Badmovies.org Forum

https://websitering.neocities.org/neutral.htm

Well, Net Neutrality's back in the news, so I wrote an article about it. Contains a bit of history, future predictions, and a script making fun of AOL's customer service.

What? You mean you don't think the Internet will end if net neutrality is repealed??!??1?!

Seriously, net neutrality may be good public policy--it may be the best policy. But the pro-neutrality propagandists are really whipping up a furor with emotional arguments, trying to confuse people into thinking net neutrality has something to do with opposing censorship, and playing to public prejudices that because some big corporations support repeal of the regulations, it must be a bad thing (despite the fact that other big corporations like Netflix, Facebook and Google benefit from net neutrality). But in reality very few people have the economic and technical sophistication to understand the implications of removing the regulations. I know I don't. Yet people who have less knowledge than I do manage to be strongly against it.

Again, I'm not particularly against net neutrality. I just think it's supporters are misleading the public by pretending that it's a populist issue or a free speech issue.

Actually, repealing it would play into the hands of censors. Net Neutrality, as policy, prevents ISPs from controlling access to content they don't own. This includes censoring that content.

Seeing the way that wiretapping and citizen surveillance is handled, I think that anything preventing government or private entities from paying ISPs to disappear info is important. This is a legitimate reason to favor net neutrality.

On OP's article, though:


Not the case. And service in many places is inadequate. This isn't because ISPs are struggling, it's because the technology was largely pioneered with public money and by people who never had anything to do with these corporations. The business model of companies like Comcast involves strangling smaller ISPs in order to avoid ever having to actually provide competitive service or products. The move by large ISPs to try to solicit from certain websites and from users by artificially slowing service (something they were caught doing years ago as they prepared to make their move) is representative of much of their procedure in general - with monopolies, they can actually make more providing bad service than increasing or improving service. It is the tech equivalent of The Producers.


As someone with sites, I see no reason why this is something desirable. Right now people voluntarily opt to have Facebook pages rather than websites. There are a number of players who seem bent on "consumerizing" the internet further without even abandoning net neutrality - I hate that, but it's not the same as giving ISPs the right to charge me for stuff they didn't own and aren't hosting just so I can have an opportunity to reach people who I could reach before they had such a right. I hate that there's this corporate culture of classifying the internet into 'acceptable' major sites and 'unacceptable' minor or fringe ones... but enabling it by giving it legal control in addition to its pre-existing financial advantages is wrong.


Gonna nitpick here - "cloud" is a buzz term for server hosting. You probably know this, but it's something I like to point out. Either way, there's no reason anyone should have to go through a "major" service just to accommodate the flawed profit model of ISP monopolies. It's incredibly bad legal policy.


Actually, they aren't selling "faster" internet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_throttling#Comcast_Corp._v._FCC

Their intent is to throttle most users in order to sell average-speed internet for premium prices. This is what the legal fights have largely been about. There is no "faster internet" because they refuse to invest in improving their technology to an extent that could provide this.

I try not to comment on things of which I lack adequate knowledge to have an informed opinion.
This is one of them.

Like Indy, I am not well informed on this issue, but I did enjoy that article, and thank you for posting it, Pac.

I not informed on this, most people arent. I dont trust much of anything in this world, especially regulations that will make something "fair" for the public. Ive heard and read many different things that are either for or against this. If this would somehow keep companies from thottling or blocking content, or keeping prices reasonable, great! But Ill believe it when I see it. I suspect that this just another way to consoladate and control information/free speech or just make you pay more, but im paranoid like that. see quote below:

"Even though most people agree with the basic premise of Net neutrality, the FCC's rules have become a lightning rod for controversy. The reason: The FCC has now reclassified broadband as a so-called Title II telecommunications service under the 1934 Communications Act. That reclassification places broadband providers under the same strict regulations that now govern telephone networks"

The internet has largely operated with the influence of net neutrality for most of its existence. 
When big ISPs were throttling, it was challenged because it violated these principles. What resulted was a legal battle which lead to the more recent net neutrality rules which effectively clarified and backed up this stance. In order for this to happen, though, the public still had to pressure the then-FCC chair Tom Wheeler who received backlash when leaked documents showed him taking an anti-neutrality position.

You're effectively seeing net neutrality every day, in the same way that whenever you open a book that hasn't had pages [redacted] by the state you're seeing freedom of speech.