In before SuperFaggot Ken Doll blathers apologi

[Rick Schumann]

Oh, they got rid of the 'swamp'. They just built a cesspool in it's place, and called it an 'upgrade'.
Look at who's been appointed to important government posts, and how either underqualified they are, or how corrupt they are, or how much of a personal agenda they have, or all the above, and you'll see what I mean.

I get to trot out my Net Nuetrality comment

[rsilvergun]

again. At this point I like to do this in every thread, specifically:

1. There's an election in 2 years.
2. Vote in your primary. Most people don't, meaning your primary vote has many, many times more power. Politicians don't fear losing in the general, they fear being primaried.
3. Vote for candidates who refuse corporate PAC money. Google "Justice Democrats" and "Our Revolution".

What follows here is pure, angry white man ranting. Stop reading if that offends you. Or just keep reading if you enjoy being offended.

4. Yes, this is a partisan issue. I know of no GOP candidates who reliably support NN. The ones that do have only done so when they could be sure no strong regulations would pass.
5. Speaking of partisan issues, I don't know a single GOP candidate who refuses corporate PAC money. I'm open to suggestions though. But until then I won't even consider voting for them. You can't serve two masters.

Folks like to act like everyone has America's best interests at heart. And it's divisive as hell to suggest otherwise. I'm sorry folks, but this is a science forum, and science is founded on evidence. The GOP has spent the last 40 years serving the rich and well connected. The Dems have been doing it since Clinton, but I can find a wing of their party who wants to serve the people (again, google Justice Democrats. Or go look up the Bernie Bros).

The GOP is at this point irredeemable. There's nothing left there except a pro-corporate, pro ruling elite engine dedicated to shifting wealth upstream. You might have some social issues that are so important to you that you're overlooking that (abortion, gun control, stopping Mexican immigration, I'm already baiting a -2 troll moderation with this post so might as well go all in and keep digging). But if we're going to sit hear and tell ourselves we're a science and tech forum dedicated to evidence based reasoning then we can no longer ignore the obvious. Folks need to realize they're making a trade. You're trading your economic and political freedoms (the real ones, not the imaginary ones where you can have guns and pretend you can somehow overthrow a government with a modern army) for whatever pet issue keeps you siding with the GOP. If folks at least acknowledge the trade maybe they can start questioning if it's worth it?

Or maybe we're about to drag all of human civilization into another 1000 years of aristocratic dystopia. We'll find out in 2 years.

Re:I get to trot out my Net Nuetrality comment

[hey!]

You can also volunteer to canvas and phone bank for a candidate whose views you support. If that sounds like it sucks, it does kinda, and it's fun at the same time. In other words its an interesting experience and I think you should try it.

Here's why: the dirty little secret of popular democracy is that most voters are apathetic and don't pay much attention. About half them don't even show up in any given election, and many those that do aren't really clear on what's at stake and end up voting out of habit.

In this system the parties line up on either side of a largely arbitrary scrum line and try to gradually push that inert mass of apathetic habit voters in the direction they want it to go, election by election. Influence equals overcoming the inertia of that mass of voters, and money is very influential. But there are still some things nobody is rich enough to buy, yet. Not in quantity.

Think about how reluctant you'd be to spend a day hiking through a strange neighborhood and knocking on the doors of people you don't know to talk to them about politics. How much would they have to pay you to do that for a candidate you didn't care about one way or the other? And there you have it: even big political money can't afford to put many people like you on the ground, shifting fence sitters and connecting your candidate's positions to things that are important to apathetic voters.

The foundation of democracy isn't voting, it's persuasion. Voting is just a measure of how well you've done your persuasion. You as an ordinary citizen can shift an electoral result by as many as a dozen votes in a single afternoon of canvassing. And after all, you probably attempt to do that kind online all the time. Get your ass out and do it where it'll make a difference for a change.

You haven't really participated in democracy until you've tried to motivate a voter.

For the umpteenth time

[Solandri]

The FCC's net neutrality repeal left the market for broadband internet access virtually lawless, giving ISPs an opening to control peoples' online activities at their discretion.

No it didn't. Awarding these ISPs local monopolies with insufficient guidelines and regulatory oversight is what caused that. The ISPs do not have natural monopolies. Their monopolies were granted to them by the local governments. This is a regulatory failure, not a market failure. If this regulated market for broadband internet access is virtually lawless, it's because the regulators made it that way.

Instead of Net Neutrality, why not just do it the easy way and fix the original regulation - rescind the ISPs' monopolies and allow competition. At this point, I'm beginning to suspect the politicians (both sides) don't want to do this. As long as the ISPs have a government-granted monopoly, they're beholden to the government. The ISPs will continue to donate to the parties to maintain those monopolies. Allowing competition would mean there's no more reason for the ISPs to stuff the politicians' wallets. So instead the politicians advocate Net Neutrality, which allows them to have their cake and to eat it too. The monopolies remain so the ISPs continue making campaign contributions, while the politicians appease the public by appearing to be against the "terrible ISPs and their monopolies" (never mind the politicians are the ones who gave them those monopolies).

Re:For the umpteenth time

[Gravis Zero]

Their monopolies were granted to them by the local governments.
...
Instead of Net Neutrality, why not just do it the easy way and fix the original regulation - rescind the ISPs' monopolies and allow competition.

Unless you are suggesting regulation to rescind the ability of local governments to grant monopolies in the first place (I can already hear the screams of government overreach) then you are saying we should fix the law in 89432 local governments (and then maintaining and protecting them forever) instead of fixing the law in only one government, the federal government.

One's a fool's errand and the other is possible. If you can't tell the two apart then you are the fool.

Re: For the umpteenth time

[kenh]

No, you became the monopoly, you aren't competing with a monopoly.

Yes, and I still am being told it

[Kohath]

Even the other people who responded to my comment are still saying (or implying) the most exaggerated bullshit arguments are all secretly true.

That's the argument style of fearmongering:

1. Make up bullshit stories
2. Bullshit stories don’t happen.
3. When someone points out bullshit stories were bullshit:
3a. claim "no one ever said" the stuff in the bullshit stories
3b. while simultaneously also saying "yes, it all happened" and
3c. "it will all happen, just wait".

"The Internet without net neutrality will be a Wild West of extra fees and censorship."

Re:How are you even posting this?

[wyattstorch516]

Zero for me. I'm one of the people who would much rather prefer to use the DVD option with 10 times the selection rather than the constantly shrinking offerings on the streaming side. But I'm one of the abnormal people who prefer to only watch television for a couple of hours at a time as opposed to sitting on the couch and binging on TV for eleven hours straight.

NN Sucks... kinda

[wolfheart111]

The consumer should be the one reaping the benefits of watching all the crap online. Get youtube to pay the consumer for hours spent watching them, get FB to pay a portion or the add revenue to the consumer ect.

Re:How are you even posting this?

[meglon]

That's pretty rich coming from an incel like you who hangs on every lie Trump says.

If your only response has to come by way of strawman arguments or outright lying, you probably should just shut the fuck up from the get go, because you're absolutely useless to the conversation. Why is it worthless fucking idiots like you lie so much?

Re:How are you even posting this?

[meglon]

Apparently people also don't remember that when Ma Bell broke up they had zero choice of ISP's because ISP's didn't exist in 1982.

I say that as a point because,once again, i have to point out that the restrictions on local/municipal ISP's being built out HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH NET NEUTRALITY. You're right though, some of these carriers have taken billions in tax money to guarantee rural development of lines and haven't done it. Those companies should be fined 10times what they took and didn't follow through on, but.... THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH NET NEUTRALITY.

The consumer will benefit

[fred911]

as soon as legislators wake up to the reality that connectivity is a pipe and is treated the same as any other public utility. Let them sell users features users care to purchase, but don't touch the pipes contents. Treat packets like water, gas or electricity, without the owner of the pipe able to modify content carried.

  How hard is that to understand?

Re:How are you even posting this?

[Kohath]

That's pretty rich coming from an incel like you who hangs on every lie Trump says.
 

We need some sort of Godwin's law for mentioning Trump.

Trump says ridiculous bullshit all the time. Who would have imagined such imperfect veracity from a politician? Politicians are known for being faultless truth-tellers, aren't they?

Re:How are you even posting this?

[UnknowingFool]

So the answer to government monopoly making mess...is MOAR government? Does that make ANY sense?

And your answer is THE WILD WEST! Everyone will police themselves right?

Open up the last mile to competition so that everyone can have multiple choices in ISPs again!

And how would that be possible considering? That's like saying we should solve world hunger by making more food.

The US taxpayer paid paid over 200 BILLION dollars for nationwide services we did NOT get [reddit.com] so just like anyone else who gets paid and rips off the customer we should take them to court and they can either give us what we paid for or we seize the last mile.

And yet you advocate that the same ISPs are not regulated? That makes no sense.

The answer to this is not NN because that isn't gonna mean shit if you don't do anything about the duopoly (or in many areas monopoly) controlling the last mile as without competition they have no reason to improve service or give a flying fuck. Make it easier for towns to start their own broadband, open up the last mile, and you'll see all this nastiness dry up and blow away like a fart in the breeze because if your ISP starts acting like a douche?

Your entire argument is a strawman argument. No one has every said Net Neutrality is the solution to monopoly. Net Neutrality is the only way the Internet can really function.

Just walk across the street and go somewhere else!

Do you live in my neighborhood because if you did you'd know that isn't the solution to the problem.

Re:How are you even posting this?

[UnknowingFool]

So because it doesn't affect you because of your choices, it doesn't affect me?

What has gone wrong with NN "gone"?

[SuperKendall]

Since you've the highest rated post, I'll just drop the question here for all - since NN was dropped a year ago, what are the bad effects that have happened as a result?

I see absolutely none so far. So why did we need 30 pages of regulation that NO ONE here understood, at all.

I covered all that in my comment

[rsilvergun]

if you'd bother to read it. Vote in your primary for the candidates who refuse corporate PAC money. At the moment that requires you to vote Democrat because there is literally no GOP politician who doesn't take bribes in the form of campaign contributions. There are plenty on the Dems side.

Any time you want you can end political corruption by committing to vote against anyone who accepts corporate PAC donations in their primary. You just don't want to because guys like Donald Trump tell you want you want to hear and make you feel good about yourself. They appeal to your baser emotions.

Thing is they have consistently left you high and dry with a nasty cocktail of trickle down economics, winner take all crony-capitalism and overt racism used to keep you divided from your fellows in the working class so that you'll excuse to gross wealth inequality they desire. Face it, you've been had. Sooner you admit that sooner you can show up at your primary and do something about it.

Thanks, I am

[rsilvergun]

fat lot of good it does me. I don't want to just be right. I want to be successful. I do what I can in my personal life to make that happen, but there's only so much you can do when the system is built to crush you. I've got family with illnesses, and thanks to the GOP's corrupt healthcare system (which the Clinton Dems went along with) I've spent the last 10 years struggling.

In another 2-3 years I _might_ finally get out from under all of it, I might not. It depends on what folks like you do next. Will you stop uselessly insulting me on /. with nonsense like "you so wolk" and realize that, as a member of the working class, the right wing who's taken you in and made you feel welcome while they roast you over a fire and dine on your flesh aren't your friends? I hope so. God I hope so.

Re:Thanks, I am

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand how badly you need someone/something to blame your problems on but its not helping you. "The GOP's corrupt healthcare system"? Start with the insane over-regulation of the industry, the AMA's absurd limits on the number of medical licenses they allow to be issued, the crazy cost of med school driven by the non-dischargable loan industry, burdensome malpractice liability/costs put on med professionals by the trial lawyer racket and most recently the mandated ACA laws that have done nothing but drive costs up even more. None of that is the result of conservative policy. Quite the opposite.

Also I'm not sure how its my fault that you're suffering from your acquaintances medical problems of a decade ago. Yes, you must think its my fault since you expect me to pay for it. Do you realize that you could've just declared bankruptcy back then and the negative consequences of that would've been behind you 3+ years ago? That's why bankruptcy laws exist, so folks in your situation can get a fresh start.

In conclusion, stop feeling sorry for yourself and blaming the boogeyman for your own poor decisions.

Re:How are you even posting this?

[wyattstorch516]

If having to spend an extra couple of dollars each month to watch TV is too onerous for you then why don't you try not watching as much? Read a book instead you will be better off.

So none of that has come to pass, as we said

[SuperKendall]

you were told there would be less competition, increased prices, bad outcomes for rural communities and a general tightening of mega corporation's control of the Internet.

There is more competition (I just recently FINALLY got unlimited data hotspot service on T-Mobile via an MVNO). That's for a rural user so that's a twofer form your list there....

My prices have not increased at all.

The mega corporations control over the internet has increased. But what was Network Neutrality going to ever do about users being banned and deplatformed from social media?

It's the same folks who will argue, with a straight face and without irony or ill intent, that we can repeal regulations that were put in place to stop a problem because the problem no longer occurs...

Wrong. It's because the problem NEVER EXISTED. The few times any ISP's got out of hand the FCC slapped them down, under the same rules we all live under right now.

Also, the regulations were set to create way worse problems - but thankfully they were repealed so none of that came to pass.

The world is a complicated place. Bad things happen for complex reasons

So your argument appears to be, let's make it way the fuck more complicated for ISP's to operate, and sit back and watch the carnage. Brilliant.

For every sufficiently complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant and wrong.

I find it HIGHLY amusing how very perfectly this describes the supposedly simple, *30-page* network neutrality regulations you keep trying to force down everyones throat.

Re:So none of that has come to pass, as we said

[fustakrakich]

:-) Your appeal to authority precedes you. Regulating the ISP as a common carrier will solve most of the problems. They have no business prioritizing content over the internet. That's like telling you who you can call on the phone.

Without the FCC acting as sheriff

[nospam007]

Let's hope the sheriff is not named John Brown, even if Bob Marley is dead, Eric Clapton is still much alive.

Re:Fight continues

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Neither party cares about the people or even knows what NN is.

What annoys me, is that both parties have transformed the NN issue into their own political football, which they both kick around, trying to score points for their party, while making them look better, and the other party look worse.

The NN football and the people are the ones that always lose in this match.

Re:How are you even posting this?

[fustakrakich]

Two little words: common carrier

Re:How are you even posting this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I say that as a point because,once again, i have to point out that the restrictions on local/municipal ISP's being built out HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH NET NEUTRALITY. You're right though, some of these carriers have taken billions in tax money to guarantee rural development of lines and haven't done it. Those companies should be fined 10times what they took and didn't follow through on, but.... THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH NET NEUTRALITY.

Sometimes (well quite often) people confuse correlation with causation. They see the results of bad government, and assume the correct answer is less government. As with most things, the answer can be complex. Sometimes less government is the answer. Sometimes, however, you simply need competent government. Let's presuppose net neutrality is a great idea. It is, but I'm not going to spend time on it here. Let's presuppose that some ISPs avoid offering service in some areas because NN cuts into their profits too much. Now, given those two things, which of these solutions make the most sense?

1. Kill NN and hope for market magic.

2. Do not kill NN and hope for market magic.

3. Keep net neutrality, but monitor the actual situation addressing it as needed. If that means punishing those that have gone back on their promises, then do it. If that means the best deal is to build the last mile through bids, then open up things to competition, then do it. If what you just did didn't work out well, then refine it.

In short, politicians need to do their jobs, which includes recognizing when to stay out of the market and when not to, and, most of all, being willing to adapt based on actual conditions.

Basically you can repeat this solution for pretty much every major problem in government. How we ever got a world where we assume that only one extreme ideology or another can be the only way to go boggles the mind.

The reason you're not seeing competition

[rsilvergun]

is because capital costs and profit margins are too high. That sounds like a contradiction, and that's the trouble. Like a lot of things it doesn't work the way you'd expect it to.

Let's say you decide to compete with Comcast. You're gonna have to spend billions of your own dollars on infrastructure. You might be tempted because Comcast charges $100-$140/mo for something that costs maybe $10-$15/mo to actually provide. You could, over time, do it for $50/mo and make a killing.

Except Comcast knows this. They can and will drop their price to $20/mo and still make good money. Meanwhile you need to charge $50/mo for a decade or more to cover the interest on the loans you took out to finance all that infrastructure you built.

The real problem here is you're trying to put a square peg into a round hole. We _all_ want telecommunications. It's as essential and valuable as food and water. We couldn't live without it. Our civilization would collapse without the ability to spread information. For one thing we couldn't make enough food.

When something's that important and that universal you stop letting private corporations handle it. That's why we have a post office. But don't take my word for it, here's a much better list of the reasons not to privatize industries and how to tell the difference between something that belongs in the public and something that should be private.

Re:The reason you're not seeing competition

[Orgasmatron]

Can you please explain why I have three different fiber options then? According to your theory, it was impossible for the 2nd and 3rd fiber plants to get built in my area.

Re: The reason you're not seeing competition

[kenh]

'It's as essential as ... food' & 'that's why you don't let private companies. Intros it'

Did I miss something? When did the public sector take over food production in America?

Re:The reason you're not seeing competition

[Uberbah]

is because capital costs and profit margins are too high.

That and market consolidation that will leave you with a single provider in the end anyway. Like how AT&T reconstituted itself in the decades since it was broken up in an anti-trust lawsuit.

Re:Just give it up already

[sabri]

NN is for Democrats what Abortion is to conservatives. They both will never give up.

In other news

[Orgasmatron]

In other news, download speeds up 35.8%, upload speeds up 22.0% in the year since the repeal.

https://www.speedtest.net/reports/united-states/

Furthermore like I menationed in my post

[rsilvergun]

the vast majority of bad loans were on investment properties. It was boomers buying houses to rent and flip with their life savings because they hadn't been able to save enough to retire on. That's what made the bubble burst so bad. The bubble wasn't driven by loans on people's primary domicile, so there was no effort to keep the properties. When it became clear they were going to lose money everybody bailed at once and the whole scheme collapsed. It might have lasted long enough to get to the next big tech boom if it was only low risk mortgages instead of rental and investment properties that made up the Credit Default Swaps out there.

Civilization yes

[rsilvergun]

humanity no. We need more and better information and technology (and yes, technology is really just information that's been applied) or eventually our civilization will collapse just like all the prior ones did. It's like a race you're trying to stay ahead of.

And thanks to robots & automation we don't need very many to generate concrete value. The lack of work for people to do in a society built around trading work for food is a major problem. 86% of the manufacturing jobs lost to the US were to robots, not Mexicans or the Chinese. We're wasting our time fighting outsourcing when we need to come up with new ways to distribute wealth.

I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, especially ones like this that are pretty likely just foreign nationals stirring up trouble. On the plus side even I can spot this one. It's not nearly as good as the ones I saw during the last two elections.

Re:How are you even posting this?

[Kohath]

Tell how much of your Netflix monthly fee goes to pay off the likes of Comcast and Verizon? What about Amazon Video?

Why do I care about Netflix's gross profit margins? Why should anyone care?

Re: How are you even posting this?

[riverat1]

Open up the last mile to competition so that everyone can have multiple choices in ISPs again.

Won't work without extensive regulations to make it happen.

Regulation #1: The last mile provider is not allowed to own any source of content for the web other than a web page for their customers to interact with them.

Regulation #2: The last mile provider must allow any entity that is a source of content for the web access equal to what any other content provider receives.

I think that about covers it but I could be missing something.

For the umpteenth time - a Zombie talking point

[Uberbah]

The ISPs do not have natural monopolies.

But of course they do. Aside from rsilvergun's point on the high capital costs of rolling out a network and the enormous advantages held by an established player - there's also market consolidation. Which will leave you with a handful (or less) of providers in the end, anyway. Case in point: AT&T was broken up in an anti-trust suit decades ago, but has totally rebuilt itself via acquisitions and mergers.

Re:Just give it up already

[Can'tNot]

Why... you're right! We should just get rid of the internet. And computers. And humans. The world was doing fine before those things, the world will be fine once they're gone.

Because several fiber options were rolled out

[rsilvergun]

before folks figured this out, and you got lucky and are in a major city where they were rolled out.

The rest of the country isn't so lucky. Nobody's rolling out much fiber anymore, and the ones that are are the major players (AT&T & Comcast) doing it here and there when they're paid by a specific municipality and that municipality is one of the rare ones that doesn't let them take the money and run.

Re:How are you even posting this?

[UnknowingFool]

I'm not talking anything about how much money Netflix makes. I'm talking about how much the Verizon surcharge to Netflix affects your monthly fee. Sure Netflix could just eat the surcharge but as a company they have to make money or they won't survive.

Re:How are you even posting this?

[UnknowingFool]

If having to spend an extra couple of dollars each month to watch TV is too onerous for you then why don't you try not watching as much? Read a book instead you will be better off.

So you don't mind paying extra money means that everyone who does should read a book? Why does everyone have to do what you want them to do?

Re: How are you even posting this?

[Kohath]

...what you pay for service will go up to maintain the profit.

Versus paying the same dollars to my ISP.

The world-endingly important thing is a made-up story about how someday I might have to pay Netflix an extra $1 instead of paying that $1 to my ISP. Then (the story goes) Netflix will pay my ISP that $1. It's breathtakingly, Earth-shatteringly important.

Re:How are you even posting this?

[Kohath]

I'm not talking anything about how much money Netflix makes. I'm talking about how much the Verizon surcharge to Netflix affects your monthly fee. Sure Netflix could just eat the surcharge but as a company they have to make money or they won't survive.

Poor little Netflix is just barely hanging on in this story.

Re: How are you even posting this?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's bitztream the autism-hating, custom EpiPen-hating, Musk-hating, Qualcomm-hating, Firefox tabs-hating, Slashdot editors-hating Slashdot troll!

Re:Just give it up already

[hey!]

Forget about fire. There was a world before fire. People used to bang rocks together for a living, and it worked for them.

Re:How are you even posting this?

[fustakrakich]

Wrong, common carrier (A neutral net) allows anybody to host anything. They are there to sell bandwidth, if they want to sell content, that's fine too, they just can't prioritize or block anything. That would be like allowing an advertiser to interrupt a phone call to sell you some life insurance. Give the service provider a switch, not a router. You filter the content at your end.

But yet, Internet speed has gone up.

[MtViewGuy]

Why? I can attribute it to Comcast.

Yes, that "hated" company. Comcast has rolled out DOCSIS 3.1 gigabit Internet to much of the country over the course of 2018, and most Comcast service areas should offer it in the next few months. With gigabit speeds, stutter-free 4K video streaming becomes normal even on multiple channels being streamed. And it may lead to the beginning of the change to mostly on-demand watching of scripted content (with the exception of sports and certain other events that demand "live" coverage). And opens the possibility of high-definition virtual reality.

And this is only the beginning: the arrival of 5G wireless by Verizon and AT&T and SpaceX's Starlink system in 2021 could make gigabit Internet available everywhere in the USA without the enormous expense of the "last mile/kilometer" connection to the user's residence or business location.

Re:How are you even posting this?

[UnknowingFool]

Poor little Kohath doesn't understand companies need to make money. Netflix isn't a non-profit

Re:How are you even posting this?

[UnknowingFool]

I did. The OP said he wasn't paying a surcharge. I told exactly how he's a paying a surcharge. Why don't you add something to the conversation?

Re:How are you even posting this?

[UnknowingFool]

A quick search of WHO says you're just dead wrong. That doesn't cover Yemen or North Korea.

Re: You are a fucking moron.

[UnknowingFool]

How does more food help Yemen or North Korea? In the case of Yemen, a war makes it hard to deliver food to people. In the case of North Korea, the authoritarian government is the cause. What about South Sudan right now?

So,

[BitztreamNotARealNam]

How's life in the hypocrite lane?