Net Neutrality? No Thanks
Why I am no fan of Net Neutrality
I am a huge proponent of repeal. I see it for 2 main reasons: less government control, and more power for people to buy what they want.
1: regardless of who is in control of the gov, I know that at some point the power will rest in the hands of someone I despise and who could very well use the power of the state in terrible ways. I see it as irresponsible to allow the state to have control over the internet. UK and Germany have NN-esque laws that were later expanded in terrible ways to justify censorship. Now in German there have been nearly 2000 people imprisoned over illegal opinions expressed online based on the expansion of their NN rules. I cannot, in good faith give the government the tools to do the same thing here and just pray they won't. This seems like a power grab on the highest order and is justified under the guise of preventing something that has yet to happen. There is also a strong profit motive for ISP's not to block sites from its customers as people would take their business elsewhere. With the blockchain's promise of freedom from centralized currency getting the Feds a little nervous, I would hate to see them use NN to push bans on crypto like China, India, and Indonesia are planning on carrying out.
2: It is not the right of the gov to prohibit an entity from offering a good or service and for entities to voluntarily purchase it. To that end, it seems nonsensical for the state to say that people should not have the option to spend less money on a basic internet package. The poor and the elderly seem like demographics who could stand to gain from reduced access services. As an example, picture an ISP like Fedex or UPS. Under NN they would be mandated to ship your package as slow as everyone else, even if you could or wanted to pay more to expedited service. It meddles with business in an unhealthy way that will ultimately harm the industry while also robbing consumers of choices they ought to have.
If you disagree, I would love to hear your take on the issue?
[All photos contained herein are property of Pixabay and are used under CC license]
I disagree, simply because you seem to misunderstand what Net Neutrality means... it's in the title of it. Yet you want to repeal it? Access to all websites and web services should be equal - you disagree with this principle? It sounds like you should be for it.
I appreciate the response @famcore, great to see some engagement.
no I do not believe that I am in any way misunderstanding or misrepresenting Net Neutrality. I expressed my concern that he the laws may metastasize into something truly sinister under a more authoritarian government. Much like Mao's "Great Leap Forward" or W's "Patriot Act" were anything but what their names suggested, marching forward on name alone is a willfully uneducated basis upon which to develop policy prescriptions. In this case, as mentioned, I see NN as a means to keeping the internet anything but neutral. Instead it puts the stifling jackboot of regulation on the most innovative tool created in generations. Other countries have seen the chilling effect of state regulations on internet far worse than we have and it would be ignorant not to imagine it happening here as well.
I plainly state that it is not the right of the government to dictate how a business can operate, or what private citizens should be allowed to purchase. Why is internet a right? To me it is a service like healthcare or piano lessons. You want it? You have to buy it. Don't want to buy it? Well, that's a you problem. Please, why should I be for more government and big business cronyism kneecapping the internet?
Coming from a country with no Net neutrality garbage imposed by an Obama Administration I'll tell you a story. The largest internet provider in the country blocked torrents. It didn't last even for a week. They had so much complaints and loss of bandwidth they restored the access to torrents. All because of unhampered free market. (My country has barely any internet regulation. And the provider I mentioned is partially government owned.)
The Fedex and UPS example is a false equivalence. The expedited mail service is actually like paying for a fiber connection. The expedited mail service isn't faster or slower depending on whether I order from ebay or Amazon. It's just faster across the board.
Repealing net-neutrality and allowing ISPs to discriminate between traffic on the network, is the same as allowing Fedex and UPS to slow down shipping from ebay and speed up Amazon.
"There is also a strong profit motive for ISP's not to block sites from its customers as people would take their business elsewhere."
This is true in a perfectly competitive market. Unfortunately welcome to the real world, where many places have only one ISP. In this market the profit incentive is to block/slow down sites and ask either the site owners or consumers to pay extra to remove the penalty.
Even when there is more than one ISP, game theory makes it so that it's more profitable for everyone to slow down sites to some degree than to compete.
Your first argument is also flawed. Not only does this proposal not remove any of the government's powers to block, monitor internet traffic, or take down sites. But you assume that censorship only comes from the government.
Under net-neutrality repeal Comcast could legally block pro-Republican websites who oppose the Democratic candidate they want, or threaten to do this in exchange for more favorable coverage.
You say the free market will fix this, but with current technology the true free market only exists some areas.
And just for the record, I'm not a "liberal" or politically motivated, I don't even live in the US. At the end of the day, I'm not too fussed about what you guys choose to do. This decision does not affect me.
I appreciate the thoughtful response @tomoko
As to your first point, I understand your counterpoint completely and see how my equivalence was flawed. I do not however, see nothing wrong with the idea that Fedex or UPS makes a deal with an online retailer for example. Private companies are free to do what they please. If I don't like how a company conducts itsself, I simply take my money elsewhere.
I completely agree with you here are well. This is an unfortunate reality that is another failing of the state. The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 was an act of Congress that made cable communications providers follow the same rules as landline telephones at the same. This has continued to the present day, whereby internet providers are granted a state government enforced local monopoly. Under such continuing conditions, the net neutrality laws seem reasonable. I however maintain that the problems we face now are as a result of regulation. As an analogy, please imagine a boat made out of riveted sheet-metal. As the system matures (water level rises), the pressure on the hull increases until a rivet bursts. Plugging the hole will only cause the pressure to overwhelm a rivet somewhere else. The only reasonable way to handle this in my eyes is to knock the internet regulations back to the studs on both state and federal levels and look at it more reasonably. Could you explain your rationale for the game theory analysis? I'd posit that based on the subjective theory of value, people will buy throttled internet if they choose, but to those who place a different value on a faster internet connection will seek such out and will pay what they deem necessary. This ensures a market for a wide range of prices and a variety of speeds and packages for consumers.
Again, private entities are permitted to block access to whatever they please on their service, and if your subjective value estimates are at odds with those decisions, you are free to take your money elsewhere. I have never thought about this, but my immediate response is that private censorship is not a salient concern. Censorship is the forceful suppression of speech or expression, and provided that you voluntarily sign a contract with your service provider consenting to the manor in which they allow you to interact with the internet through their service, the ISP is not acting with force. We have true free markets and fair consumer/provider relationships where the government has gotten involved and permitted crony capitalists to run wild for the sake of their pockets at the expense of free enterprise.
I oddly would consider myself a staunch liberal/libertarian (albeit in the classical, non-leftist sense). I would think this to be a nonpolitical issue as a whole. I gotcha man, and I hope this does not come across as inflamatory in any way at all. That is not the goal. I just want to have open discussion about this topic and have a place to cut through the "late-night tv" style rhetoric on this and really get the informed counterarguments to my stance. Thanks a ton for responding :)
I generally agree. You are right to point out that the problems associated with repealing net neutrality are only there because of government corruption and lack of competition (usually due to regulations). Even my 3rd point wouldn't be an issue if the government was limited in its power and not corrupt.
But I do think that while the problems I mentioned above are still around, repealing net neutrality will cause many issues and it's not a good idea. A similar example in my mind is removing the social safety net, but keeping the minimum wage. You remove government help for the uneducated jobless, but then keep the law which makes it impossible for the uneducated jobless to get jobs! Clearly it needs to be done the other way around, or both at the same time.
Atleast the good thing is that it seems the lack of competition in the ISP market is on it's way out. If Elon Musk is successful with his SpaceX internet satellite program it will mean that basically anyone who can afford a satellite (which are getting cheaper by the minute) can provide cheap accessible internet anywhere.
I agree, the underlying laws are creating the problem. The state of the laws are so crappy in some places that you can't buy satellite internet because the municipality has monopoly laws.
Amen @roofcore too bad I can't resteem.
hey @vimukthi can't believe I missed your comment of my favorite quote.