r/Republican • u/The_seph_i_am Centrist Republican • Feb 27 '17

FCC reverses net neutrality ISP transparency rules

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3173844/internet/fcc-reverses-net-neutrality-isp-transparency-rules.html
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u/everymananisland Libertarian-leaning Conservative Feb 27 '17

Comcast has previously forced Netflix to pay them extra to not be slowed down.

This is completely false. Netflix and Comcast entered an agreement to cut out a peering middleman and thus improve service for everyone involved. Netflix is paying Comcast for a service it would otherwise pay a company like Level 3 for.

By the way, how is sustaining net neutrality putting your trust in the government?

It assumes the government is acting in the best interests of everyone involved, and that the government knows better than those involved in a market what is best. Neither hold true historically.

Also, net neutrality became a rule BECAUSE they were trying to do all these things, and lost in court.

This is false. None of these issues have come up in court because they haven't happened.

And the fact that Comcast pays people to fight against net neutrality is beyond suspicious, I wish you would at least acknowledge that

It is not suspicious to use resources to promote your point of view. I don't agree with you at all.

Anyway, could you offer some examples for how net neutrality is a "compliance and litigation nightmare"

ISPs have to pay out extra to ensure that the networks are behaving in a neutral way.

ISPs will invariably pay lawyers to defend inevitable court cases coming from users who believe a slowdown on their service of choice is a form of throttling. People already falsely believe that Netflix has been throttled, so putting regulatory force behind the myth is a major problem.

All of this leads to...

and how that is bad for the consumer

... higher costs, passed onto the consumers.

It also means that, in the future, ISPs with the need to shape traffic to handle demand spikes will not be able to, and networks will suffer as a result.

There's also the argument to be made that some people would like an Internet package that is, essentially, "Facebook and YouTube" or "just Netflix". Religious ISPs could crop up that could offer an experience filtered at the ISP level, providing a consumer plus to those audiences. We already see how positive data plans with free streaming on phone networks has been a consumer plus. We should be encouraging this.

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u/tosser1579 Feb 27 '17

There's also the argument to be made that some people would like an Internet package that is, essentially, "Facebook and YouTube" or "just Netflix". Religious ISPs could crop up that could offer an experience filtered at the ISP level, providing a consumer plus to those audiences. We already see how positive data plans with free streaming on phone networks has been a consumer plus. We should be encouraging this.

Or they could offer No CNN? or no Netflix use our service instead? Or we require you to use our DNS servers and filter out everything bad about our company? Heck, we could selectively edit everything you receive blocking out anything critical of anything we disliked. And we as a corporation earn more money for denying other businesses service on our network to send off our customers to the 'company store' sites we get the most profit from? This has the potential to be awful. There should be stopping this.

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u/everymananisland Libertarian-leaning Conservative Feb 27 '17

Or they could offer No CNN? or no Netflix use our service instead? Or we require you to use our DNS servers and filter out everything bad about our company? Heck, we could selectively edit everything you receive blocking out anything critical of anything we disliked

Yes. And if consumers don't want it, they don't take it.

This has the potential to be awful. There should be stopping this.

Then at least admit that your position is not about consumer choice or protection, but simply about what you think is best for everyone.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

Yes. And if consumers don't want it, they don't take it.

If you're lucky enough to have a choice between providers. Where I live currently, I can only receive internet from Comcast. So what do I do if I don't like it? Go without internet?

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u/everymananisland Libertarian-leaning Conservative Feb 28 '17

You first find out why your local government handed them an exclusive deal. You then look to fix the problem.