If you study the past on world history, the country with great power will usually destroy themselves internally, lol. Just pure greed, corruption and racist.
To be fair that's because the American voter is grossly uninformed about everything including net neutrality.
Half the time I hear people talk about net neutrality they are talking about "More government regulation" and "The FCC putting their greasy fingers on our internet."
They don't realize that "Net Neutrality" is a series of regulations enforced by the FCC, and the repeal of it means less government regulation, and less FCC involvement in our internet.
Of course many get this and it's the corporations they demonize, but many seem to feed into this ignorance with intentionally deceitful wording intended to use anti-FCC sentiment to get people to support NN.
I think the numbers would be very different if the American voter knew what they were talking about for once.
This is the reason we have a republic and not a democracy. It really is best we have people actually researched on these issues representing our interests rather than the common man voting on every single issue. Our founding fathers shunned direct democracy because of issues like this. It's the system that put Socrates to death after all.
I would buy into this, if only we didn't have representatives who still deny climate change.
The representatives aren't informed, they're paid.
Considering that this only reverts to the rules as they were in early 2015, freaking out only makes sense if you thought the Internet was some dystopian wasteland in 2014 and has gotten massively better since then.
Either the sky will fall or else it won't. Most likely, returning to the light-touch regulatory regime that facilitated the rise of the Internet over the course of nearly 20 years preceding the FCC's arbitrary switch to Title II regulations in 2015 will similarly help facilitate future Internet improvements that we don't foresee today.
But it's also possible that ISPs will commonly roll out abusive and predatory business practices and block legitimate sites that they don't like or some such. If that happens, then the view that heavier regulation of the Internet is necessary will become prevalent all across the political spectrum rather than the Internet being just another domain in with the left wants more regulation and the right wants fewer. In that case, heavier regulations will come, hopefully in the form of Congress passing a bill properly authorizing heavier regulations.
And don't think that Congress is incapable of acting when there's overwhelming public support for an issue. It's hard to pass laws when half of the public is in favor and half against, and that's by design, but it's much easier to pass laws when there is broad popular support and few people opposed. For example, consider the CAN-SPAM act of 2003, which passed the Senate unanimously and the House by a vote of 392-5.
The overwhelming majority of Americans already opposed the repealing of the rules.
Well the government knows best
Hey North American's already have some of the highest fees for Internet in the World. Why not make it worse?
At least our government has recognized Internet as an essential service, which means, hopefully, fewer shennanigans? Feel free to move to Canada, a lot of your brethren already have! If Trump wasn't enough, maybe this will help push you over the border?
And honestly that seems to be an element of democracy creeping it's way into our republican government. There are many people who believe climate change is a hoax and they want representatives who will run on that platform. I don't believe half the representatives believe the crap coming out of their own mouths anymore but when everything they say and do is going to end up on facebook feeds consumed by their uninformed voter block they have to pander to those people constantly.
I think there is a reason that the quality of government has gone consistently down as people have had more access to political media has gone up. Unfortunately I don't see a better option other than some basic changing like moving to a ranking based voting system like Australia as opposed to the one we have right now that ensures only two parties can compete.
Considering that this only reverts to the rules as they were in early 2015, freaking out only makes sense if you thought the Internet was some dystopian wasteland in 2014 and has gotten massively better since then.
Either the sky will fall or else it won't. Most likely, returning to the light-touch regulatory regime that facilitated the rise of the Internet over the course of nearly 20 years preceding the FCC's arbitrary switch to Title II regulations in 2015 will similarly help facilitate future Internet improvements that we don't foresee today.
But it's also possible that ISPs will commonly roll out abusive and predatory business practices and block legitimate sites that they don't like or some such. If that happens, then the view that heavier regulation of the Internet is necessary will become prevalent all across the political spectrum rather than the Internet being just another domain in with the left wants more regulation and the right wants fewer. In that case, heavier regulations will come, hopefully in the form of Congress passing a bill properly authorizing heavier regulations.
And don't think that Congress is incapable of acting when there's overwhelming public support for an issue. It's hard to pass laws when half of the public is in favor and half against, and that's by design, but it's much easier to pass laws when there is broad popular support and few people opposed. For example, consider the CAN-SPAM act of 2003, which passed the Senate unanimously and the House by a vote of 392-5.
The overwhelming majority of Americans already opposed the repealing of the rules.
Well the government knows best
Hey North American's already have some of the highest fees for Internet in the World. Why not make it worse?
At least our government has recognized Internet as an essential service, which means, hopefully, fewer shennanigans? Feel free to move to Canada, a lot of your brethren already have! If Trump wasn't enough, maybe this will help push you over the border?
If you know of an insurance company hiring, let me know.
Not reference this issue specifically, but a life goal of mine is to live somewhere other than the US to take a look at the country from the outside perspective as opposed to being right in the middle of it.
I would also need to be able to bring my pets. I have.... Quite a few uncommon pets (two rats, two guinea pigs, two hamsters, a corn snake, and a dog) lol. So I would need to be able to bring them along!
To be fair that's because the American voter is grossly uninformed about everything including net neutrality.
Half the time I hear people talk about net neutrality they are talking about "More government regulation" and "The FCC putting their greasy fingers on our internet."
They don't realize that "Net Neutrality" is a series of regulations enforced by the FCC, and the repeal of it means less government regulation, and less FCC involvement in our internet.
Of course many get this and it's the corporations they demonize, but many seem to feed into this ignorance with intentionally deceitful wording intended to use anti-FCC sentiment to get people to support NN.
I think the numbers would be very different if the American voter knew what they were talking about for once.
This is the reason we have a republic and not a democracy. It really is best we have people actually researched on these issues representing our interests rather than the common man voting on every single issue. Our founding fathers shunned direct democracy because of issues like this. It's the system that put Socrates to death after all.
I think you misunderstood Frenchie. The link he posted stated 83% of Americans are in favour of net neutrality, not opposed to it.
You are likely right in that most Americans are tragically uninformed when it comes to making decisions (much like the rest of the world really) but at least in this instance, the public are on the right side of things. It's just a shame the FCC ignored them.
They don't realize that "Net Neutrality" is a series of regulations enforced by the FCC, and the repeal of it means less government regulation, and less FCC involvement in our internet.
Do you really think that? You really think that Net Neutrality which very basically says that the ISPs have to treat all content equally would have more FCC oversight/overhead than what is to come? That's being very naive.
If you want to know where we are heading, all you have to look at is the current state of Cable TV.. which is highly regulated by the FCC... or more correctly the content is regulated. This decision sets up a future where we will see the FCC expanded 10x fold as it tries to police what the internet will become. Saying that repealing Net Neutrality == less government is a ignorant statement fabricated by Republicans who are using this tag line to justify the payments that they have taken from companies like Verizon and Cox. It's crooked politics 0003 and you have taken the bait hook line and sinker.
And others who say that it will be the same thing as before 2015.. no.. no it wont. The internet has seen massive changes in how it's used, specifically with streaming video services cutting into the cable tv market. This push is those same providers like Cox trying to protect their earnings and providers like Verizon who are just slobbering at the potential revenue growth.
You want to know what will happen? Look at your Direct Tv bill, that is what is going to happen. You want basic cable.. sure 30 bucks. Wait, you what DVR.. that's another 10 a month.. you want HD, that's another 10. You want 'premium channels'.. another 20. You want HBO.. another 10. You want Showtime, another 10. A second TV, another 10. You want it all, your Direct TV bill is going to be well over 200 dollars a month.. I know because I subscribe to this crap.
This is the future without Net Neutrality. The speed at which you download content does not matter, this is because they are providing service that is so fast that most people don't use up all what is allotted to them. So the ISP's now will have the ability to monetize in a similar fashion as TV does which is they will pick and choose what you are able to do. Let's peak into the future shall we?
Basic internet for e-mail and html surfing = 30 dollars a month Streaming Netflix = 40 dollars a month Streaming Amazon = 40 dollars a month Blizzard Gaming package (includes WoW, Starcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone = 25 dollars a month EA package = 25 dollars a month Steam Package = 30 dollars a month Music Streaming with Spoitify = 10 dollars a month Music streaming with Pandora = 10 dollars a month Real time streaming Twitch package = 15 dollars a month.
10 years now it will cost you over 200 to 300 dollars a month to get what you get today for well under a 100. This is the future, this is why people say goodbye to the internet as we know it.
It's nice to hear some reasonable people talking about this. The sky isn't falling, we've merely gone back to pre 2015 regulations, when the internet was....virtually the same it is today.
There's a difference between the Internet now, and the Internet of the 90's and early 00's.
Technically - it's the same series of tubes that the late Ted Stevens famously described back in 2006 (which, ironically, was also a Net Neutrality discussion, back then).
What has changed is the way society uses the Internet. This past Black Friday helps to illustrate that - Brick and Mortar stores saw sales fall from 2016, while online shopping exploded (and you saw nearly the same headline in 2016, and 2015 ecommerce reached parity with B&M).
That's just one aspect, but a powerful one - the Internet has become a strong part of the US Economy.
Then there are the day to day tools. A lot of phone service (maybe most of the land line, I don't have a statistic for that) has shifted to VOIP. Video conferencing has expanded into medical service for non-threatening followups and rural community care. Netflix and other streaming services have done for the TV & Movie industry what Spotify and Pandora did for the music industry. Gaming has gone online in a big way - so much so now that developers are emphasizing the online shared experience over (and at the expense of) the single player game. How many AAA games are shipped now (apart from Nintendo) that are not heavily online based, if not almost exclusively online based?
And that list goes on.
The Internet is now a part of life in America. It's like electricity and telephone were in the 1930s - not quite everyone has it yet, and you can live without it, but "living" takes on a whole new definition without having it available. Internet (while maybe not a utility) is reaching that level of impact, it's around the corner. It's become so deeply ingrained into people's lives that to not have it will alienate you from a large part of America (and the world).
That is what has changed since "light touch" regulations allowed the Internet to thrive. Now, maybe the Internet would continue to thrive under light touch regulations for several more years. After all, Bell was founded in 1877, and the government didn't feel the need to step in and heavily regulate that until 1974 (and even then, the "breakup" wasn't official until 1982). And ironically, you could also very well say, Bell only became a monopoly in the first place because other government regulations discouraged competition.
But I'd like to think we learned some lessons from that, and could avoid some of that without taking 100 years to get there. Which is the real root of the issue - lack of competition. Net Neutrality is only needed when competition doesn't exist, and it's largely local laws that are preventing terrestrial ISPs from being able to compete.
Personally, I think it's being blown out of proportion, especially by the "poor" YouTubers who are worried they might actually have to go get a job that requires them to leave the house. *Gasp!*
Snarkiness aside, I don't know about everyone else, but my ISP is a massive carrier, and they and the other ISPs like them have been gigantic corporations who essentially play by their own rules for years now, so I doubt much will change for those of us who are their customers. I would assume that people using budget carriers, or out in the sticks, or what have you, may suffer a bit but probably already do, at least to a certain extent.
The Internet and its overarching systems and regulatory bodies, like most other systems we live under in this so-called "free world", is corrupt, has been corrupt, and is going to continue to be corrupt until the sun falls from the sky. So none of this should be a surprise, and I really doubt it's going to change things very much. Any time human beings run anything, it's basically guaranteed to be (a) a disaster, (b) corrupt, or (c) retarded. See: social media.
"We are all as God made us, and many of us much worse." - Don Quixote
Basic internet for e-mail and html surfing = 30 dollars a month Streaming Netflix = 40 dollars a month Streaming Amazon = 40 dollars a month Blizzard Gaming package (includes WoW, Starcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone = 25 dollars a month EA package = 25 dollars a month Steam Package = 30 dollars a month Music Streaming with Spoitify = 10 dollars a month Music streaming with Pandora = 10 dollars a month Real time streaming Twitch package = 15 dollars a month.
10 years now it will cost you over 200 to 300 dollars a month to get what you get today for well under a 100. This is the future, this is why people say goodbye to the internet as we know it.
If you have such insight of what is going to happen tomorrow. I want lotto numbers now. When is the world going to end? How? Is the world really going to run out of fossil fuels by the year 2000? Will Y2K really cause all the computers in the world to crash and never boot again? Will the polar ice caps melt and flood half the world by 2012? Will Lassie save Timmy?
Is the truth here...this is exactly what you would do if you were in charge and had the power? Are you projecting?
In my day i grew up with no internet and no cell phone. We were slim and built like a ox and walked every where to talk to someone . Not like today where kids are fat and text each other when they are together...But my point is, remember the time when you had a "Party Phone" where you had to wait till the others were off so that you can use your own phone..Then when you wanted a "private line" you HAD TO PAY FOR IT because the Company offered it separate from the party line..Then the break up of Ma bell and it open the door of many different plans for phones and different companies..
I think with the break up of Net neutrality will be the same as it was with the phone companies. Soon it will be the TV programs where you pay to what you want to watch instead of a package with garbage in it like the cable companies have today...Just my 2 cents..
Meh, Reddit got people riled up. Competition will keep balance for the most part in the U.S. people seem to ignore that. Example: In the past few years it's gone from Google going on about bringing their 1000Mbps lines to major cities then now various companies offering those lines. I don't live in some major city. There's 2 companies atm in my neighborhood that offer 1000Mbps lines. The kicker is At&t (wow) is the cheapest at ($80) beating the other company by $10. I don't really have a need for a line like that personally. I'm happy at 250Mbps up and down at $45 total, fees included. While a lot of rural area's may not see fiber for awhile it's definitely spreading. Heck my tablet and phone can't even take advantage of a 250 line. Usually topping out at around 100Mbps. S6 edge and some random tablet. Could be my router which is not the best but not junk either. Point being companies will have to be competitive to keep customers. If companies start doing stuff that people don't like they'll switch companies. If they all start doing it upsetting enough people I'm sure at that point something will be done. All the end of days stuff is way over the top.
Sounds like a response from one of the millions of fake accounts the news has been reporting that were submitted to the FCC because this decision had to be made public and accept open feedback before it was concluded.
Really? That's a first. Slightly hilarious you just called me a fake account or even a FCC bot? I can't actually believe it. lmao! How did the internet ever survive or innovate prior to 2015. Rolls eyes.
Added: The doomsdayers atm are way over the top. Competition does work where you have plenty of choices! And if not which is a big if people will be all over ISP's who mess up. Then I'll worry about it. As of right now. Life goes on.
I don't know if this is the case here but large companies do hire agencies to employ people to post in forums to help influence public opinion. Very easy to find those companies on the internet looking to hire people to post in forums.
if there was probably evidence i could understand that. But come on. I have enough post history... I've been around since 04 and can tell people a lot of antics that happened on this site. I slowed down posting around Jan/feb? Not that I was that active to begin with. Not sure of when actually slowed down completely. I had big, no, massive life changes. I think me asking about a tablet was the last significant thread I had when I went to FL last year. Not looked at my post history. From where I am sitting it's genuinely funny. I'm not a schill, or some FCC bot. Besides they would target places with much more traffic. Like news site comment sections, reddit, Youtube comments. Schill got thrown out there because I have a different view point and that's it. Which are similar to ones that were already expressed prior to me saying anything in the A.M. I refuse to scream the sky is falling and assume the worst that is all. Life goes on. When a company crosses the line people will be all over it! Then I'll worry about it and it will likely change through sheer pressure on the company or by legislation.
They don't realize that "Net Neutrality" is a series of regulations enforced by the FCC, and the repeal of it means less government regulation, and less FCC involvement in our internet.
Do you really think that? You really think that Net Neutrality which very basically says that the ISPs have to treat all content equally would have more FCC oversight/overhead than what is to come? That's being very naive.
If you want to know where we are heading, all you have to look at is the current state of Cable TV.. which is highly regulated by the FCC... or more correctly the content is regulated. This decision sets up a future where we will see the FCC expanded 10x fold as it tries to police what the internet will become. Saying that repealing Net Neutrality == less government is a ignorant statement fabricated by Republicans who are using this tag line to justify the payments that they have taken from companies like Verizon and Cox. It's crooked politics 0003 and you have taken the bait hook line and sinker.
And others who say that it will be the same thing as before 2015.. no.. no it wont. The internet has seen massive changes in how it's used, specifically with streaming video services cutting into the cable tv market. This push is those same providers like Cox trying to protect their earnings and providers like Verizon who are just slobbering at the potential revenue growth.
You want to know what will happen? Look at your Direct Tv bill, that is what is going to happen. You want basic cable.. sure 30 bucks. Wait, you what DVR.. that's another 10 a month.. you want HD, that's another 10. You want 'premium channels'.. another 20. You want HBO.. another 10. You want Showtime, another 10. A second TV, another 10. You want it all, your Direct TV bill is going to be well over 200 dollars a month.. I know because I subscribe to this crap.
This is the future without Net Neutrality. The speed at which you download content does not matter, this is because they are providing service that is so fast that most people don't use up all what is allotted to them. So the ISP's now will have the ability to monetize in a similar fashion as TV does which is they will pick and choose what you are able to do. Let's peak into the future shall we?
Basic internet for e-mail and html surfing = 30 dollars a month Streaming Netflix = 40 dollars a month Streaming Amazon = 40 dollars a month Blizzard Gaming package (includes WoW, Starcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone = 25 dollars a month EA package = 25 dollars a month Steam Package = 30 dollars a month Music Streaming with Spoitify = 10 dollars a month Music streaming with Pandora = 10 dollars a month Real time streaming Twitch package = 15 dollars a month.
10 years now it will cost you over 200 to 300 dollars a month to get what you get today for well under a 100. This is the future, this is why people say goodbye to the internet as we know it.
I hope your prediction come true as I want kids to stay away from Youtube.
Net neutrality was a catch phrase created by democrats to support wide spread internet surveillance. It was created by the Obama area FCC, not FTC. Everything remains exactly the same because nothing monetized is regulated by the FCC.
Meh, Reddit got people riled up. Competition will keep balance for the most part in the U.S. people seem to ignore that. Example: In the past few years it's gone from Google going on about bringing their 1000Mbps lines to major cities then now various companies offering those lines. I don't live in some major city. There's 2 companies atm in my neighborhood that offer 1000Mbps lines. The kicker is At&t (wow) is the cheapest at ($80) beating the other company by $10. I don't really have a need for a line like that personally. I'm happy at 250Mbps up and down at $45 total, fees included. While a lot of rural area's may not see fiber for awhile it's definitely spreading. Heck my tablet and phone can't even take advantage of a 250 line. Usually topping out at around 100Mbps. S6 edge and some random tablet. Could be my router which is not the best but not junk either. Point being companies will have to be competitive to keep customers. If companies start doing stuff that people don't like they'll switch companies. If they all start doing it upsetting enough people I'm sure at that point something will be done. All the end of days stuff is way over the top.
There are many areas where there is no competition. I live in a suburb that only has room for Time Warner/Spectrum. AT&T is maxed out on ports and has been for years so my only option was Time Warner.
My concern is when some ISP parent company buys Hulu and then drastically throttles NetFlix bandwidth through their network to make it practically unwatchable we will have no legal recourse.
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
Meh, Reddit got people riled up. Competition will keep balance for the most part in the U.S. people seem to ignore that. Example: In the past few years it's gone from Google going on about bringing their 1000Mbps lines to major cities then now various companies offering those lines. I don't live in some major city. There's 2 companies atm in my neighborhood that offer 1000Mbps lines. The kicker is At&t (wow) is the cheapest at ($80) beating the other company by $10. I don't really have a need for a line like that personally. I'm happy at 250Mbps up and down at $45 total, fees included. While a lot of rural area's may not see fiber for awhile it's definitely spreading. Heck my tablet and phone can't even take advantage of a 250 line. Usually topping out at around 100Mbps. S6 edge and some random tablet. Could be my router which is not the best but not junk either. Point being companies will have to be competitive to keep customers. If companies start doing stuff that people don't like they'll switch companies. If they all start doing it upsetting enough people I'm sure at that point something will be done. All the end of days stuff is way over the top.
Sounds like a response from one of the millions of fake accounts the news has been reporting that were submitted to the FCC because this decision had to be made public and accept open feedback before it was concluded.
Really? That's a first. Slightly hilarious you just called me a fake account or even a FCC bot? I can't actually believe it. lmao! How did the internet ever survive or innovate prior to 2015. Rolls eyes.
Added: The doomsdayers atm are way over the top. Competition does work where you have plenty of choices! And if not which is a big if people will be all over ISP's who mess up. Then I'll worry about it. As of right now. Life goes on.
I don't know if this is the case here but large companies do hire agencies to employ people to post in forums to help influence public opinion. Very easy to find those companies on the internet looking to hire people to post in forums.
companys? try goverments, so they can sway people to support/vote they candidate
To be fair that's because the American voter is grossly uninformed about everything including net neutrality.
Half the time I hear people talk about net neutrality they are talking about "More government regulation" and "The FCC putting their greasy fingers on our internet."
They don't realize that "Net Neutrality" is a series of regulations enforced by the FCC, and the repeal of it means less government regulation, and less FCC involvement in our internet.
Of course many get this and it's the corporations they demonize, but many seem to feed into this ignorance with intentionally deceitful wording intended to use anti-FCC sentiment to get people to support NN.
I think the numbers would be very different if the American voter knew what they were talking about for once.
This is the reason we have a republic and not a democracy. It really is best we have people actually researched on these issues representing our interests rather than the common man voting on every single issue. Our founding fathers shunned direct democracy because of issues like this. It's the system that put Socrates to death after all.
I think you misunderstood Frenchie. The link he posted stated 83% of Americans are in favour of net neutrality, not opposed to it.
You are likely right in that most Americans are tragically uninformed when it comes to making decisions (much like the rest of the world really) but at least in this instance, the public are on the right side of things. It's just a shame the FCC ignored them.
FCC was paid to ignore them.
this post on reddit explains HOW this really works
The_Crass-Beagle_Act
•
2h
Nobody pays the FCC or its commissioners directly while they're on the commission. But it's an age old practice government-industrial complexes to do as follows.
Specially-interested corporation (To be hypothetical, let's call it... I don't know... Berizon) takes one of their lawyers (Again, to be hypothetical, let's call him Pajit Ai) and grooms him to become a commissioner of the FCC, pulling strings with allies in congress whom they donate too (Like, let's say, Titch McTonnel) to get a recommondation for his appointment.
Pajit Ai works in the FCC for years, raking in a steady high-ranking government salary, and pretends to be independent of his past life as a lawyer for Berizon. Ultimately, though, he votes in the stated interest of Berizon and companies like Berizon, claiming that it's in the best interest of the public and everyone wants it (even though nobody in the public really does and demonstrates it through millions of "fake" public FCC comments).
After his work is done, and his term is up, Pajit Ai is "coincidentally" snatched back up by his old employer Berizon, now in a much higher position with a much higher salary and bigger benefits/bonus package than he had before, as his meaningful experience as Chairman of the FCC surely makes him very valuable to Berizon (but surely not because of anything he did to favor Berizon while employed there... Surely).
Edit: For people who want to learn more about this phenomenon, it's called the Revolving Door (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)), and it's a very well-documented phenomenon in the United States and around the world. The premise of the Revolving Door is that the government frequently hires industry professionals as regulators of that same industry, who then eventually go on to be hired again as industry professionals due to their experience as government regulators. When you add in the influence industries have over appointments of government regulators for their industry, a clear pattern of how companies like... ahem... Berizon influence the regulation of their own industry via the FCC.
Don't you know that facts are just the mechanisms by which socialists (aka Democrats) repress the ideals of truth, justice, and the American way???
In the wake of successfully lobbying the FCC to kill net neutrality, Comcast is pushing for a new net neutrality law. Why? As the lawsuits against the FCC for ignoring comment fraud and the public interest looms, ISPs realize full well it's a legal battle they may very well lose. After all, the FCC will need to prove in court that it not only listened to consumer feedback and expert analysis (it didn't), but that the broadband market changed so substantively in the last two years to warrant such a stark reversal of a popular policy (it didn't).
Even if the FCC and its ISP BFFs win that court fight, they still have to find a way to keep future FCCs from simply passing new, tough net neutrality rules.
The solution? For ISPs, it's to push a new law that they know they'll quite literally write, submitted to a Congress all-but owned courtesy of campaign contributions. Such law will profess to put the long-standing debate over net neutrality debate to an end, but will be filled with so many loopholes as to be effectively useless.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
The world will return to what is always was prior to Obama's rule. FREE.OPEN. UNFETTERED BY POLITICIANS AND TECHNOCRATS DECIDING WHO IS NAUGHTY AND WHO IS NICE.
The world will return to what is always was prior to Obama's rule. FREE.OPEN. UNFETTERED BY POLITICIANS AND TECHNOCRATS DECIDING WHO IS NAUGHTY AND WHO IS NICE.
As far as I can tell left wingers still control the media and the minds of Americans. Otherwise old white men wouldn't be getting kicked out of office by young women who don't like their attitude3s towards sex.
Cable has always been outrageous in price. The truth is all you really need is the internet, but they screw you by offering triple play packages. Internet alone ends still being expensive without the discount. As far as things like Netflix and Amazon go you don"t need them. There is plenty of free content on the internet.
If you have such insight of what is going to happen tomorrow. I want lotto numbers now. When is the world going to end? How? Is the world really going to run out of fossil fuels by the year 2000? Will Y2K really cause all the computers in the world to crash and never boot again? Will the polar ice caps melt and flood half the world by 2012? Will Lassie save Timmy?
Is the truth here...this is exactly what you would do if you were in charge and had the power? Are you projecting?
One thing to think about:
Maybe if people hadn't made such a big deal about Y2K, fossil fuels, environmental impact, etc.... maybe all those bad things might have come to pass. Maybe we have avoided them (so far) because a few Cassandras did stand up and say the sky is falling.
Just because they didn't come to pass doesn't necessarily mean they were wrong at the time.
Choice = I meant over all across the U.S. No company has a monopoly indefinitely here atm. No I won't contact anyone and "bulb, blub" Because nothing negative has happened. The sky hasn't fallen. End of worlds isn't here. And again the minute an isp messes up it will get everyone' attention and I'll worry about it then. Even if its some rural entity it will grab everyone' attention. I'm basically inline with Quizzical's frame of thought for the most part. Competition does work. If you live rural it's just the way it is atm. I know that choice very well. I just bought my house in April. I had a choice. 160 acres literally in the middle of no where. No cell phone towers nothing. I loved the features of the land but hated the house and was worried about its age. Other was new construction in urban area. I choose new construction just to build equity and use as a stepping stone. Life goes on. When something happens I'll worry about it then. Sorry about typos or anything else. My phone's kinda crap. Been in water to many times. Was using my pc earlier.
No company has a monopoly indefinitely? the problem there is that they have a monopoly now, unless that changes then choice does not exist beyond the old 'do you want internet yes/no' choice, how much you pay is very much dependant on the whims of whoever is providing internet services in your area, legislation needs to go in now to take away the rights of any ISP to limit or restrict other ISP's from competing with them in the areas they operate, without exception! anything less would be anti consumer, and it would be extremely disingenous of you to suggest otherwise.
There is an important difference between:
1) The government has granted some ISP an artificial monopoly. 2) An ISP has a monopoly in a particular area because they're the only one that has bothered to build a network.
The former needs to be ended and quickly. That's a completely unforced error and insane public policy. The latter is perhaps undesirable, but the reality is that it's just not that profitable to build out networks in areas that aren't that heavily populated.
There is also an important difference between:
1) There's only one way to get on the Internet at all from a particular area. 2) One ISP offers a massively better product (higher bandwidth, higher or no bandwidth caps, better ping, etc.) than any alternatives.
The true monopoly of the first situation these days would require you to live in a really out of the way place. But the second can also have a lot of the undesirable characteristics of a monopoly, depending on how bad the second best ISP in an area is. If only one ISP offers anything better than dialup, then that's pretty much a monopoly. If the second best ISP offers 5 Mbps without any data caps, or perhaps 4G LTE that caps you at 10 GB/month, that meaningfully restricts what the best ISP can do even if it's far from ideal. If the second best ISP offers 50 Mbps without data caps, you've got good competition and shouldn't complain.
I would submit that areas that have a competitive market in Internet access shouldn't have regulations designed under the assumption that all ISPs there simultaneously have a monopoly. For areas that don't have much competition, getting more competition should be the primary focus, and treating the ISP there as a monopoly to be regulated should at most be a temporary thing with plans to drop it if more competition arrives.
1) The government has granted some ISP an artificial monopoly. 2) An ISP has a monopoly in a particular area because they're the only one that has bothered to build a network.
The former needs to be ended and quickly. That's a completely unforced error and insane public policy. The latter is perhaps undesirable, but the reality is that it's just not that profitable to build out networks in areas that aren't that heavily populated.
There is also an important difference between:
1) There's only one way to get on the Internet at all from a particular area. 2) One ISP offers a massively better product (higher bandwidth, higher or no bandwidth caps, better ping, etc.) than any alternatives.
The true monopoly of the first situation these days would require you to live in a really out of the way place. But the second can also have a lot of the undesirable characteristics of a monopoly, depending on how bad the second best ISP in an area is. If only one ISP offers anything better than dialup, then that's pretty much a monopoly. If the second best ISP offers 5 Mbps without any data caps, or perhaps 4G LTE that caps you at 10 GB/month, that meaningfully restricts what the best ISP can do even if it's far from ideal. If the second best ISP offers 50 Mbps without data caps, you've got good competition and shouldn't complain.
I would submit that areas that have a competitive market in Internet access shouldn't have regulations designed under the assumption that all ISPs there simultaneously have a monopoly. For areas that don't have much competition, getting more competition should be the primary focus, and treating the ISP there as a monopoly to be regulated should at most be a temporary thing with plans to drop it if more competition arrives.
I do agree on the whole, particularly your second set of statements, but I take issue with "An ISP has a monopoly in a particular area because they're the only one that has bothered to build a network."
Your making the assumption they just don't want to invest in infrastructure, or the hassle of dealing with local permitting.
That is not the case. Take Google Fiber. They definitely had the cash to do it. They had the willingness to put up with local bureaucratic permitting. They even got it rolled out in a few select places. Why didn't they go wide open with installation and enrollment?
Those "local monopolies" lobby very, very hard to keep local laws on the books that make it all but impossible to roll out a terrestrial network that could compete with local telecom/cable. It's a heck of a lot cheaper, a lot more effective, and generates a lot less headlines when you are doing it locally, rather than fighting a huge Federal battle on Headline News. Not many places have things like "One Touch Make Ready", and that right there alone is a huge stumbling block to being able to install another network in a city.
I won't claim this is why Google Fiber stopped rolling out, there may be any number of reasons behind that. But I bet it sure didn't help. I know in our city, if Comcast, AT&T, or the electric company wants to run a new line, the permits are drawn and they are underground in less than 6 months. If anyone else wants to run a new line... you get stuck in a permitting hell, and you have to arrange for any interference to be handled safely - which means paying and scheduling AT&T, Comcast, and the electric company, individually, to come out and make their services ready for you to be able to add yours. You might be able to get your cable in the ground in 2-3 years, and it will cost you 3-4x what it costs the other companies to do.
Also, as an aside - what happened to ISPs in areas where Google actually came to town, or even threatened to come to town? And why doesn't that level of activity occur everywhere all the time, if companies really are interested in providing better service?
Don't assume that if there are a ton of regulations imposed, they'll be the regulations you want. Comcast can afford to hire a lot of lawyers and lobbyists. A small ISP that only serves one market can't. Who do you think that the regulations will be written to favor?
When regulation really took off in the United States in the 1930s, the effect in many industries was killing off a lot of small businesses and pushing consolidation of industries into fewer, larger businesses.
Removing net neutrality was heavily lobbied by large ISPs like Comcast.
By your own logic, that was a decision written in favor of heavily lobbying large ISPs and is likely to kill off a lot of small ISPs that didn't have power to affect that decision.
ISPs, like most other businesses, are there to make money. As such, they tend to hate things that cost them money unnecessarily.
Complying with onerous regulations costs a lot of money. That's still true even if you weren't going to do anything that the regulations were intended to stop. Even an ISP that absolutely intended to treat all sites equally will incur considerable expenses in ensuring that they comply with every detail of extensive net neutrality laws--and then will pass those costs on to consumers.
For the most part, ISPs aren't bothered by the particular sites you visit. They want to provide a good service and keep their customers happy--and keep their customers happily paying. It does cost them money when particular customers use enormous amounts of bandwidth. If an ISP sees that 1% of their customers is using 30% of their bandwidth, they wouldn't mind seeing that 1% cancel their service entirely.
But what they're using the bandwidth on mostly isn't the concern of ISPs, at least apart from DDOS attacks. The only real exception is when there is some particular site or category of sites that costs them exorbitant amounts of bandwidth. The most notable example of that thus far has been the P2P torrent services in their heyday.
If ISPs want to crack down on a handful of individuals using too much bandwidth, they've historically found that it's usually far better to crack down on those particular users directly rather than using services that use a lot of bandwidth as proxies. That way, you only irritate a tiny fraction of your customers, and only customers that you're losing money on, anyway. Using a ton of bandwidth is also more strongly correlated with using a ton of bandwidth than any proxy they could device, as well as being cheaper to track.
FCC is 100% influenced by politics and as either dems or reps have majority control over FCC net neutrality comes and goes.
The core issue is that FCC should NOT have the power over net neutrality as they dont have to answer to the masses, and can pass rulings that over 80% of the general public are opposed to.
Congress should take the power over Internet access from FCC, laws need to be passed where FCC cant make the call just because the ISPs have paid off 3 FCC members and can win a vote 3-2.
Its bullshit politics
Absolutely, whether Internet access is regulated under Title I or Title II laws should be decided by congress. Historically, it was regulated under Title I for decades under both Republican and Democratic presidents. Then in 2015, they suddenly decided to switch to Title II, and people think that switching back will be the end of human civilization or some such. The abrupt switch was in 2015, and that's the one that shouldn't have happened without congressional authorization.
Comments
Pardon my English as it is not my 1st language
The representatives aren't informed, they're paid.
Well the government knows best
Hey North American's already have some of the highest fees for Internet in the World. Why not make it worse?
At least our government has recognized Internet as an essential service, which means, hopefully, fewer shennanigans? Feel free to move to Canada, a lot of your brethren already have! If Trump wasn't enough, maybe this will help push you over the border?
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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I think there is a reason that the quality of government has gone consistently down as people have had more access to political media has gone up. Unfortunately I don't see a better option other than some basic changing like moving to a ranking based voting system like Australia as opposed to the one we have right now that ensures only two parties can compete.
Not reference this issue specifically, but a life goal of mine is to live somewhere other than the US to take a look at the country from the outside perspective as opposed to being right in the middle of it.
I would also need to be able to bring my pets. I have.... Quite a few uncommon pets (two rats, two guinea pigs, two hamsters, a corn snake, and a dog) lol. So I would need to be able to bring them along!
You are likely right in that most Americans are tragically uninformed when it comes to making decisions (much like the rest of the world really) but at least in this instance, the public are on the right side of things. It's just a shame the FCC ignored them.
If you want to know where we are heading, all you have to look at is the current state of Cable TV.. which is highly regulated by the FCC... or more correctly the content is regulated. This decision sets up a future where we will see the FCC expanded 10x fold as it tries to police what the internet will become. Saying that repealing Net Neutrality == less government is a ignorant statement fabricated by Republicans who are using this tag line to justify the payments that they have taken from companies like Verizon and Cox. It's crooked politics 0003 and you have taken the bait hook line and sinker.
And others who say that it will be the same thing as before 2015.. no.. no it wont. The internet has seen massive changes in how it's used, specifically with streaming video services cutting into the cable tv market. This push is those same providers like Cox trying to protect their earnings and providers like Verizon who are just slobbering at the potential revenue growth.
You want to know what will happen? Look at your Direct Tv bill, that is what is going to happen. You want basic cable.. sure 30 bucks. Wait, you what DVR.. that's another 10 a month.. you want HD, that's another 10. You want 'premium channels'.. another 20. You want HBO.. another 10. You want Showtime, another 10. A second TV, another 10. You want it all, your Direct TV bill is going to be well over 200 dollars a month.. I know because I subscribe to this crap.
This is the future without Net Neutrality. The speed at which you download content does not matter, this is because they are providing service that is so fast that most people don't use up all what is allotted to them. So the ISP's now will have the ability to monetize in a similar fashion as TV does which is they will pick and choose what you are able to do. Let's peak into the future shall we?
Basic internet for e-mail and html surfing = 30 dollars a month
Streaming Netflix = 40 dollars a month
Streaming Amazon = 40 dollars a month
Blizzard Gaming package (includes WoW, Starcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone = 25 dollars a month
EA package = 25 dollars a month
Steam Package = 30 dollars a month
Music Streaming with Spoitify = 10 dollars a month
Music streaming with Pandora = 10 dollars a month
Real time streaming Twitch package = 15 dollars a month.
10 years now it will cost you over 200 to 300 dollars a month to get what you get today for well under a 100. This is the future, this is why people say goodbye to the internet as we know it.
Technically - it's the same series of tubes that the late Ted Stevens famously described back in 2006 (which, ironically, was also a Net Neutrality discussion, back then).
What has changed is the way society uses the Internet. This past Black Friday helps to illustrate that - Brick and Mortar stores saw sales fall from 2016, while online shopping exploded (and you saw nearly the same headline in 2016, and 2015 ecommerce reached parity with B&M).
That's just one aspect, but a powerful one - the Internet has become a strong part of the US Economy.
Then there are the day to day tools. A lot of phone service (maybe most of the land line, I don't have a statistic for that) has shifted to VOIP. Video conferencing has expanded into medical service for non-threatening followups and rural community care. Netflix and other streaming services have done for the TV & Movie industry what Spotify and Pandora did for the music industry. Gaming has gone online in a big way - so much so now that developers are emphasizing the online shared experience over (and at the expense of) the single player game. How many AAA games are shipped now (apart from Nintendo) that are not heavily online based, if not almost exclusively online based?
And that list goes on.
The Internet is now a part of life in America. It's like electricity and telephone were in the 1930s - not quite everyone has it yet, and you can live without it, but "living" takes on a whole new definition without having it available. Internet (while maybe not a utility) is reaching that level of impact, it's around the corner. It's become so deeply ingrained into people's lives that to not have it will alienate you from a large part of America (and the world).
That is what has changed since "light touch" regulations allowed the Internet to thrive. Now, maybe the Internet would continue to thrive under light touch regulations for several more years. After all, Bell was founded in 1877, and the government didn't feel the need to step in and heavily regulate that until 1974 (and even then, the "breakup" wasn't official until 1982). And ironically, you could also very well say, Bell only became a monopoly in the first place because other government regulations discouraged competition.
But I'd like to think we learned some lessons from that, and could avoid some of that without taking 100 years to get there. Which is the real root of the issue - lack of competition. Net Neutrality is only needed when competition doesn't exist, and it's largely local laws that are preventing terrestrial ISPs from being able to compete.
Snarkiness aside, I don't know about everyone else, but my ISP is a massive carrier, and they and the other ISPs like them have been gigantic corporations who essentially play by their own rules for years now, so I doubt much will change for those of us who are their customers. I would assume that people using budget carriers, or out in the sticks, or what have you, may suffer a bit but probably already do, at least to a certain extent.
The Internet and its overarching systems and regulatory bodies, like most other systems we live under in this so-called "free world", is corrupt, has been corrupt, and is going to continue to be corrupt until the sun falls from the sky. So none of this should be a surprise, and I really doubt it's going to change things very much. Any time human beings run anything, it's basically guaranteed to be (a) a disaster, (b) corrupt, or (c) retarded. See: social media.
If you have such insight of what is going to happen tomorrow. I want lotto numbers now. When is the world going to end? How? Is the world really going to run out of fossil fuels by the year 2000? Will Y2K really cause all the computers in the world to crash and never boot again? Will the polar ice caps melt and flood half the world by 2012? Will Lassie save Timmy?
Is the truth here...this is exactly what you would do if you were in charge and had the power? Are you projecting?
I think with the break up of Net neutrality will be the same as it was with the phone companies.
Soon it will be the TV programs where you pay to what you want to watch instead of a package with garbage in it like the cable companies have today...Just my 2 cents..
I retired retroactively..Haha
Pardon my English as it is not my 1st language
My concern is when some ISP parent company buys Hulu and then drastically throttles NetFlix bandwidth through their network to make it practically unwatchable we will have no legal recourse.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Cable has always been outrageous in price. The truth is all you really need is the internet, but they screw you by offering triple play packages. Internet alone ends still being expensive without the discount. As far as things like Netflix and Amazon go you don"t need them. There is plenty of free content on the internet.
Maybe if people hadn't made such a big deal about Y2K, fossil fuels, environmental impact, etc.... maybe all those bad things might have come to pass. Maybe we have avoided them (so far) because a few Cassandras did stand up and say the sky is falling.
Just because they didn't come to pass doesn't necessarily mean they were wrong at the time.
1) The government has granted some ISP an artificial monopoly.
2) An ISP has a monopoly in a particular area because they're the only one that has bothered to build a network.
The former needs to be ended and quickly. That's a completely unforced error and insane public policy. The latter is perhaps undesirable, but the reality is that it's just not that profitable to build out networks in areas that aren't that heavily populated.
There is also an important difference between:
1) There's only one way to get on the Internet at all from a particular area.
2) One ISP offers a massively better product (higher bandwidth, higher or no bandwidth caps, better ping, etc.) than any alternatives.
The true monopoly of the first situation these days would require you to live in a really out of the way place. But the second can also have a lot of the undesirable characteristics of a monopoly, depending on how bad the second best ISP in an area is. If only one ISP offers anything better than dialup, then that's pretty much a monopoly. If the second best ISP offers 5 Mbps without any data caps, or perhaps 4G LTE that caps you at 10 GB/month, that meaningfully restricts what the best ISP can do even if it's far from ideal. If the second best ISP offers 50 Mbps without data caps, you've got good competition and shouldn't complain.
I would submit that areas that have a competitive market in Internet access shouldn't have regulations designed under the assumption that all ISPs there simultaneously have a monopoly. For areas that don't have much competition, getting more competition should be the primary focus, and treating the ISP there as a monopoly to be regulated should at most be a temporary thing with plans to drop it if more competition arrives.
Your making the assumption they just don't want to invest in infrastructure, or the hassle of dealing with local permitting.
That is not the case. Take Google Fiber. They definitely had the cash to do it. They had the willingness to put up with local bureaucratic permitting. They even got it rolled out in a few select places. Why didn't they go wide open with installation and enrollment?
Those "local monopolies" lobby very, very hard to keep local laws on the books that make it all but impossible to roll out a terrestrial network that could compete with local telecom/cable. It's a heck of a lot cheaper, a lot more effective, and generates a lot less headlines when you are doing it locally, rather than fighting a huge Federal battle on Headline News. Not many places have things like "One Touch Make Ready", and that right there alone is a huge stumbling block to being able to install another network in a city.
I won't claim this is why Google Fiber stopped rolling out, there may be any number of reasons behind that. But I bet it sure didn't help. I know in our city, if Comcast, AT&T, or the electric company wants to run a new line, the permits are drawn and they are underground in less than 6 months. If anyone else wants to run a new line... you get stuck in a permitting hell, and you have to arrange for any interference to be handled safely - which means paying and scheduling AT&T, Comcast, and the electric company, individually, to come out and make their services ready for you to be able to add yours. You might be able to get your cable in the ground in 2-3 years, and it will cost you 3-4x what it costs the other companies to do.
Also, as an aside - what happened to ISPs in areas where Google actually came to town, or even threatened to come to town? And why doesn't that level of activity occur everywhere all the time, if companies really are interested in providing better service?
Complying with onerous regulations costs a lot of money. That's still true even if you weren't going to do anything that the regulations were intended to stop. Even an ISP that absolutely intended to treat all sites equally will incur considerable expenses in ensuring that they comply with every detail of extensive net neutrality laws--and then will pass those costs on to consumers.
For the most part, ISPs aren't bothered by the particular sites you visit. They want to provide a good service and keep their customers happy--and keep their customers happily paying. It does cost them money when particular customers use enormous amounts of bandwidth. If an ISP sees that 1% of their customers is using 30% of their bandwidth, they wouldn't mind seeing that 1% cancel their service entirely.
But what they're using the bandwidth on mostly isn't the concern of ISPs, at least apart from DDOS attacks. The only real exception is when there is some particular site or category of sites that costs them exorbitant amounts of bandwidth. The most notable example of that thus far has been the P2P torrent services in their heyday.
If ISPs want to crack down on a handful of individuals using too much bandwidth, they've historically found that it's usually far better to crack down on those particular users directly rather than using services that use a lot of bandwidth as proxies. That way, you only irritate a tiny fraction of your customers, and only customers that you're losing money on, anyway. Using a ton of bandwidth is also more strongly correlated with using a ton of bandwidth than any proxy they could device, as well as being cheaper to track.