Net Neutrality... My take..Maybe im Wrong?

[NotGoodAtLying]

A Summary for the Lazy: 

 

Basically, Not having Net neutrality gives large corporations entire control over today's market.. Allowing them to bundle things like HTML5 and Flash, or forcing them into a pay per view. Also it allows them to stamp out competing markets, by simply not allowing their websites to be shown, or advertisements to be played. For a tin hat summary below...

 

 

It may also let them control the way we learn things, the way knowledge is spread, and can prevent news from being read/or possibly languages from being learnt. Could potentially keep us from learning about alternative solutions to costly ideas, and control the market in a way that keeps the ignorant (or people who learn soley by watching or reading news sites, or the majority) from ever learning of other, cheaper products from existing.

 

The potential for each is there, i think, but to learn the non lazy description, read below. Keep in mind, im not actually saying the companies would do so, just saying that the potential for this to happen is there if net neutrality does not come to exist. 

 

Keep reading to learn more....Like my new Book Idea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Actual post. 

 

 

It seems there are quite a few different opinions on the subject. From my honest opinion, it seems like the side arguing against net neutrality...Is missing some information, so i thought id clear it up? Also, id love an opposing view, To point out what may be wrong with what im saying. 

 

There is no pre-set price limit on a fast lane, meaning if an ISP wanted to shut down a company like...say, google. They could do so, by charging a babillion dollars per view on the search engine.

 

It also allows them to set up bundles such as, Youtube, Google, Netflix, Hulu, facebook, Twitter, for 100-$200 a month. as opposed to the, 40 i pay now to access anything. Think of cable companies...the ones doing this pretty much as they are also the general ISPs....

 

It would also allow them to control VOIP options, such as skype and the like...and regulate them as a standard home phone service, charging 15 on top of what skype charges to make outside calls...essentially killing skype. (note i said skype here because its the most generally recognized voip service, not because its the best) 

 

It would also allow them to regulate, like they used to with cell phones, messaging services. Limiting how many messages you could send per package inside of any instant messaging client. And tying that to yet another, more costly bundle. Or simply charging you once you pass a limit.

 

Social media, regularly used by a majority of people in the US, almost a current necessity, could also be limited by a number of factors...Such as charging per 10 tweets or so, 30 updates to facebook per day, 1 youtube upload per charge.

 

 

In actuality, thinking about it as i write this post, they could charge per movie watched on netflix couldn't they? On top of what netflix charges per month? Maybe charging you per genre youd like to watch as they do with cable...Then for the HD section, then for the 4k section. Twitch could be regulated through the ISP like cable as well, essentially splitting them into genres and charging per genre, maybe just pay per view on twitch sometimes.

 

 

 

Considering how much this all ties back to cable in the first place, and how hard netflix, hulu, and other premium services are squashing cable into oblivion, which we know currently could happen sooner or later. Couldnt they just make both of those things just as expensive a package as cable? Would that not drive a significant number back to their "premium cable services"? Makes sense to me.. if i were them, i would actually just charge per utility useage. Like every time you use flash, or HTML 5 to view a video, more than 30 second advertisements, some cutting in between watching a video longer than 10 minutes...like cable. Charging more for advertisements through them, and more to view advertisements put in by google, essentially destroying Adwords, and most other variants of advertisement that are affordable, putting most people who advertise on cable television back at the top in that sense. Killing adwords, would be a big blow to google in the first place wouldnt it?

 

They could also essentially control the market this way, if apple paid enough could they not simply stamp android out of existence? or the same if viewed in reverse. Simply not allow advertisements to play for either of the companies, and closing the android store or apple store based on how much they were paid. If you could reach an apple product, something in my experience with proxies and the like (how i think they would control this) would be pretty easy to do, would you in this case not control the market? 

 

Also, could you not simply block the other ISP's from appearing, making it extremely difficult to even find a phone number to change services? Keeping you locked into whatever your paying by simply stamping out knowledge of competitors? 

 

 

 

Im saying this as if i were an ISP company, and all of these things were legal..Imagine generations of kids in the US not knowing what verizon is because they were brought up on comcast . There are actually quite a few books that go into detail on subjects like this, Dystopian futures and the like (might have spelled that wrong...hey wait a second) 

 

 

 

 

 

Going into kind of Tin-Hat mode. What if in the future because of this, kids could be raised into believing that this never happened, and the world was always like this? Since the internet is where most of us learn about a lot of things anyways, could they not proxy out any news or any information that led to talking about this subject in a negative light. For that matter, what if by using a system like this you could control how people thought, leading them to buy certain things simply because thats what they have access to, and dont know about anything else. What if you could control someone's views on society this way, by directing them only to believe the things that they know they kind find more easily ( a common psych trick, the news uses this a lot) 

 

What if you could force entire languages to be learnt by people.. by forcing the internet to show up in a language you dont understand, and having you only know about certain internet providers. ooh this is interesting to me. 

 

Sorry im rambling, but its fascinating to see the amount of control you could have by controlling the internet this way, isnt it? Thinking far more down the line anyways than i should be, im sure this kind of thing would be stamped out, but looking around at the ignorance of people today, i wonder how much controlling where they could go on the internet would effect them if you forced them to specific news, maybe through advertising. And forced all news to be around that topic, stamping out gradually other news until that is all they are hearing about. Spreading propaganda, through way of controlling what people see on their screens, through way of proxies and internet traffic control. With how heavily we are all focused on the internet now adays i think it actually could be possible which is a scary thought. 

 

 

 

That does it im writing a book. Claimed the idea. 

 

422:42pm. Dec. 14 - NotGoodAtLying

[mansoor_]

You should do a 3-5 line summary of your argument for those too lazy to read the whole post, such as myself. 

[NotGoodAtLying]

You should do a 3-5 line summary of your argument for those too lazy to read the whole post, such as myself. 

Thanks for the Advice Ill do so now. 

 

 

Done sir. 

[C_Mike]

Thing is, like they mentioned in the most recent WAN show, if ISPs start piling on ridiculous charges, and stop expanding their infastructure, products like Google Fiber will start appearing and people who actually care about the quality of our internet will start building their own infastructure.

 

Antother thing they mentioned was, if one City has only ISPs with these limitations, and another doesn't, people will start movies, so those cities will have to start building their own infrastructure.

 

And, I think your "Tin-Hat mode" theory is 9001% unlikely to happen ever, due to the previous points i've made.

[NotGoodAtLying]

Thing is, like they mentioned in the most recent WAN show, if ISPs start piling on ridiculous charges, and stop expanding their infastructure, products like Google Fiber will start appearing and people who actually care about the quality of our internet will start building their own infastructure.

 

Antother thing they mentioned was, if one City has only ISPs with these limitations, and another doesn't, people will start movies, so those cities will have to start building their own infrastructure.

 

And, I think your "Tin-Hat mode" theory is 9001% unlikely to happen ever, due to the previous points i've made.

 

 

Oh trust me i dont think it would happen either I just find it fascinating. Imagine though that after this comes to pass, google fiber decides to do the same thing to compete...plus, alot of people dont know about things like that right? I mean i work in IT..and while the other guys i work with are only slightly less ignorant than the general population, they dont know about it either

 

Also what if it were universally passed through every city....

 

 

Just playing devils advocate here

[NotGoodAtLying]

Thing is, like they mentioned in the most recent WAN show, if ISPs start piling on ridiculous charges, and stop expanding their infastructure, products like Google Fiber will start appearing and people who actually care about the quality of our internet will start building their own infastructure.

 

Antother thing they mentioned was, if one City has only ISPs with these limitations, and another doesn't, people will start movies, so those cities will have to start building their own infrastructure.

 

And, I think your "Tin-Hat mode" theory is 9001% unlikely to happen ever, due to the previous points i've made.

 

 

Also, another thought, the US does not have many viable ISP's in the first place. Sure there are a lot, but not many offering fast access to the internet, outside the main ones. Verizon, ATT, Charter, Comcast, Time Warner, Brighthouse (owned by time warner)....throughout almost every city, these are the ones you want to go to in the first place... might be missing a few. But they all so far have declared they would appreciate non-Net Neutrality in some way or another. Brighthouse admitting it by way of time warner and comcast, verizon coming out to the public and stating it would be usefull, ATT ceasing to lay fiber. Not actually sure about charter...arent they owned by comcast? Ill look it up. 

 

Again just to stir thoughts on the subject, not because i believe it.. 

[C_Mike]

Oh trust me i dont think it would happen either I just find it fascinating. Imagine though that after this comes to pass, google fiber decides to do the same thing to compete...plus, alot of people dont know about things like that right? I mean i work in IT..and while the other guys i work with are only slightly less ignorant than the general population, they dont know about it either

 

Also what if it were universally passed through every city....

 

 

Just playing devils advocate here

 

Yeah, I understand you're playing devils advocate

 

But I would hope that a company like Google wouldn't try to compete. Hell, as far as I know they never entered the ISP market to compete, they did it to drive the market forward, and make internet better in general. I think that like a lot of things the media is hyping net neutrality up a little too much. Yeah its kind of bad, but as soon as things get out of hand and things like fast lanes are a thing, a new company will step in, and clean up all the crap created by current ISPs. 

[NotGoodAtLying]

Yeah, I understand you're playing devils advocate

 

But I would hope that a company like Google wouldn't try to compete. Hell, as far as I know they never entered the ISP market to compete, they did it to drive the market forward, and make internet better in general. I think that like a lot of things the media is hyping net neutrality up a little too much. Yeah its kind of bad, but as soon as things get out of hand and things like fast lanes are a thing, a new company will step in, and clean up all the crap created by current ISPs. 

Oh yeah absolutely, there just are absolutely negative ways this could go as well. Its always good to look at things as if they would never happen, but if the potential is there couldnt they though? Could you not essentially block another competitor in the market, simply by blocking them out by proxy? It is good to look at it as if the companies could never be that evil, but hey, who's to know how evil they will be in the future. 

[mansoor_]

I agree with the arguments put forth,  the internet should not be censored by the middle man whose job it is to deliver it. 

Akin to the postman, who peeks into all the letters sent to you and decides which ones he thinks it is ok for you to see. 

In reality there should not even be such a thing as a private isp, the broadband should be a public utility run by the government.

On the matter of censorship, it should only be possible in cases where the content violates law such that it would be banned if it

were available via any other medium. Selective censorship in itself is a form of oppression and control. 

[NotGoodAtLying]

I agree with the arguments put forth,  the internet should not be censored by the middle man whose job it is to deliver it. 

Akin to the postman, who peeks into all the letters sent to you and decides which ones he thinks it is ok for you to see. 

In reality there should not even be such a thing as a private isp, the broadband should be a public utility run by the government.

On the matter of censorship, it should only be possible in cases where the content violates law such that it would be banned if it

were available via any other medium. Selective censorship in itself is a form of oppression and control. 

 

 

Exactly this! you should help me write my book, that was beautiful. 

[NotGoodAtLying]

I agree with the arguments put forth,  the internet should not be censored by the middle man whose job it is to deliver it. 

Akin to the postman, who peeks into all the letters sent to you and decides which ones he thinks it is ok for you to see. 

In reality there should not even be such a thing as a private isp, the broadband should be a public utility run by the government.

On the matter of censorship, it should only be possible in cases where the content violates law such that it would be banned if it

were available via any other medium. Selective censorship in itself is a form of oppression and control. 

 

Thinking about it further, taking it in a different kind of light, i think both sides of this net neutrality argument could be taken the same way...

 

What happens exactly when law becomes hell bent on taking control of the internet, as they already have tried with things like SOPA and fighting things like Goliath by google. I would actually be worried in both scenarios in a tin hat way. Simply because im not sure if i trust the government to govern the internet either, i just simply think they would do a hell of a better job than a company looking to get rich. Both ways this could go, have the potential to end badly dont they? 

 

What a scary thought. 

[mansoor_]

Thinking about it further, taking it in a different kind of light, i think both sides of this net neutrality argument could be taken the same way...

 

What happens exactly when law becomes hell bent on taking control of the internet, as they already have tried with things like SOPA and fighting things like Goliath by google. I would actually be worried in both scenarios in a tin hat way. Simply because im not sure if i trust the government to govern the internet either, i just simply think they would do a hell of a better job than a company looking to get rich. Both ways this could go, have the potential to end badly dont they? 

 

What a scary thought. 

This situation first came to light with the kimdotcom scandel, it is an interesting read unless you have already. 

This may sound strange, but even though the governments lied initially about the surveillance programs they 

had in place, I am almost indifferent. Most my important communications are encrypted and I want to believe 

that the surveillance is there for security measures. The only thing that bother me is that in the future, knowledge

of someones internet activities may be used to blackmail them or other people.  Sounds very tin foil hat but looking

at snowdons current situation, it would not be a total surprise. 

[NotGoodAtLying]

This situation first came to light with the kimdotcom scandel, it is an interesting read unless you have already. 

This may sound strange, but even though the governments lied initially about the surveillance programs they 

had in place, I am almost indifferent. Most my important communications are encrypted and I want to believe 

that the surveillance is there for security measures. The only thing that bother me is that in the future, knowledge

of someones internet activities may be used to blackmail them or other people.  Sounds very tin foil hat but looking

at snowdons current situation, it would not be a total surprise. 

 

 

Blackmail is one way this could go, i have not read about the Kimdotcom scandal as of yet but i will be looking into it soon as i trust in what you have been reading so far. My problem with this is the number of ways this, in a tin hat way as well, could give the government control over propaganda. We need to be able to judge the government like they do us, so when something bad happens, and they are to blame for it, we see and know the actions available to us. If those actions are legally removed by the government in a way that conforms to NSA standards, this would be opening up a new way for the NSA to control what we are doing at all times. Blacking out websites they deem unfit as well as monitoring what we are doing. Yes, the monitoring is inevitable and that has been established. But like what happened with the NSA agents monitoring their loved ones phone calls and things like that, giving all of them access to black out websites, when they have proven themselves capable of doing so for personal reasons, might make the internet significantly less stable as websites flicker on and off. It could as well, lead to the government yet again, like the ISP's, claiming control of the market out of personal interest. Something we have tried to remove from them multiple times for lots of different reasons, in courts, in congress, in everything that they do. I dont mind being monitored, but that kind of control, relates more to like how china runs their internet, but in a worse light, could be something political parties use to boost interest in their party. Simply by using money, or by having direct control, to block out competitors in governmental elections, like the tea party (not saying i support them, but the option should be there) ultimately...

 

limiting our options to either two parties, or one, turning the country into a literal tyranny.

 

Tin foil hat off.

 

But that will likely never happen  

[NotGoodAtLying]

Is everyone here for Net Neutrality? Success ive found my new home. Though in honesty i was hoping to debate with someone who was against it, if your out there....

 

Im here for you, waiting to debate, my mind to be changed. 

[TheLongWay]

You all ignore the most crucial parts of the discussion. First of all, we must ask ourselves why there is so little competition. Look at other markets, like food or flash memory. Prices have gone down and the profit margins are very slim, the markets have been widely consolidated. Why is it different for network infrastructure? In most countries, government has been involved from the beginning. Take Germany after WW2. Something called "social capitalism" had been established and certain "key industries" were state controlled. It seems weird that food was not considered to be a key industrie, but telecommunication and mail were state owned and controlled. Food is dirt cheap but few people are happy with their internet or mobile plans. Why? Because government regulation tends to make things worse. Instead of allowing free competiton, the governments' idea of competiton was to basically assign monopolies to certain areas and then try to regulate the companies responsible for these areas.

 

Like most of the time governments have their brilliant ideas, it turned out to be a mess Germans still suffer from today. 

Now let me give you an example from my home country: France. I used to live in a small town with maybe 10 000 households. We had one ISP and the prices were very high for the serivice that was provided to us. Also, many households had no internet service at all and were forced to try to get wifi from their neighbours (They paid for the data they used, of course.)

There was a company that wanted to provide internet by radio transmission. This would be a lot cheaper than digging in every street, and the projected prices seemed reasonable. But they local government said it was impossible, there was regulation in place that did not allow that. It took the company 4 years and a LOT of money to finally be able to start building their infrastructure, and it was only possible because around 4 000 households signed a contract that they would use their services for at least 2 years.

Most of the time, you will find that regulation does harm to the consumer.

 

Second part.

 

Net Neutrality makes the internet inefficient. Everyhwere in the world, wie differentiate between important stuff and less important stuff. You pay extra for fast shipping, car repairs, medical attention etc. What if, instead of paying 3 dollards extra to get your disired item in 1 compared to 3 days, there was "neutrality", so that every package will take exactly 2 days? Now some packages cost more to deliver because they have to be transported faster, even though 3 days would have been fine for the customer, and some may be cheaper. but come later than desired, even though the customer would have been willing to pay more.

The same is true for data. I dont care if my overnight download finishes at 4 am or at 7 am when I wake up. Contrary to that, I teach French for Germans and provide online lessons delivered as a livestream for my students. My upstream has to be fast and reliable, and dropping frames due to connection issues is unacceptable for me and my students. Why ban the ability to differentiate between important and unimportant data? The same is true for Netflix by the way, they also want "the fast lane"  (I hate the terminology, but you know what I mean), and enforcing Net Neutrality can hurt them just as much.

 

That does not mean that I think that ISPs are doing a great job, on the contraty, I think they are, mostly, horrible. But we have to look at the reasons for that, and regulation does not help.

 

Sorry if my English is not great, its my third language and I dont use it that much, and mostly in short messaging.

[Godlygamer23]

You should do a 3-5 line summary of your argument for those too lazy to read the whole post, such as myself. 

I'm too lazy to even read the summary.

[Blade of Grass]

Second part.

Net Neutrality makes the internet inefficient. Everyhwere in the world, wie differentiate between important stuff and less important stuff. You pay extra for fast shipping, car repairs, medical attention etc. What if, instead of paying 3 dollards extra to get your disired item in 1 compared to 3 days, there was "neutrality", so that every package will take exactly 2 days? Now some packages cost more to deliver because they have to be transported faster, even though 3 days would have been fine for the customer, and some may be cheaper. but come later than desired, even though the customer would have been willing to pay more.

The same is true for data. I dont care if my overnight download finishes at 4 am or at 7 am when I wake up. Contrary to that, I teach French for Germans and provide online lessons delivered as a livestream for my students. My upstream has to be fast and reliable, and dropping frames due to connection issues is unacceptable for me and my students. Why ban the ability to differentiate between important and unimportant data? The same is true for Netflix by the way, they also want "the fast lane" (I hate the terminology, but you know what I mean), and enforcing Net Neutrality can hurt them just as much.

You cannot compare the internet and other services.

You have to remember, net neutrality is about not discriminating against traffic, so not allowing ISPs to slow down traffic based off who you're getting or sending to/from.

Just to look at your shipping example, I'll use a counter I previously used in a thread. What if your postal service decided that every time you send a letter to a family member, you need to pay a family mail fee. You can send a letter to your aunt's neighbour for $2 or to her for $4! Is that fair? Why does the postal service care about who you're sending your mail to? Does it really change how they deliver a letter if you're sending it to a friend? Child? Boss? Lover?

The real issue is not that ISPs can't deliver, so they want to purposely slow down other companies services and charge you more because (to alleviate poor infrastructure).

What if Google decided that they don't want users using Bing search, delisted it and blocked it on all their browsers?

You would have people crying nonstop about Google's anticompetitive behavior.

Yet, people are trying to allow one business tax customers/business to use a separate businesses service? Why should I have to pay a tax to a business so I can use someone else's service? Does the gas station charge BMW a tax so I can fill up my car there?

So yes, I am pro net neutrality, just because the alternative could very well be detrimental to our society.

People have issues with government censoring illegal content? Just wait until corporations start blocking competition.

[Speedbird]

Great post, dude. I sure hope the ISP's are not going to charge $2999 to view this post.

 

All I could think was: DA 'LOOMINATI!

[TheLongWay]

I completely disargee.

If Google does not show bing as a search result its a perfectly legitimate business strategy.Why? Because Google is not Manna sent from heaven to enrich the lives of people with free public utilities, they are a business and dont have to promote the business of others. Thats like saying that Porsche has to mention Honda in their ads, its nonsense.

Now, there are reasons why they dont do it. I use Google because I can find what I search for faster. If they change their software in a way that I cannot find what I want (like Bing, or any other product) I will stop using Google. They have an incentive to keep some fairness to the search engine. But they can change their software however they like, and calling that anticompetitive is just plain nonsense and confuses publicutilities with private enterprise. if you dont like it, use Bing or Yahoo.

 

"You cannot compare the internet and other services."

 

Yes I can, and it is reasonable to do so.

If a postal service decides to change its cost structure in a way I dislike, I use a different provider. Im not sure what you are using in the US, but Im sure there are more than just one or two.

 

You have to pay the ISP for using Netflix because Netflix uses gigantic amouns of data, which is expensive for the ISP. Again,. perfectly reasonable and if you enfore Net Neutrality, Netflix might just come up the biggest loser of them all because they wont get a premium treatment. Maybe now some serious research institutes has to wait longer to access data from around the world. but the grumpy cat post to 9gag will be faster.

 

 

All the issues you complain about derive from one axiom, and that is that there is only one provider that can basically do whatever they want, charge as much as they want, and generally act like a******

To be fair, in some places that is indeed the case. But, and Im sure that is the case 99 percent of the time, that is due to regulation that makes competiton nearly impossible.

 

 

"The real issue is not that ISPs can't deliver, so they want to purposely slow down other companies services and charge you more because (to alleviate poor infrastructure). "

 

Economics is that study of the allocation of scarce ressources. Bandwidth is such a scarce ressource, and since there is no infinite amount available, you have to differentiate between between data. If the network is poor, there is even more of an incentive to do so. Again, most of my data is not that important and I dont mind waiting, but work related data has to be as fast as possible, which is why I pay a premium to ensure the best service.

 

"People have issues with government censoring illegal content? Just wait until corporations start blocking competition."

 

And how would they do that? If Google changes its software so that the first 10 pages are ads for coca cola, thats not anticompetitive at all! The quality of their search engine is their main selling point, and degrading that quality will cost them money in the long run. As a private business, they have no obligation to create the "perfect" search engine that only uses objective criteria to determine the order in which results are shown.

 

Again, if Google decides today that they will not show anything that links to articles that critisize Google. that is NOT anticompetitive. It will make search engine worse, and I might stop using it but they should be able to implement that change. (I dont think they ever would)

 

"You have to remember, net neutrality is about not discriminating against traffic, so not allowing ISPs to slow down traffic based off who you're getting or sending to/from. "

 

I am well aware of that and it is, again, perfectly reasonable. Network infrastructure is expensive and some services like Netflix account for a large percentage of the available bandwidth. If Netflix wants to ensure a premium expenrience for their customers, they should pay more, if that is what the ISP wants.

 

 

My main point remains that the bad behaviour of ISPs derives from the fact that regulation cripples effective competiton. It is next to impossible to build network infrastructure anywhere without running into some bureaucrat that sits on his arse and lets you wait for 2 years. THAT is the problem, not the ISP, they are merely the product of a degenerate legislative environment.

 

 

Think of all the services you are not happy with. Think about your last trip to the DMV (thats what its called, right?), What do these places have in common? They are either government owned or at least heavily regulated. My bank has nice customer serivce, so does my shopping center, my favourite online retailer, my local car dealer, the list goes on and on. In all these cases, competiton has consolidated the market to a certain degree and I, the customer, can pick the company that offers the prices and services I prefer.

Competiton solves all the problems you mention, and regulation is whats maing that very difficult.

Net Neutrality wont foster competiton, it will only make the service worse, because now the ISPs will invest even less, which will lead to more regulation, and so on.

[TheLongWay]

Great post, dude. I sure hope the ISP's are not going to charge $2999 to view this post.

 

All I could think was: DA 'LOOMINATI!

 

You think my hatred of government regulation is a conspirary theory? Ask any small business, aside from internet companies maybe, what affects their daily work most negatively, and you are very likely to hear about regulation. Here in Germany we have tens of thousands of pages of regulation and sometimes small companies with 15 employees have to higher expensive lawyers just to abide by these regulations. 

[othertomperson]

Net Neutrality means actually giving people the service they're paying $40 a month for.

[Briggsy]

A Summary for the Lazy: 

 

Basically, Net neutrality gives them entire control over todays market.

 

You might want to re-word the sentence to something like: "Basically, Not having Net neutrality gives large corporations entire control over today's market."

[VIhul]

Thing is, like they mentioned in the most recent WAN show, if ISPs start piling on ridiculous charges, and stop expanding their infastructure, products like Google Fiber will start appearing and people who actually care about the quality of our internet will start building their own infastructure.

Antother thing they mentioned was, if one City has only ISPs with these limitations, and another doesn't, people will start movies, so those cities will have to start building their own infrastructure.

And, I think your "Tin-Hat mode" theory is 9001% unlikely to happen ever, due to the previous points i've made.

The thing is, many small municipalities are trying to make their own fiber network, but ISP's are throwing their weight around to try and often succeed in shutting down these effort.

What REALLY gets to me though is that these ISP's are unwilling to invest in infrastructure due to financial risk, even though THE 1996 TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT "PAID" FOR SAID INFRASTRUCTURE. (Sorry, rant over)

 

EDIT: Grammar

[Trik'Stari]

The fact that comcast has a service competing with youtube and netflix puts it into a conflict of interest, the only solution is for the government to force comcast to split completely, and not allow them to throttle a competitor. comcast internet and comcast digital cable should not be owned by the same company, or share profits in any way.

 

Not to mention that the ISP's are already far bigger than they should ever have been allowed to be. They were allowed to merge "in order to cut costs and prevent peoples bills from going up" and yet since they were allowed to merge, the bills of their customers have risen 8 times faster than inflation.

 

The thing is, many small municipalities are trying to make their own fiber network, but ISP's are throwing their weight around to try an often succeed in shutting down these effort.

What REALLY gets to me though is that these ISP's are unwilling to invest in infrastructure due to financial risk, even though THE 1996 TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT "PAID" FOR SAID INFRASTRUCTURE. (Sorry, rant over)

 

That was also when they were allowed to merge. not to mention several states passing laws that municipalities couldn't create their own fiber infrastructure.

[TheLongWay]

"The fact that comcast has a service competing with youtube and netflix puts it into a conflict of interest, the only solution is for the government to force comcast to split completely, and not allow them to throttle a competitor. comcast internet and comcast digital cable should not be owned by the same company, or share profits in any way."

 

That is false. If they wanted to, they could only provde service to go to their own website and it should still be legal. You know, youre allowed to provide bad service, its called a market.

 

Like in every example that is given that is pro net neutrality the issue is the following: There is next to no competiton, allowing ISPs to behave like a*****. Now why is that the case? Because of government regulation. The government WANTS a few big companies that they can influence rather than 10 000 small providers, simple as that, Either that, or they are just too stupod to realize what they laws have created.

The only solution is radical change in the laws of most countries, allowing companies to invest in network infrastructure. You have no idea how hard it is to build this infrastructure, when existing ISPs and the government dont want you to. If these laws are abolished, they cant go on behaving like they do now, because they will be out of business just like everyone else. 

 

Again: More regulation does not make it better, we need less regulation to allow competiton, which will force a consilidation of the maket and a pro-consumer shift on its own.