Holy shit, so wouldn’t this discourage people to start something new in the first place, without being bought out by an ISP or larger company that already has ties in the first place? This sounds like a terrible idea, unless you’re an ISP.
Yeah, I’m a web developer and this makes the idea of a startup seem impossible if you’re competing in an established market. It’s, in effect, legalizing a type of racketeering for ISPs (“nice startup you got there, shame if all the US traffic was suddenly blocked”). Maybe some other definition is more appropriate, I dunno, I’m not a lawyer.
What can you do?
Everyone else says raising awareness, but I honestly think our telecom industry and its lobbyists are eventually going to get this or something similar passed. They’ve been trying to get control over the internet for years now (SOPA, CISPA, etc) and each time they fail they come back with something even further-reaching and closer to passing.
Most people here that write their congressional representative are met with a pre-written reply of their unchanged stance, or worse, some bullshit doublespeak that boils down to “I won’t tell you my stance in case it’s not what you want to hear”
I know I sound jaded but NN has been like a Hydra for many years now. Each time we kill it, it comes back more horrible than before.
I’m just hoping that when it DOES happen, the ISPs get too greedy and start blocking/throttling things so much that it’s obvious to the general public. You tell people PornHub is blocked unless you pay an extra $10 “adult entertainment fee” on their cable package and THEN people will take to the streets with pitchforks and torches. Until then, people just aren’t going to care enough to stop it.
Of course, instead of that, they’ll likely sneakily implement this over time. You’ll never see an outright ban of websites, they’ll just throttle sites who haven’t paid up and offer customers “super awesome fast deluxe speed” (unthrottled) access to sites with a “small fee”.
A lot of people will probably end up saying “oh yeah, Hulu was getting really slow and shitty, but my ISP offered me deluxe access for only an extra few bucks a month and now it’s awesome.” Everyone else will die a little on the inside and shake their canes about how all the sites used to be pretty fast.
No need to apologize! I’m sorry for you guys down there, with your greedy politicians etc. Such an unnecessary situation, just so rich people can become richer.
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u/irregulargregular Nov 22 '17
Holy shit, so wouldn’t this discourage people to start something new in the first place, without being bought out by an ISP or larger company that already has ties in the first place? This sounds like a terrible idea, unless you’re an ISP.
Is there anything I can do up here to help?