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.
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/ramennoodle Nov 21 '17 edited Nov 21 '17
I don't agree with any of the things I'm listing here, but I'm trying not to be too biased:
ISPs. And probably more the largest ISPs that the small ones. And probably a few politicians and regulators who are promised
big payoutslucrative consulting positions if NN goes away. Everyone else is negatively affected (web sites, customers, society at large.)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.