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RE: Net Neutrality May End In a Few Weeks! An Ideological Struggle At the ISP Level? How About A Steem Powered ISP? :)
Net neutrality is being lobbied for by the biggest names in internet censorship. Google, facebook, YouTube. They have poured money into it and I don't see them defending a free and open internet, or trying to fight censorship in any way.
And you see ISPs on the other side fighting against it.. I don't see Time Warner Cable, now Spectrum (same garbage, different name), Fighting to protect consumer rights after price gouging consumers for decades.
It essentially created a "department of internet" giving control of bandwidth and opening the doors to whatever regulations they want to tac on in the future. What's next, government licensing to have a website? An analogy would be two people trying to use the postal service. One person is trying to mail a letter, the other a 50 lb package. The letter is cheap and Light and arrives quickly while the package is more expensive and takes longer. Then the government passes a law saying the letter has to arrive at the same time and for the same price as the package. This means the letter won't arrive as quick and will cost more to subsidize the larger package. the letter is small internet business, the package is facebook and google. Net neutrality makes it more difficult and expensive for small internet business and start ups while Making it cheaper for huge cooperations. The FCC didn't regulate the internet at all until a few years ago and we had absolutely no cases of ISP's throttling smaller websites. This only became an issue when Netflix and facebook got pissy that they had to pay more since a huge percent of internet traffic goes to their sites. That is when they decided to pour millions to fight it and gave their cause the nice sounding name of "net neutrality". The free and open internet has been one of the greatest innovations ever, all we need is the government making innovation more difficult and expensive.
Um. You're ok with ISPs charging fees to Netflix, then Netflix charging consumers, but not OK with the government mandating internet speeds be equal (because what does that actually cost? Next to nothing?)..
Yeah, I'm sorry, your argument is depressingly contradictory and flawed.
By the way, corporations already own most of the URLs in the .Com space, which has been regulated for the better part of 15-20 years. Did you not live through the domain wars time when people were buying certain domains simply to sell them at an extreme premium at a later date when someone wants to use them?
I thought ICANN was a private non profit? Either way their is a huge difference in issuing URL's for the .com space and controlling bandwidth for all internet traffic. My "depressingly contradictory and flawed" argument was that throttling of websites making them inaccessible was not an issue before the legislation in 2015, which you offered no rebuttal to. An example of this happening would be a solid argument that might convince me to change my position. Giving government control over the flow of information is scary to me. At least their are multiple ISP's so if throttling and censorship ever becomes an issue, there will be other companies competing for the business of consumers upset about the censorship. If we give government the power and they decide to abuse it, there is no recourse.
There's no competition. Either you have fiber laid down or not. And the cost to enter the space is not worth it.
The legislation arose, as you stated, from the throttling of Netflix because ISPs were threatening to destroy the streaming of Netflix if they didn't pay ISPs for the right to be a service provider.
I didn't realize that was something that needed to be said, since you said it for me.
That's exactly my point! Netflix was pissy because they had to pay more than a small website for the massive data their site used. They funded a campaign, gave it a nice name and let social media lobby the government for them. This wasn't a grassroots movement. the only companies being threatened were huge cooperations that have the majority of internet traffic. Now they can't be charged more than a small online startup. There was no cases of ISP's censoring websites or deciding what you see and don't see on the internet which is how net neutrality proponents are framing it.
Soooo, you want to pay more money to be a Netflix subscriber? Do you think the money would actually have been paid at the end of the day by Netflix? No. Consumers would have paid for it.
Do you not know how to do math, or understand how business works?
I never made an arguement about the price of Netflix or how they would pay the difference if net neutrality is overturned, so I don't know why you're assuming I "want" to pay more or I don't know math. I completely understand consumers would most likely pay the difference which is only fair. Their using the majority of the bandwidth. Right now they are being subsidized by the little guy who has to pay the same amount as Netflix for a fraction of the bandwidth. Higher Netflix subscription fee is a Small price to pay to keep government from regulating the internet.