No one expects them to actually expire because there is bipartisan support for renewing them
Meaning whoever is in power at the time will have to decide between sinking the country even further in debt, or raising taxes on the rich again. Only one of those is likely to garner donor support.
That already played out once with the Bush tax cuts and Obama
And 2008 showed just how well Bush' economic policies worked out! Oh but of course we're supposed to blame Obama for that crash, even though it started several months before he took office. I mean Trump takes credit for things that happened before he was president.. I don't see why Obama shouldn't be afforded the same luxury right?!
The top 1% already pay more federal income taxes than the bottom 90% pay
Which is a pretty good indicator of income inequality given that those top 1% only pay a bit over 10% higher than the middle class rates last year (39.5% vs 25-28%,) and even less after Trump's cuts.
spending growing much faster than the increase in revenue has increased.
Yes, and drastically cutting income (ie: taxes) from the largest revenue source (the 1%, by your own admission) is not really helping the issue now is it?
Saying "we are borrowing money to give it away to the ultra rich" is ridiculous. We're borrowing money to pay for excessive government spending.
That previously was paid for by the ultra rich and no longer is. You can play with words as much as you want but the math works out the same in the end -- the rich get richer on the backs of everyone else.
That quote is rather irrelevant, unless you've got a few spare Earths laying around to run experiments on..?
Assuming you don't, our next best option is to model the data we have as accurately as possible and make predictions based on those models.
So far all of the models predict "we're fucked if we don't change our ways" even if they don't all agree on how badly or how soon we're fucked, with some even suggesting we're past the point of changing our ways and fucked no matter what.
There's a reason why the climate scientists (and yes, I feel justified using the generalized term!) report actual data generated from actual models while the deniers tend to go with things like opinion polls -- the deniers just don't have a whole lot of data to work with and much of what they do have is pretty questionable.
Subsurface conduits aren't a whole lot better. Sure they're not an ongoing ugliness but any time they need to be serviced, you have to dig up the entire street. Still not great, even if you can convince the companies to foot the bill (which of course means customers foot the bill -- company money doesn't appear out of thin air..)
I agree its the least of our current problems, mostly because its irrelevant when competition is already restricted in so many other ways (legal, political, etc.)
People who've never known freedom definitely do not value it as much as you or I, and the will to survive is an exceptionally strong driving factor in human psychology.
The statistical fact is that if you stopped persecuting Blacks, they'd stop committing crimes
Not really true. Crime rates are primarily tied to poverty levels more than anything. We just don't hear as much about all the white trash crime out there because its easier to be racist than to deal with problems.
since we stopped poisoning Blacks with lead.
Yeah, that certainly helps too. Though that was a fairly limited sample set and can hardly be applied to the rest of the country.
Unfortunately economics is against you. If standard price is say, $10 and they offer this $50 "VIP" showing that means they have to bring in 20% of the audience size to break even. I'm pretty sure there is less than 20% of the population is willing to spend 5x the price for a movie simply to avoid the crowds.
That is, they're willing to forego your $50 if it means 6 people who are happy to pay $10 will show up instead.
Typically the "broadly categorized group" is "anyone who doesn't agree with us." Race has little bearing on it. Race only really comes into play in the sense that concentration camps are usually setup during war times and you're typically warring against another race/culture/country.
And of course definitions change over time. There were as many German concentration camps in North America as there were Japanese ones, or perhaps more. But of course these days Germans are thought of as part of the "white" race rather than the "German" race, because modern Germany is well-integrated with Europe (then again, we don't really think of Russians as a different "race" either and they're not so well integrated.. its always so messy and confusing when we try to arbitrarily label significant fractions of an entire planet's population isn't it?!)
Some day, yes. It won't be from within any time soon though. The military is way too strong and the populace too weak and well-controlled to really get anything going. Of course if and when it does get going, it would by necessity have to be a surprise to everyone not involved so I suppose its possibly that they've been planning something for 20 years that they'll spring on the DPRK any day now.
Outside violence would likely have to be initiated by DPRK themselves though. China still supports them and nobody else is going to initiate action against them while China's hovering in the background. As long as North Korea just continues testing and threatening with their nukes rather than actually using them, its unlikely even the US will try to stop them.
are really unwilling to admit to.
Nobody's unwilling to admit it. They're just unsure what to do about it. Attacking NK has a good chance of pissing off China, and nobody really wants a war with China at this point. If China themselves decide to annex NK then there might be something doing, but the rest of the world won't have much involvement.
And even if China does take action, we're likely to end up with another, possibly even more tense standoff as there's a chance they'd want the entire Korean peninsula rather than just half of it.
But for fun lets say China just steps out all together and the US is free to attack NK themselves. What then? Do we try to merge it with South Korea? Do we annex it ourselves and try to hold it as a colony? Attempt to set up a puppet government which has worked oh-so-well in South America and the Middle East when we've tried it before. Or do we just destroy everything and then walk away and leave them to their own devices? Merging with SK sounds like the best option but that's a lot of hatred built up over the last few decades so that wouldn't be easy by any means (never mind the purely practical aspect of figuring out how to de-mine the neutral zone.) And none of the other options sound particularly good either.
ashamed to have let the Cancer that is North Korea live for so long.
North Korea is bad but its not the worst we've seen, or ignored. We've got an ongoing genocide in Myanmar right now. It was only a couple of years ago that Syria was using chemical weapons against its own citizens. Rwanda wasn't all that long ago and the list goes on. Sure we took a pot shot at Syria, more because Trump wanted try blowing something up after he came into office than because it actually accomplished anything, but otherwise we've pretty much left all of those things (and many others) to play themselves out.
Malnutrition and hard work, no matter how repressive, is still better than being flat out slaughtered in most peoples' opinions.. especially when you're comparing a slow, painful death like the sarin gas attacks in Syria.
No, but if you read the rest of the page, there were things pretty much across the board.. not always the same things, and some certainly less good than others.. but still.
a big part of the NN fight was not the last mile people
No, that's a big part of what the ISPs wanted to (avoid) fighting about. From the users' perspective, all we care about is "will they make Netflix go faster than Hulu? Or block me from Skype because it competes with their super expensive telephone service?" Anything that doesn't specifically relate to those type of issues is not the problem, and is mostly just strawmen that various (usually pro-industry) groups are throwing out to intentionally confuse the issue.
between the repeal of NN and the tax bill that all the telecomms and ISPs are dumping huge sums into infrastructure
Most of which was already planned anyway, like the AT&T hiring spree that Trump bragged about.. that they'd started before Trump was elected (and when everyone still thought he had no chance.) They just let Trump take the credit because its politically expedient to stroke his ego and he's not terribly concerned with whether its deserved.
the major issue is the lack of competition
Agreed.
largely the result of restrictive franchise agreements
No. Its definitely partly a result of that, but as has been dragged out many many times -- all those extra criss-crossing wires everywhere isn't really something anyone wants. There's a limit to how much unrestricted competition you can support before the right-of-way requirements and pure city aesthetics is too much for people to take. It may not be a truly "natural" monopoly like a river is, but its damned close to one. Of course there are alternatives -- you could privatize the service while keeping the physical lines public, as is done with other utilities in some places (power, water, sewage.. many cities are just fully public for those utilities but some aren't -- and those that aren't rarely have say duplicate water lines running everywhere.) But the ISPs aren't likely to give up control of either side of the equation, and the government forcing them to sell their lines to a public utility would face a lot of public backlash.
Thus far nothing has happened.
Its been 2 weeks. How much do you expect to have happened? And I've seen some talk that the rule change doesn't even take effect until February (though I can't find any corroboration on that so I'm not positive.) In any case though, I've said on several other posts now that I don't expect to see massively noticeable fallout until at least 2019. Especially if they're expecting congress to pass pro-industry legislation that can't be changed on a whim. No point making massive changes when things might be changed again (for better or worse) by next year.
if the result of NN repeal is all the frogs raining from the sky
It won't be. Especially at the start. Its likely going to appear at a glance as a benefit -- lower prices and faster speeds for your favorite services! The "cost" to them comes in the form of never having the chance for a competing, possibly better service to become their new favorite. The whole Friendster->MySpace->Facebook->Snapchat->whatever is next transition may never have happened if Friendster was straight up 10x faster and zero-rated when MySpace first came on the scene. They would have been unable to compete with that on any sort of a balanced playing field.
I don't think it will happen.
I hope you're right. I just don't think you are. As you said, lack of competition is the biggest problem and there's nothing to suggest competition will be improved other than Ajit Pai and industry pundits making entirely baseles
That's why I was specific to state "in whatever jurisdiction." Yes, in some places Mastercard dominates (and the others probably have their places as well.) In most places around the world though, Visa is the default with Mastercard being the followup.
If you bring in a wheelbarrow full of unrolled pennies to buy that same item, the proprietor is also going to tell you to take a hike even if they accept cash. They're perfectly free to not sell to you for any reason they choose, and "more hassle than its worth" is definitely a good reason in most peoples' opinion.
If the default was unlimited, presumably you wouldn't be paying "thousands" for it. You would be paying a reasonable rate.
Just like the TV stations don't stop running when you turn off your TV -- they're still streaming you content, multiple channels worth, in a completely unlimited fashion for the entire month whether you're using it or not -- and I'm pretty sure cable hasn't hit the $thousands range yet.
Internet is expensive because they've convinced you to pay that much. There's absolutely no reason why they couldn't provide you unlimited (or well, as much as your pipe can hold) GB for that same $150. The total number of bits per second is limited by hardware and upgrade schedules/costs, but each bit costs them millionths of a cent to transmit.
That is, the speed you get (MB/sec) has a justifiable technical limit but the data cap (total GB/billing period) is purely a sales construct and has essentially zero justification beyond "how much will those suckers pay?"
Can the pipes support unlimited usage and throughput?
In practice? Of course not. But anyone with a brain realizes that "unlimited" in that kind of context still means "limited by technology and physics." I can, in theory, drive my car an unlimited amount. In practice I'm going to run out of gas, blow my tires, etc. People understand the difference. Unless they're intentionally trying to be obtuse.
Why should I have to pay extra for something I don't use?
This question only makes sense in a context where unlimited is not the default option. Not to mention you're already paying for something you don't use. The modem they provide you on your 15mbps connection is the same one they provide me for my 150mbps connection. They just have you artificially limited because they can -- you've still paid whatever rental fee for a full fast broadband modem though. And unless you use exactly every single bit of your package, you're still paying for the leftovers.
I mean you could equally ask why you pay for a full month of phone service when you only make a few calls? Because as any cell phone user (or Brit) knows, paying by the minute is so much better.. Or cable TV? Its not like you're watching 47 channels at once so why can't you just pay for the one you're watching at the time?
Generally speaking, that's exactly what's meant. "Backwards" in terms of progress more than time, though of course the two often proceed in lockstep.
In the case of NN, there's a moderate to high chance that barring a miracle (and barring the democrats changing things whenever they take over next,) we're going to see Comcast and Verizon (slowly) transition to the sort of curated crap system that AOL was providing in the dial-up days and if you want more freedom, be prepared to pay through the teeth. They won't do it overnight. Even if they had it all prepared they're not just going to flip a switch on day one. That would be too much of a slap in the face even for republicans. But they'll go that way one step at a time because its in their best interest for you to stay within their bubble of subsidiaries and partners and never venture out / spend money elsewhere.
Remember how the internet suddenly changed in any noticeable way between 2015 and 2017 when the internet was perfect and good and amazing?
No, but I remember it not getting significantly worse. Other than the introduction of zero-rating systems (which also break NN but either the FCC didn't care, or just didn't get around to it when they had the chance and it doesn't matter now..)
Remember how when NN was struck down by the FCC it all went back to how it was before 2015?
No, but seeing as its been less than two weeks since the vote that's not exactly surprising. Come talk to me this time next year. If Slashdot isn't blocked by your ISP.
Yes, I want to keep the neo-Nazis off of the internet
Why? If you don't like their sites, don't go to them. Suggesting that Comcast and Verizon should get free reign of everything because you want legalized censorship seems a bit.. not great.
Yes, I want the applications that are important to me (VOIP for example) to cut in line because their latency/jitter matter
And your point is? Protocol-based traffic shaping was never banned and much of the internet would fall apart without it. Its endpoint-based traffic that Net Neutrality was protecting. That is, under NN, you get to use whatever VOIP app you like. Without NN, you get to use the one your ISP says you can use (ie: owns or gets a kickback from) and that's it. Hope you like it.
lets all eat at McDonalds since 2.99 is good enough for everyone
Where the hell did you get McDonald's from? I'm guessing purely based on the fact that whoever made the graphic just pulled an image from the web rather than going out and photographing their own cheeseburger? Hell if McDonald's burgers were actually as good as their pictures make them look, they probably would be good enough for everyone!
I would rather it be completely unregulated than letting the lobbyists write it and congress pass it without even reading it as they've been doing with so many important bills lately.
At least if its completely unregulated, there's a chance (however small) that competition could start up.. or the states could write their own individual laws.. If Verizon and Comcast are writing the legislation though, you can bet all those loopholes will be closed and that they'll encase their monopoly in stone on top of giving themselves essentially unlimited power to break the internet in whatever way best suits their bottom line.
At this point, you may as well consider congress to be unelected as well.. they rarely write the bills, they rarely even read the bills, they just pass whatever their donors tell them to pass and the will of the voters is basically ignored other than for a few months before each election when they need to earn some brownie points. For the ones that even do.
Not every position your party takes needs to be the opposite from the other side.
In the Trump era it seems to. Even under Obama, once congress fell into republican control they flat out said, on the record, that they were going to vote down everything, good or bad, purely to spite the democrats. At that point, every issue becomes a partisan issue because they've completely cut off any potential lines of negotiation. If you want it I don't. If you want to get rid of it I'll make sure it stays. Doesn't matter if I personally believe you're right -- maintaining strict party lines is more important.
Done in the open? Have you not been following the news? The multiple health care bills were written by a very small group and even the rest of the republican party didn't get to see them until almost the day of the vote. The recently passed tax disaster was still being amended -- via handwritten notes in the margins -- right up until the vote. And again, few people got to see it before that. In both cases multiple congresspeople from both parties have said they didn't even read the thing before voting on it. How the hell are they representing your wishes if they literally don't even know what legislation they're passing that affects you?
Congress has always been the butt end of the joke, but the current political atmosphere has magnified their issues manyfold. I wouldn't trust them to vote on the lunch menu at this point.
I am not convinced that Title 2 is the proper way to regulate ISPs
Its not. Its just better than leaving them entirely unregulated. The incumbent ISPs have shown zero trustworthiness at every step of the way -- its why net neutrality regulations were brought in in the first place.
Ideally, we would have their regulations tailored to the industry rather than cobbled together from old telephone regulations. But unfortunately all we're likely to get these days is regulations bought and paid for by the incumbents and will be anything but fair. To that end, I expect the ISPs will be pushing congress to get on with new set-in-stone net "neutrality" regulations before the 2018 midterms while its still in republican control. Damned democrats are too unpredictable with their whole "not screwing the average person" shtick that they trot out once in a while.
Uhh.. that was obvious from day one. He was installed as chairman specifically because he's in the hip pocket of corporations.
Just like a guy who doesn't believe in science runs NASA, a guy who was suing the EPA now runs the EPA, a lobbyist for the drug industry now runs the FDA, a woman with a BA from a liberal arts college runs the department of education, a guy who wanted the department of energy shutdown -- because he didn't know what the hell it actually did! -- now runs the DOE. It just goes on and on.
Basically Trump has appointed the fox to watch the hen house in almost every government agency. Its absolutely insane, and its going to do a lot of long-term damage to the US both economically and in the opinion of the rest of the world. The US is no longer going to be taken seriously when Trump does things like instructing the EPA to take down half their site because it deals with you know.. protecting the environment. Or when he tells the CDC and other science-based organizations that they shouldn't use phrases like "science-based." What the fuck is that? Does he expect the CDC to offer thoughts and prayers when there's an outbreak somewhere? I mean that's all we can be arsed to do when a shooter kills 50+ people so why put any more effort towards a disease doing the same?
The US government is a joke right now. Its sad that many within the country can't (or just refuse) to see it.. especially those in government who have the power to do something about it. Americans are blinded by Trump's spectacle and big claims and the whole reality-TV aspect of it and completely ignore that all the shit Trump does, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, will have long-lasting and potentially disastrous consequences for the country.. probably long after Trump's gone and it'll fall on someone else' shoulders to try and pick up the pieces and put the country together again in a world where China is racing full steam ahead to overtake the US as the #1 superpower, and India is probably only 2 or 3 decades behind if they can get their shit together. The US wasting a decade going backward will make it that much harder to stay ahead of the game.
Except that article was not this. It was extremely brief but it amounted to "people complain more about shit when its on their mind."
That is, there isn't anything new being complained about (yet.) Just more people complaining about existing things. In particular that unfortunately means that the new complaints probably aren't specifically related to the rescinding of net neutrality, and therefore really don't have much bearing or indication on how screwed the US is now.
I've said it on a few other posts.. Comcast and Verizon probably aren't going to do anything dramatic right away. That would be too big of a slap in the face even for republicans and the last thing the ISPs want is the republicans to start thinking net neutrality is actually important.
No, the ISPs will hold off for maybe a year and then slowly start mucking with things. In the meantime they'll be pushing congress to regulate net neutrality in a way that's far less easy to rescind and essentially enshrine their definition of "neutral" in law.. and they don't really want congress understanding the full implications of what they do until its too late.
Except some ISP shill in congress to propose legislation and try to get it rammed through before the 2018 midterms (while the republicans still hold majority..) and then once that's done, give it another few months to let everyone forget (and to buy off any new congresspeople) and then the real games begin. So basically expect to start getting truly screwed by late 2018 or early 2019. If we're really lucky they might hold off until 2020 to see how the next generals go, but by that point the president won't really have much to do about it, whether its Trump again or not, so I doubt the ISPs will even bother waiting that extra year.
Slashdot Mirror
No one expects them to actually expire because there is bipartisan support for renewing them
Meaning whoever is in power at the time will have to decide between sinking the country even further in debt, or raising taxes on the rich again. Only one of those is likely to garner donor support.
That already played out once with the Bush tax cuts and Obama
And 2008 showed just how well Bush' economic policies worked out! Oh but of course we're supposed to blame Obama for that crash, even though it started several months before he took office. I mean Trump takes credit for things that happened before he was president.. I don't see why Obama shouldn't be afforded the same luxury right?!
The top 1% already pay more federal income taxes than the bottom 90% pay
Which is a pretty good indicator of income inequality given that those top 1% only pay a bit over 10% higher than the middle class rates last year (39.5% vs 25-28%,) and even less after Trump's cuts.
spending growing much faster than the increase in revenue has increased.
Yes, and drastically cutting income (ie: taxes) from the largest revenue source (the 1%, by your own admission) is not really helping the issue now is it?
Saying "we are borrowing money to give it away to the ultra rich" is ridiculous. We're borrowing money to pay for excessive government spending.
That previously was paid for by the ultra rich and no longer is. You can play with words as much as you want but the math works out the same in the end -- the rich get richer on the backs of everyone else.
That quote is rather irrelevant, unless you've got a few spare Earths laying around to run experiments on..?
Assuming you don't, our next best option is to model the data we have as accurately as possible and make predictions based on those models.
So far all of the models predict "we're fucked if we don't change our ways" even if they don't all agree on how badly or how soon we're fucked, with some even suggesting we're past the point of changing our ways and fucked no matter what.
There's a reason why the climate scientists (and yes, I feel justified using the generalized term!) report actual data generated from actual models while the deniers tend to go with things like opinion polls -- the deniers just don't have a whole lot of data to work with and much of what they do have is pretty questionable.
Subsurface conduits aren't a whole lot better. Sure they're not an ongoing ugliness but any time they need to be serviced, you have to dig up the entire street. Still not great, even if you can convince the companies to foot the bill (which of course means customers foot the bill -- company money doesn't appear out of thin air..)
I agree its the least of our current problems, mostly because its irrelevant when competition is already restricted in so many other ways (legal, political, etc.)
People who've never known freedom definitely do not value it as much as you or I, and the will to survive is an exceptionally strong driving factor in human psychology.
The statistical fact is that if you stopped persecuting Blacks, they'd stop committing crimes
Not really true. Crime rates are primarily tied to poverty levels more than anything. We just don't hear as much about all the white trash crime out there because its easier to be racist than to deal with problems.
since we stopped poisoning Blacks with lead.
Yeah, that certainly helps too. Though that was a fairly limited sample set and can hardly be applied to the rest of the country.
Unfortunately economics is against you. If standard price is say, $10 and they offer this $50 "VIP" showing that means they have to bring in 20% of the audience size to break even. I'm pretty sure there is less than 20% of the population is willing to spend 5x the price for a movie simply to avoid the crowds.
That is, they're willing to forego your $50 if it means 6 people who are happy to pay $10 will show up instead.
similar broadly categorized group
Typically the "broadly categorized group" is "anyone who doesn't agree with us." Race has little bearing on it. Race only really comes into play in the sense that concentration camps are usually setup during war times and you're typically warring against another race/culture/country.
And of course definitions change over time. There were as many German concentration camps in North America as there were Japanese ones, or perhaps more. But of course these days Germans are thought of as part of the "white" race rather than the "German" race, because modern Germany is well-integrated with Europe (then again, we don't really think of Russians as a different "race" either and they're not so well integrated.. its always so messy and confusing when we try to arbitrarily label significant fractions of an entire planet's population isn't it?!)
Some day, yes. It won't be from within any time soon though. The military is way too strong and the populace too weak and well-controlled to really get anything going. Of course if and when it does get going, it would by necessity have to be a surprise to everyone not involved so I suppose its possibly that they've been planning something for 20 years that they'll spring on the DPRK any day now.
Outside violence would likely have to be initiated by DPRK themselves though. China still supports them and nobody else is going to initiate action against them while China's hovering in the background. As long as North Korea just continues testing and threatening with their nukes rather than actually using them, its unlikely even the US will try to stop them.
are really unwilling to admit to.
Nobody's unwilling to admit it. They're just unsure what to do about it. Attacking NK has a good chance of pissing off China, and nobody really wants a war with China at this point. If China themselves decide to annex NK then there might be something doing, but the rest of the world won't have much involvement.
And even if China does take action, we're likely to end up with another, possibly even more tense standoff as there's a chance they'd want the entire Korean peninsula rather than just half of it.
But for fun lets say China just steps out all together and the US is free to attack NK themselves. What then? Do we try to merge it with South Korea? Do we annex it ourselves and try to hold it as a colony? Attempt to set up a puppet government which has worked oh-so-well in South America and the Middle East when we've tried it before. Or do we just destroy everything and then walk away and leave them to their own devices? Merging with SK sounds like the best option but that's a lot of hatred built up over the last few decades so that wouldn't be easy by any means (never mind the purely practical aspect of figuring out how to de-mine the neutral zone.) And none of the other options sound particularly good either.
ashamed to have let the Cancer that is North Korea live for so long.
North Korea is bad but its not the worst we've seen, or ignored. We've got an ongoing genocide in Myanmar right now. It was only a couple of years ago that Syria was using chemical weapons against its own citizens. Rwanda wasn't all that long ago and the list goes on. Sure we took a pot shot at Syria, more because Trump wanted try blowing something up after he came into office than because it actually accomplished anything, but otherwise we've pretty much left all of those things (and many others) to play themselves out.
Malnutrition and hard work, no matter how repressive, is still better than being flat out slaughtered in most peoples' opinions.. especially when you're comparing a slow, painful death like the sarin gas attacks in Syria.
it was not throughout the whole industry
No, but if you read the rest of the page, there were things pretty much across the board.. not always the same things, and some certainly less good than others.. but still.
a big part of the NN fight was not the last mile people
No, that's a big part of what the ISPs wanted to (avoid) fighting about. From the users' perspective, all we care about is "will they make Netflix go faster than Hulu? Or block me from Skype because it competes with their super expensive telephone service?" Anything that doesn't specifically relate to those type of issues is not the problem, and is mostly just strawmen that various (usually pro-industry) groups are throwing out to intentionally confuse the issue.
between the repeal of NN and the tax bill that all the telecomms and ISPs are dumping huge sums into infrastructure
Most of which was already planned anyway, like the AT&T hiring spree that Trump bragged about.. that they'd started before Trump was elected (and when everyone still thought he had no chance.) They just let Trump take the credit because its politically expedient to stroke his ego and he's not terribly concerned with whether its deserved.
the major issue is the lack of competition
Agreed.
largely the result of restrictive franchise agreements
No. Its definitely partly a result of that, but as has been dragged out many many times -- all those extra criss-crossing wires everywhere isn't really something anyone wants. There's a limit to how much unrestricted competition you can support before the right-of-way requirements and pure city aesthetics is too much for people to take. It may not be a truly "natural" monopoly like a river is, but its damned close to one.
Of course there are alternatives -- you could privatize the service while keeping the physical lines public, as is done with other utilities in some places (power, water, sewage.. many cities are just fully public for those utilities but some aren't -- and those that aren't rarely have say duplicate water lines running everywhere.) But the ISPs aren't likely to give up control of either side of the equation, and the government forcing them to sell their lines to a public utility would face a lot of public backlash.
Thus far nothing has happened.
Its been 2 weeks. How much do you expect to have happened? And I've seen some talk that the rule change doesn't even take effect until February (though I can't find any corroboration on that so I'm not positive.) In any case though, I've said on several other posts now that I don't expect to see massively noticeable fallout until at least 2019. Especially if they're expecting congress to pass pro-industry legislation that can't be changed on a whim. No point making massive changes when things might be changed again (for better or worse) by next year.
if the result of NN repeal is all the frogs raining from the sky
It won't be. Especially at the start. Its likely going to appear at a glance as a benefit -- lower prices and faster speeds for your favorite services! The "cost" to them comes in the form of never having the chance for a competing, possibly better service to become their new favorite. The whole Friendster->MySpace->Facebook->Snapchat->whatever is next transition may never have happened if Friendster was straight up 10x faster and zero-rated when MySpace first came on the scene. They would have been unable to compete with that on any sort of a balanced playing field.
I don't think it will happen.
I hope you're right. I just don't think you are. As you said, lack of competition is the biggest problem and there's nothing to suggest competition will be improved other than Ajit Pai and industry pundits making entirely baseles
That's why I was specific to state "in whatever jurisdiction." Yes, in some places Mastercard dominates (and the others probably have their places as well.) In most places around the world though, Visa is the default with Mastercard being the followup.
If you bring in a wheelbarrow full of unrolled pennies to buy that same item, the proprietor is also going to tell you to take a hike even if they accept cash. They're perfectly free to not sell to you for any reason they choose, and "more hassle than its worth" is definitely a good reason in most peoples' opinion.
I don't have to. That's basically White House policy right now.
If the default was unlimited, presumably you wouldn't be paying "thousands" for it. You would be paying a reasonable rate.
Just like the TV stations don't stop running when you turn off your TV -- they're still streaming you content, multiple channels worth, in a completely unlimited fashion for the entire month whether you're using it or not -- and I'm pretty sure cable hasn't hit the $thousands range yet.
Internet is expensive because they've convinced you to pay that much. There's absolutely no reason why they couldn't provide you unlimited (or well, as much as your pipe can hold) GB for that same $150. The total number of bits per second is limited by hardware and upgrade schedules/costs, but each bit costs them millionths of a cent to transmit.
That is, the speed you get (MB/sec) has a justifiable technical limit but the data cap (total GB/billing period) is purely a sales construct and has essentially zero justification beyond "how much will those suckers pay?"
Can the pipes support unlimited usage and throughput?
In practice? Of course not. But anyone with a brain realizes that "unlimited" in that kind of context still means "limited by technology and physics." I can, in theory, drive my car an unlimited amount. In practice I'm going to run out of gas, blow my tires, etc. People understand the difference. Unless they're intentionally trying to be obtuse.
Why should I have to pay extra for something I don't use?
This question only makes sense in a context where unlimited is not the default option. Not to mention you're already paying for something you don't use. The modem they provide you on your 15mbps connection is the same one they provide me for my 150mbps connection. They just have you artificially limited because they can -- you've still paid whatever rental fee for a full fast broadband modem though. And unless you use exactly every single bit of your package, you're still paying for the leftovers.
I mean you could equally ask why you pay for a full month of phone service when you only make a few calls? Because as any cell phone user (or Brit) knows, paying by the minute is so much better.. Or cable TV? Its not like you're watching 47 channels at once so why can't you just pay for the one you're watching at the time?
Generally speaking, that's exactly what's meant. "Backwards" in terms of progress more than time, though of course the two often proceed in lockstep.
In the case of NN, there's a moderate to high chance that barring a miracle (and barring the democrats changing things whenever they take over next,) we're going to see Comcast and Verizon (slowly) transition to the sort of curated crap system that AOL was providing in the dial-up days and if you want more freedom, be prepared to pay through the teeth. They won't do it overnight. Even if they had it all prepared they're not just going to flip a switch on day one. That would be too much of a slap in the face even for republicans. But they'll go that way one step at a time because its in their best interest for you to stay within their bubble of subsidiaries and partners and never venture out / spend money elsewhere.
Remember how the internet was an unending hell hole of bad service in 2015 before NN was passed?
Yes.
Remember how the internet suddenly changed in any noticeable way between 2015 and 2017 when the internet was perfect and good and amazing?
No, but I remember it not getting significantly worse. Other than the introduction of zero-rating systems (which also break NN but either the FCC didn't care, or just didn't get around to it when they had the chance and it doesn't matter now..)
Remember how when NN was struck down by the FCC it all went back to how it was before 2015?
No, but seeing as its been less than two weeks since the vote that's not exactly surprising. Come talk to me this time next year. If Slashdot isn't blocked by your ISP.
Yes, I want to keep the neo-Nazis off of the internet
Why? If you don't like their sites, don't go to them. Suggesting that Comcast and Verizon should get free reign of everything because you want legalized censorship seems a bit.. not great.
Yes, I want the applications that are important to me (VOIP for example) to cut in line because their latency/jitter matter
And your point is? Protocol-based traffic shaping was never banned and much of the internet would fall apart without it. Its endpoint-based traffic that Net Neutrality was protecting. That is, under NN, you get to use whatever VOIP app you like. Without NN, you get to use the one your ISP says you can use (ie: owns or gets a kickback from) and that's it. Hope you like it.
lets all eat at McDonalds since 2.99 is good enough for everyone
Where the hell did you get McDonald's from? I'm guessing purely based on the fact that whoever made the graphic just pulled an image from the web rather than going out and photographing their own cheeseburger? Hell if McDonald's burgers were actually as good as their pictures make them look, they probably would be good enough for everyone!
Why is it that supposedly educated people can't spell as well as the average fifth grader?
Well, since you asked..
I would rather it be completely unregulated than letting the lobbyists write it and congress pass it without even reading it as they've been doing with so many important bills lately.
At least if its completely unregulated, there's a chance (however small) that competition could start up.. or the states could write their own individual laws.. If Verizon and Comcast are writing the legislation though, you can bet all those loopholes will be closed and that they'll encase their monopoly in stone on top of giving themselves essentially unlimited power to break the internet in whatever way best suits their bottom line.
At this point, you may as well consider congress to be unelected as well.. they rarely write the bills, they rarely even read the bills, they just pass whatever their donors tell them to pass and the will of the voters is basically ignored other than for a few months before each election when they need to earn some brownie points. For the ones that even do.
Not every position your party takes needs to be the opposite from the other side.
In the Trump era it seems to. Even under Obama, once congress fell into republican control they flat out said, on the record, that they were going to vote down everything, good or bad, purely to spite the democrats. At that point, every issue becomes a partisan issue because they've completely cut off any potential lines of negotiation. If you want it I don't. If you want to get rid of it I'll make sure it stays. Doesn't matter if I personally believe you're right -- maintaining strict party lines is more important.
Done in the open? Have you not been following the news? The multiple health care bills were written by a very small group and even the rest of the republican party didn't get to see them until almost the day of the vote. The recently passed tax disaster was still being amended -- via handwritten notes in the margins -- right up until the vote. And again, few people got to see it before that. In both cases multiple congresspeople from both parties have said they didn't even read the thing before voting on it. How the hell are they representing your wishes if they literally don't even know what legislation they're passing that affects you?
Congress has always been the butt end of the joke, but the current political atmosphere has magnified their issues manyfold. I wouldn't trust them to vote on the lunch menu at this point.
I am not convinced that Title 2 is the proper way to regulate ISPs
Its not. Its just better than leaving them entirely unregulated. The incumbent ISPs have shown zero trustworthiness at every step of the way -- its why net neutrality regulations were brought in in the first place.
Ideally, we would have their regulations tailored to the industry rather than cobbled together from old telephone regulations. But unfortunately all we're likely to get these days is regulations bought and paid for by the incumbents and will be anything but fair. To that end, I expect the ISPs will be pushing congress to get on with new set-in-stone net "neutrality" regulations before the 2018 midterms while its still in republican control. Damned democrats are too unpredictable with their whole "not screwing the average person" shtick that they trot out once in a while.
Uhh.. that was obvious from day one. He was installed as chairman specifically because he's in the hip pocket of corporations.
Just like a guy who doesn't believe in science runs NASA, a guy who was suing the EPA now runs the EPA, a lobbyist for the drug industry now runs the FDA, a woman with a BA from a liberal arts college runs the department of education, a guy who wanted the department of energy shutdown -- because he didn't know what the hell it actually did! -- now runs the DOE. It just goes on and on.
Basically Trump has appointed the fox to watch the hen house in almost every government agency. Its absolutely insane, and its going to do a lot of long-term damage to the US both economically and in the opinion of the rest of the world. The US is no longer going to be taken seriously when Trump does things like instructing the EPA to take down half their site because it deals with you know.. protecting the environment. Or when he tells the CDC and other science-based organizations that they shouldn't use phrases like "science-based." What the fuck is that? Does he expect the CDC to offer thoughts and prayers when there's an outbreak somewhere? I mean that's all we can be arsed to do when a shooter kills 50+ people so why put any more effort towards a disease doing the same?
The US government is a joke right now. Its sad that many within the country can't (or just refuse) to see it.. especially those in government who have the power to do something about it. Americans are blinded by Trump's spectacle and big claims and the whole reality-TV aspect of it and completely ignore that all the shit Trump does, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, will have long-lasting and potentially disastrous consequences for the country.. probably long after Trump's gone and it'll fall on someone else' shoulders to try and pick up the pieces and put the country together again in a world where China is racing full steam ahead to overtake the US as the #1 superpower, and India is probably only 2 or 3 decades behind if they can get their shit together. The US wasting a decade going backward will make it that much harder to stay ahead of the game.
The ISPs definitely want net neutrality.
They just want to also be able to define the term however suits them best, rather than using its actual definition.
Except that article was not this. It was extremely brief but it amounted to "people complain more about shit when its on their mind."
That is, there isn't anything new being complained about (yet.) Just more people complaining about existing things. In particular that unfortunately means that the new complaints probably aren't specifically related to the rescinding of net neutrality, and therefore really don't have much bearing or indication on how screwed the US is now.
I've said it on a few other posts.. Comcast and Verizon probably aren't going to do anything dramatic right away. That would be too big of a slap in the face even for republicans and the last thing the ISPs want is the republicans to start thinking net neutrality is actually important.
No, the ISPs will hold off for maybe a year and then slowly start mucking with things. In the meantime they'll be pushing congress to regulate net neutrality in a way that's far less easy to rescind and essentially enshrine their definition of "neutral" in law.. and they don't really want congress understanding the full implications of what they do until its too late.
Except some ISP shill in congress to propose legislation and try to get it rammed through before the 2018 midterms (while the republicans still hold majority..) and then once that's done, give it another few months to let everyone forget (and to buy off any new congresspeople) and then the real games begin. So basically expect to start getting truly screwed by late 2018 or early 2019. If we're really lucky they might hold off until 2020 to see how the next generals go, but by that point the president won't really have much to do about it, whether its Trump again or not, so I doubt the ISPs will even bother waiting that extra year.