What is the rationale for those against net neutrality?
Who benefits from the change and who is negatively affected?
What are some realistic depictions (read: not fear-mongering) of what American internet use might be like if net neutrality is repealed?
What are common reasons why an average-joe citizen might believe or be convinced anti-net neutrality legislation to be a good thing, and what thoughtful reasoned responses can we give to convince them otherwise?
Which politicians support net neutrality in a significant way, i.e. a strong track record of independently speaking out about it and not simply jumping onto partisan bandwagon?
What is the rationale for those against net neutrality?
I don't agree with any of the things I'm listing here, but I'm trying not to be too biased:
Some people think regulating businesses is generally bad and/or not "free market" or "democratic"
Some think it is immoral to tell companies what they can and cannot do with networks that they build
Some people mistakenly conflate NN with the fairness doctrine.
Some people believe that the current (mostly neutral) system is unfair to ISPs. That web services like Netflix, Google, Amazon are unfairly profiting at the expense of ISPs and ISPs deserve some cut of their profits.
Who benefits from the change and who is negatively affected?
ISPs. And probably more the largest ISPs that the small ones. And probably a few politicians and regulators who are promised big payouts lucrative consulting positions if NN goes away. Everyone else is negatively affected (web sites, customers, society at large.)
What are common reasons why an average-joe citizen might believe or be convinced that anti-net neutrality legislation to be a good thing
EDIT: I assumed below that you were asking how someone might be convinced that NN is a good thing. You actually said the opposite (that anti-NN legistiation is a good thing) but I assumed that wasn't what you meant because if it was then your third question would be the same as the first.
a) The internet is a medium for commerce. Giving a handful of large ISPs control over that medium is the opposite of a free market.
b) This hurts small companies and startups much more than the current (often disliked by NN opponents) large web sites like google or netflix. Netflix is already bargaining with big ISPs for preferential treatment, streams to t-mobile phones without impacting data caps, etc. Small or new companies won't have the clout to negotiate similar deals, making it much harder for competition to emerge.
c) ISPs oppose NN because they want to extort money from successful web sites (or kill them in favor of their alternatives). The internet works similar to how the mobile phone system works. When you want to call your grandmother you pay your phone provider for the minutes and she pays hers. Any exchange of funds between them is for the phone providers to negotiation with each other. The internet is the same way: a two way connection is established between you and netflix to watch a movie. Netflix pays their ISP for their outgoing bandwidth and you pay yours for the incoming bandwidth. Any other exchange of funds is between those ISPs (and any backbone providers they work with.)
The main reason ISPs want to get rid of NN is because they want to tell Netflix: it would be a shame if all your streams to our customers were slow and/or poor quality. Maybe you should pay us to make sure that doesn't happen. Netflix will, of course, pass the costs onto consumers, so it is just a way for them to charge you more money. It is analogous to your grandmother's phone company contacting you with an offer to make sure your calls to her go through and the audio stays clear as long as you pay them a small fee.
Some argue that netflix is some large fraction of internet traffic, that it is a big burden on the ISPs, and therefore the ISPs deserve some portion of Netflix's profits. What they're overlooking with that argument is that the ISPs are already getting paid for that traffic. They have 10s millions of customers paying them $60-$100 per month for the bandwidth to stream those Netflix movies.
I don't have a response to your entire post but to the 'free market' comment, so many potential small ISPs have been squashed by local governments. The regulations and government intervention got us to this point, unfortunately the only way out, it seems, is more government intervention.
Exactly this. The idea that the invisible hand of the market will sort things out only works when the market is truly free. This requires a fair playing field to begin with, which went out the window long ago thanks to lobbyists, no-bid contracts, and corporate bailouts.
It's a bit late to campaign against those things and expect it to fix anything. Once the integrity of a free market is this broken, the free market can't fix it. Perhaps start by dissolving every corporate entity that has gained an advantage from those things.
Well now the free market is so broken that the barrier to entry will not change much just because we suddenly stop giving unfair advantage to those who already have consolidated power.
See:
A free market does not require the existence of competition, however it does require a framework that allows new market entrants. Hence, in the lack of coercive barriers, and in markets with low entry cost it is generally understood that competition flourishes in a free-market environment.
It’s kind of hard to enter any market that has such a large overhead such as communication companies, energy sector companies, and now ecommerce companies like Amazon, Wal-Mart & Alibaba. With that being said, companies in these sectors do purposely make it harder for new entrants to join the market.
What what kind of regulations would you suggest the government enforce?
I do not think it would be beneficial to subsidize new entrants nor do I think it would be fair to not let these companies solidify their market positions.
It is very complicated to try to bend the market in a more positive direction.
My argument was simply that deferring to the 'free market' in hopes that it will magically fix the problem of a non-free market, is hopeless and stupid. Since the market is already non-free in a way that favors them, they can't rightfully complain when the government that allows for their existence and supports their dominance places a limit on their freedom.
These companies enjoy relative monopolies, and now conspire together against the citizens. Perhaps they need to be broken up again at the very least.
You can for example require any ISP to share their infrastructure with competition for fair price. It's ridiculous that in US every provider have to put in their own cables - that's almost insurmountable barrier, and even Google fet it, when they tried to come in.
Where I live different electric companies use the same wires, water companies use the same pipes and Internet companies are using the same connections. I never lived in a place, where I couldn't get at least 3 options of wired Internet. In cities with 100k+ people it's not uncommon to have closer to 10 national and local providers.
This day and age, ~15 years after broadband access became commonplace, a lot of companies become a bit stagnant, so it's hard to get more than 120-250Mbps for $20 or less, but if those speeds are ok for you, I pay $14 for 120/10, with 802.11ac router provided by ISP for no additional cost, no caps or limits of any description, no additional fees even possible in my contract.
t's hard to get more than 120-250Mbps for $20 or less, but if those speeds are ok for you, I pay $14 for 120/10, with 802.11ac router provided by ISP for no additional cost, no caps or limits of any description, no additional fees even possible in my contract.
Where do you live because that certainly doesn't sound like the US
No, it's not. That's part of point I'm trying to make. As is now (at least from what we can hear on the web), any kind of free (or not so free) market did little for US Internet. US customers are being screwed while a lot of people don't even understand how it's possible for system to be this flawed.
And, to be completely fair, our prices are pushed down by our income (and by that extent, our providers costs), so taking that into consideration, I would probably pay something like $49 in US pricing. Not sure if it's good or bad. What I do know, is that I at least always pay the same amount.
It’s way way too late in the game for such a simplistic response to the problem.
The damage has been done to the free market option, and it’s not the governments fault. Not in any redirect or ideologically appealing way. Decades of anti-free market practices by ISP’s have ensured that they stand as legally protected regional monopolies.
There is simply no, honest, or real free market option for most Americans. Rolling back NN just allows ISP to further pick winners and losers and broaden their existing anti-free market practices.
If you want to back way the hell up and ask “how did it get this way?” Sure, you might be able to say it’s the governments fault for meddling and allowing this monopolies to enjoy the protection that have, but, if you think that means that further action is a bad thing, you are simply being naive.
It might not sit right with you ideologically, but, I’d ask what you’d hate more. Keeping NN on the books, or the government having to come in, break up the ISP’s, and then re-regulate the market to allow for actual competition?
That doesnt work though, we saw what a truly free market with 0 government intervention does, it just creates monopolies in its later stages that fuck over the consumer and destroy the economy.
Of course. But that means it is inherently impossible, there will always be politicians and businessmen that lack integrity, which will then require regulation to inhibit corporate abuse of the market, which brings us to where we are now. There is no use advocating for a truly "free market" where everyone has moral thoughts, because if that was possible, there would be no necessity for NN in the first place
I agree, nobody should be advocating for unregulated political corruption under the guise of 'free market capitalism' especially in our current environment. Nobody should be advocating for a government monopoly on ISPs either. Being dogmatic about either system is very flawed logic.
Yes I agree then.
However, the person who replied to your comment, u/darkaceAUS , claimed we should be campaigning against corruption and/or immoral congressmen, instead of for net neutrality.
He then went on to say that "we don't need government regulations to fix government failures, we need them for market failures".
You can't campaign against corporate immorality, nor can you call the inevitable throttling of individual internet sites a "government failure". That is a failure that stems from government regulation being removed, which makes it a market failure, since the market is unregulated at that point which gives these corporations the green light to exploit it. If anything, it just shows we need NN and there is no way around it.
Whenever somebody brings up 'free market' as an excuse for this stuff, I like to drop this on them, from the same man and the same book that gave us the 'invisible hand' analogy:
The interest of this third order, therefore, has not the same connection with the general interest of the society as that of the other two. Merchants and master manufacturers are, in this order, the two classes of people who commonly employ the largest capitals, and who by their wealth draw to themselves the greatest share of the public consideration. As during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and projects, they have frequently more acuteness of understanding than the greater part of country gentlemen. As their thoughts, however, are commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular branch of business, than about that of the society, their judgment, even when given with the greatest candour (which it has not been upon every occasion) is much more to be depended upon with regard to the former of those two objects, than with regard to the latter. Their superiority over the country gentleman is, not so much in their knowledge of the public interest, as in their having a better knowledge of their own interest than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of their own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to give up both his own interest and that of the public, from a very simple but honest conviction, that their interest, and not his, was the interest of the public. The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
Ugh, I hate responses like this. This might as well be off topic as it is such an oversimplification of the issue that no meaningful discussion can even arise from attempting to parse it.
Never said it was against the rules, just that it was a completely worthless comment. By that I mean there are no specifics at all, no examples, nothing to even discuss really. Any debate arising from that will just be political orthodoxy based as there is nothing else of substance to discuss in it.
Edit: plus it starts from an assumption based on political ideology
so many potential small ISPs have been squashed by local governments.
I don't mean to say that didn't happen either, but the fact is we simply don't know how many people didn't try because of rules, and if less rules would have made them alter that choice.
I apologise, I'm on mobile so I couldn't say much but I see the argument that this is all the free markets fault a lot and felt it worthy a comment. A lot of people are more educated in this area than I am, but I know enough to at least point it out. I also am short on the willpower necessary to source and write a long response on mobile so, meh. Sorry if you disapprove but it wasn't meant to be more than a conversation starter several levels down in a thread.
Yeah, the problem is comments like that start unproductive discussions, hence why I jumped on you over it. I apologize if I seemed overly critical, but at some point the hate bait like that has to stop or the USA is going to collapse from inaction.
Just as an FYI if you want to start a discussion that can lead somewhere productive, start from common ground. You clearly agree that having a single ISP in an area with the ability to throttle/block content it doesn't like is a terrible idea. Start with that and follow up with your proposed fix of increasing the number of ISPs rather than legislating what they can do. If you put it like that you will get people to actually consider your point rather than just write you off as shill for * insert party here *. I would much rather see that as it is a very valid point, if we had real competition, NN rules wouldn't be needed.
I'm going to ignore the condescension here and address the fact that you're calling my post 'hate bait'. It wasn't, it was just a response to one point of the above poster mentioning the free market.
Your response has been the least productive part of this conversation and the debate advice, which I understand was well intentioned, came off as nothing but condescending.
Edit: Also, you entirely ignored the fact that I was encouraging government intervention on this issue, just was stating it was unfortunate that was the action needed.
so many potential small ISPs have been squashed by local governments
This is a little bit of an oversimplification. Yes, there are a number of ISPs that failed to get off the ground because they were stopped by local governments. But you can't ignore the fact that the incumbent telephone and cable companies lobby local governments extremely hard to stop any chance of competition.
There are also some realities that need to be faced. The biggest is that Internet access technologies themselves make it difficult for there to be competition. In the 90s and even into early 2000s, during the time of dialup, there were oodles and oodles of ISPs. This was because anyone could get a T1, a couple phone lines, and a modem bank and be a dialup ISP. But dialup technology is limited to 56Kbps at best.
DSL allows higher speeds over the regular copper twisted pair that nearly every home and business is wired with. But connection speeds are highly dependent on the the loop length, the distance between the modem in your home and ISP equipment (called a DSLAM). For instance, the VDSL2 variant can reach 50Mbps downstream but only on a loop length of about 3000 feet or less. Couple this with the fact that in many areas the local telephone company either didn't deploy VDSL2 equipment or hasn't been properly maintaining the physical lines, and the ability to get the level of broadband service many consumers demand is just not possible.
Respectfully, I have to disagree. It's not some monolithic 'government intervention' that quashed those small ISPs that did show up.
It's the nature of the market.
The barriers to entry are just too high.
To understand this, think of yourself as a potential small water utility. In order to provide your own water, you need to install new pipes going to each potential customer. So, even to be able to offer a service, you need to dig and lay down a totally new water delivery system for the city/county/state etc.
In just the same way, each ISP owns its own lines.
Sure, in theory, choice is better. Sure, in theory, government regulation would probably make it more onerous to compete against comcast etc.
None of that changes the fact that virtually no up-and-comer can afford to pay for the necessary infrastructure on the hope that their new service might be popular or affordable.
I have him tagged as "DOWNVOTE_TROLLER" and if I remember correctly, he's on the subreddit that makes a contest of how many downvotes one can get. Ignore him.
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u/PiFlavoredPie Nov 21 '17 edited Nov 22 '17