Proponents of Net Neutrality are Dumb

[raz-0]

The moment we let government enforce "net neutrality" is the moment we lose the internet.

Yeah, because the moment we stop letting ma bell screw everyone sideways, all the phones stopped working. You do realize, the moment you let your ISP determine that only the most profitable traffic gets through on time, you have lost the internet as well, right?

I can buy my phone, gas, electricity, insurance, etc. from more places than I can get data access at a reasonable speed. I have exactly two choices for data above dial-up speed. I can buy my natural gas from 3, and my electricity from 6. I can get data at over 1 Mbps from exactly one provider. That is not a free market.

I'm all for a free market, and the government staying out of it, but they are already deeply in it by enforcing geographic monopolies. Also, the government can already monitor your speech, and frankly a business probably has more ability to actually censor you than the government at this point. Heck that cease and desist letter might be upheld by a court, odds are the government loses with 1st amendment cases.

The argument for not enforcing net neutrality is very, very weak.

You want to force them to open up their networks to be resold, let real competition in every town, and enforce honest advertising with full disclosure of bottom line costs and the service actually provided? Then yeah, we don't need net neutrality.

 

[UrielDagda]

Net Neutrality is yet another form of government control.

You are an idiot if you think that it means that the government will just mandate that providers must not block content. The government will use net neutrality to control free speech. Anything deemed as "hate speech" will be blocked.

Wait, you really think that private corporations are the bastion of free speech? Unlike the government, which is subject to the Constitution, private corporations will only allow speech that they aren't pressured against removing, or points of view they agree with. Hell even privately run websites have to pay some corporation for the internet connection, and they get censored by their providers all the time. I remember back in the days when I helped run a free speech web hosting service with a friend of mine.. Some religious group took umbrage with some of the content (why the hell were they even looking at crap they didn't like?), complained, threatened to make trouble, and our entire hosting service was shut down and purged without warning. All of it. Even the stuff they weren't bitching about that had nothing to do with the complaint. Yet none of the content whatsoever was illegal.. It was all constitutionally protected speech. No pictures, no videos, just text. I don't see that changing any time soon, but there is already plenty of censorship built into the corporate structure of the internet.

And lets face it. If the government mandated complete and total free speech on the internet, even for something as repugnant as White Power websites or a place for pedophiles to get together to bitch and moan about how they are treated, the same people against Net Neutrality on the basis of the government taking away 'free speech' would have mass seizures and all wind up foaming at the mouth like rabid dogs.

 

[anthrex]

well Jack Carver gave everything I was thinking. I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter

 

[raz-0]

well Jack Carver gave everything I was thinking. I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter

Jack Carver pretty much espoused a lot of stuff that couldn't be paid for. Although deep down, he touched on an important point. Pure -isms are screwed. You don't want the government in charge of everything, nor do you want business in charge of everything. You want people arguing over what is needed, and for every entity that can make a decision that impacts the larger populace, you want to have an opposing force keeping it in check.

Once one group can make all the rules and enforce them without question, your society is screwed.

 

[IRSmurf]

Exactly!

No, I am not a troll. I love the name calling just because I don't have the same view as John Stewart.

BP

John Stewart? Who brought that up? Is that the stinky liberal who scares you? I know, liberals are all so stupid right? They just hide behind the label and tow the party line without a second thought, AMIRIGHT? Fight big gubment!

/troll

Yes, you are a troll. I just wanted to let you know how that last comment sounded to everyone else.

 

[kledar586]

John Stewart? isn't that the comedian with the fake news program?

 

[CEpeep]

Net Neutrality is yet another form of government control.

You are an idiot if you think that it means that the government will just mandate that providers must not block content. The government will use net neutrality to control free speech. Anything deemed as "hate speech" will be blocked.

Internet providers own their equipment and can do anything that they want with it. Block torrents and VOIP? Oh well, it's their network. Tough crap. You can cancel your subscription and sign up with someone that will let you download 500GB a day and chat to Australia all day long.

Don't let the government control the internet!!! The free market will fix itself.


BP

They see me trollin'
they hatin'
patrollin'
tryna catch me postin' dirty.

 

[SamuraiInBlack]

I think anyone who is against net neutrality should use Chinese internet on a civilian level and see how good that works out for them.

Ford does not tell me where or when I can drive my car, nor does BP, Shell, or Mobil.
The townships/counties/state does not tell me what roads I can take to go to work.
The grocery store does not tell me what food I can buy on a day to day basis.
Burger King does not tell me what restaurant I am allowed to purchase from.

So why should the government, or anyone, for that matter, tell me what I can and cannot do online? Why should my ISP dictate what websites I can view, what ads I can be annoyed with, and what information I can look up?

Why should I be forced to only do what I am permitted to? What kind of un-American horseshit is that?

 

[quixotic]

100%, always, all of the time, no exceptions.

Oh shit.

 

[quixotic]

"The free market will fix itself"

Yeah, and how's that working out for us right now?

CitiBank, hitting all it's customers up with a 29.9% interest rate.

I think the theory that government will control free speech with net neutrality is completely idiotic, and so is the thought that more deregulation is always good like that guy said, but just for accuracy's sake, you may want to check out the Credit CARD Act of 2009 which probably had something to do with all that.

 

[Mr. Wolf]

Wait, you really think that private corporations are the bastion of free speech? Unlike the government, which is subject to the Constitution, private corporations will only allow speech that they aren't pressured against removing, or points of view they agree with. Hell even privately run websites have to pay some corporation for the internet connection, and they get censored by their providers all the time. I remember back in the days when I helped run a free speech web hosting service with a friend of mine.. Some religious group took umbrage with some of the content (why the hell were they even looking at crap they didn't like?), complained, threatened to make trouble, and our entire hosting service was shut down and purged without warning. All of it. Even the stuff they weren't bitching about that had nothing to do with the complaint. Yet none of the content whatsoever was illegal.. It was all constitutionally protected speech. No pictures, no videos, just text. I don't see that changing any time soon, but there is already plenty of censorship built into the corporate structure of the internet.

And lets face it. If the government mandated complete and total free speech on the internet, even for something as repugnant as White Power websites or a place for pedophiles to get together to bitch and moan about how they are treated, the same people against Net Neutrality on the basis of the government taking away 'free speech' would have mass seizures and all wind up foaming at the mouth like rabid dogs.

Oh yeah, Obama and the Congress are staunch defenders of the Constitution. We can trust them to safeguard our precious Bill of Rights. To coin a phrase from the campaign:

"Yes We Can... As Long You As You Agree With Everything We Do!"

Dream on, simpletons!!!

 

[AVT]

Oh yeah, Obama and the Congress are staunch defenders of the Constitution. We can trust them to safeguard our precious Bill of Rights. To coin a phrase from the campaign:

"Yes We Can... As Long You As You Agree With Everything We Do!"

Dream on, simpletons!!!

And? Do their opinions on the constitution change whether they're required to conform to it's restrictions in any way?

 

[Burning_Monk]

Oh yeah, Obama and the Congress are staunch defenders of the Constitution. We can trust them to safeguard our precious Bill of Rights. To coin a phrase from the campaign:

"Yes We Can... As Long You As You Agree With Everything We Do!"

Dream on, simpletons!!!

Please expand on your previous statement.

 

[Gorankar]

We are really kind of in a pickle. Some sort of regulation is going to happen imho. How much, is the only real question. If we end up with a feel good legislation full of loop holes nothing will change, if they lock it down completely with strict regulation, still nothing will change. Something some where in the middle is necessary here.

Unfortunately many of the net neutrality proponents view it like a constitutional right or a religion, that pov allows little compromise.
The anti net neutrality people seem to fall into two primary groups, those afraid of giving our government any additional control over anything assuming that they will abuse it, (they are not wholly unjustified in that), and those that stand to loose money or fail to realize additional profits from future schemes this legislation may cock block. Those two groups are not likely to want to compromise much either.

So how do we fix it so there is some sane level of network management allowed without blocking or throttling to the point of choking to death certain traffic? How would you write such a legislation?

 

[keenan]

The 'best' solution is a combination of both. Have government or a legislated monopoly build out data infrastructure across the country, from the last mile to regional data centres. This must be an entity that does not provide any services to end users, their only service is a pay-per-use high speed data connection at tariffed and fair rates between an end customer and a service provider with equipment in a regional centre (these regions being major metropolitan areas, not a 5mi radius like phone COs).

It would get us a high-speed last mile. It would force ISPs to compete on merit, and promote use of new technology like VoIP, IPTV and other such services from any provider wanting to get in the game. If the tariffs were reasonable, it should drive rates for high-speed connections down and improve choice and quality across the board.

Of course major investment would be required, and it would never happen because the ILECs have way too much lobby power, but you get the best of the free market and eliminate the natural monopoly.

 

[drakken]

I support net anonymity but I'd be willing to listen to arguments that some traffic, like medial records for example, is more important than the movie that some guy is illegally downloading.

Actually this quote is the main point of Net neutrality, no one is suppose to monitor what is going across and provide special access to their network because your ISP is only providing you access from your modem to the backbone, most of your traffic is going to go across several different networks. Did you pay them so that your "medical records" will go faster across their networks? No

Most people don't even understand how the net works. When most of the companies that want to prioritize bandwidth it is going to be so that can push content traffic they own to users $$ and charging sites like Google for search traffic and the ad sites for displaying images.

Ask kyle how many hits a month he gets month and how much money he gets to display those ads, and how much he will have to run the site get new hardware etc if every isp that the traffic bounces across takes a chunk of that money out because they are charging ad sites who will simply pay less for ads, and hardocp because he is getting hit for bandwidth for every image of a graph of shiny new toy...

Verzion has major issues seeing how they rolled out fiber to most of the north east but not the last three hundred feet to the the customers homes because then they could not justify charging more broadband. You have to look to owns them to see the conflict of interest.

 

[GoodBoy]

"Proponents (of Net neutrality) have a worldview that network providers and application providers, like Google, occupy different parts of the Internet: dumb pipes versus smart apps," he said. "This is a mistake pure and simple. It's an analog idea for a digital world. It completely understates the need for sound practices and ignores the benefits of smart networks."

Steve, he didn't say proponents of net neutrality are dumb... [H] fail for making a sensationalist headline...

this isn't FOX news...

 

[Anemone]

Yep you want a pure market, eh? (sarcasm)

Well then you won't mind dying from eating a meal from your local supermarket because we shouldn't be testing food for safety right? That would be "interference" and the market will solve itself, right?

Don't bother to test drugs for either efficacy or safety. If it doesn't work or if it kills someone it won't sell right? Yeah, welcome to the real world and all that.


Now if our lovely Verizon CEO is such a supporter of "intelligent networks" then he shouldn't have any trouble at all with an inspection system just to be "sure" that said "intelligent system" is operating in a "fair" manner. Otherwise content providers could be "investments" of the service providers and without too much effort whatsoever the competing content providers suddenly seem to have trouble operating over said service provider. It's called monopoly. It's the reason we had to break up Ma Bell, and I certainly don't trust a company that grew up in that shadow to tell me how they will "regulate themselves" via the "market".

IF Verizon's network is behaving fairly, and it is doing so in an intelligent and monitored way, then there should be no problem whatsoever in demonstrating that to government inspection. It is the very FACT that said networks are NOT operating in a fair manner that makes for all these campaigns to convince the public that they really aren't doing anything wrong.

We aren't talking about changing the service you and I are getting. What is at stake here is the ISP proving they are not doing any shenanigans in how service is directed. The more these CEO's talk the more ads they send out saying "we're innocent" the more suspicious you should be that they really aren't innocent at all...

 

[ICOM]

This thread is ignorant.

 

[SuperDuper]

"It completely understates the need for sound practices and ignores the benefits of smart networks."

Benefits like CEOs of big companies buying extra Ferraris and giant mansions and of course other important benefits like huge companies making new mountains of cash while end-users get a lower speed to their favorite websites because those websites don't pay extra fees to ISPs.

The high progressive tax system we have helps CEOs. It rewards less work.

Net Neutrality is yet another form of government control.

You are an idiot if you think that it means that the government will just mandate that providers must not block content. The government will use net neutrality to control free speech. Anything deemed as "hate speech" will be blocked.

Internet providers own their equipment and can do anything that they want with it. Block torrents and VOIP? Oh well, it's their network. Tough crap. You can cancel your subscription and sign up with someone that will let you download 500GB a day and chat to Australia all day long.

Don't let the government control the internet!!! The free market will fix itself.


BP

I agree. We've never had a free market, so no one would ever know.

I think you are being rather dense and short sighted and you are likely trolling. First of all, taxpayer money and a lot of it went into those networks. They were not built solely by the providers. Secondly, net neutrality does not equal gov't barring/altering any form of content, in fact it protects consumers from that. Saying that you can just sign up with somebody else is simply not always the case.

Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as an actual free market in this country and in its purest form a true free market would be a complete disaster on many levels. In this context, the free market bullshit was tossed out the window the day that our tax dollars were given to the providers...and the tax breaks.

Not every tax payer wants net neutrality.

Yea, just look how well deregulation of the stock market went.

Brilliant.

Please don't insinuate the government is going to be running the internet. I don't think you know what net neutrality means.

Look at medicare. With Medicare, the government puts too many regulations on the private system. If the government regulates something, they're going to ask for something out of it.

"The free market will fix itself"

Yeah, and how's that working out for us right now?

CitiBank, hitting all it's customers up with a 29.9% interest rate.

And the totally unaffordable cost of Pharmaceuticals, caused partially by the customers paying for their expensive TV ad's.

What a friggin' deal.

High cost of prescription drugs is caused by patent laws. They can keep their prices up because they're protected by patents, and no one else can make a generic. Patent laws are basically a burden on health insurance companies, which is one reason why there is an illusion that there needs to be even more socialized medicine.

If it weren't for patent laws, big pharmacy would go out of business, because someone else would make the same or similar enough drug for cheaper. The government has a regulation that says generic drugs have to be 95% the same. Think about how ambiguous that regulation is and how that could be hurting the quality of some generic drugs.

The unhindered free market leads to oligarchies and monopolies. The free market is not a 100% self-sustainable system. Those that are for a regulation-free market don't understand the consequences.

Small business-->corporation-->Monopoly-->No competition-->Oligarchy = no more free market or democracy.

Regulation is essential, over-regulation is not.

We already have had regulation and it hasn't worked.

There has never been a free market.

 

[defuseme2k]

It is easy to sum up and its old as time itself, of course the quote is not mine:

If something has a direct benefit to an individual or a class of people, and a theoretical, abstract, or amorphous benefit to everybody else, realize that the proponent's intentions are to benefit the former, not the latter, no matter what bullshit they try to feed you.

 

[Mega2]

yeah... alright net neutrality.. yeah..

wait are we talking about the same government that came with homeland security, same government that given us do not flight list, and the same one that pass laws that got us into this financial crisis.

Yeah... alright. I'm in. Just keep telling me that I'm safe and you can have all my rights and my soul.

 

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

Can't have it both ways
But Seidenberg said these Net neutrality proponents want to have their cake and eat it too.

"It's really ironic that the digital elites in Silicon Valley are also pushing for faster broadband and more wireless networks," he said. "The two don't add up."

This guy believes that wireless internet can outmatch wired broadband in speed? ;

Currently no. But would a faster internet over wireless be better then wired? Of course, but only if latencys were low and download/upload speeds were faster then wired (which they aren't with our current tech as far as i know).

So this Verizon CEO imho knows shit about the real world if you ask me when he makes statements like this o_o;


And another thing, the internet has become a utility status that i feel government should just take control of it and case closed. Then these private companies cannot try to exploit it by discriminating against others.

They do make a point that they invest in it, so they should deserve to use it to make the most profit. This is why i say the infra shoulder go back to government because the internet is a vital important utility component for public. It just doesn't seem right if private companies can exploit it by discriminating others, blocking internet and etc.

 

[keenan]

Currently no. But would a faster internet over wireless be better then wired? Of course, but only if latencys were low and download/upload speeds were faster then wired (which they aren't with our current tech as far as i know).

We have the technology to offer greater speeds than currently available via most wired technologies. Wireless doesn't make a lot of sense in urban environments, it's dense enough that it both causes issues for wireless signal propagation as well as causing serious contention issues without very careful planning. Where wireless is a major boon is in rural and semi-rural areas where creating wired infrastructure is very expensive and subscriber numbers are low. Many of these kinds of communities have little to no broadband other than satellite available, and the investment required to light up a wireless ISP is next to nothing compared to wired, and can service a much larger community if the geography works.

The point he might have been trying to make about performance is that the return on investment is much better. We have the technology for very high speed wireless, and since we're getting to the point where future improvement is going to require major wired infrastructure investment (see FiOS for example), in many cases the same improvement could be gained via wireless technology instead for less money.

 

[The-UselessNoob]

yeah... alright net neutrality.. yeah..

wait are we talking about the same government that came with homeland security, same government that given us do not flight list, and the same one that pass laws that got us into this financial crisis.

Yeah... alright. I'm in. Just keep telling me that I'm safe and you can have all my rights and my soul.

and all those roads, and police departments, and fire departments, and public schooling, and mail! and the military!

All of those should be privatized! and a golden age would come upon us!

 

[spinelli]

and all those roads, and police departments, and fire departments, and public schooling, and mail! and the military!

All of those should be privatized! and a golden age would come upon us!

The mail should be privatized, or at the very least the current monopoly should be relaxed or removed. Public schooling, while I do not think should be totally privatized I do think the Federal gov't needs to back off of it and stop doing shit like giving schools funds if they teach a certain curriculum or other such nonsense. Bribery is not a sound launching point for education, especially when it can be used to foster political/religious beliefs. Sorry folks, teaching abstinence is not education and teaching Intelligent Design is not very intelligent. While that all can not be blamed on the Federal gov't, No Child Left Behind!! sure can be.

 

[Grondy]

Sounds like net neutrality isn't such a bad idea as long as it is just against discrimination and the government doesn't try to push an agenda or censor anything.

Yeah, good luck with that. If there is one thing that the government has proven is that they can't stop themselves from taking yet another step.

 

[dr.stevil]

The mail should be privatized, or at the very least the current monopoly should be relaxed or removed.

eh, the USPS is slowly loosing relevance anyway. They're closing redundant locations across the country and their monopoly isn't a very big deal in the electronic age. Besides, they're pretty close (or as close as you can get) to being privatized anyway. They don't recieve any sort of government money AFAIK (maybe with the exception of employee benefits), it's all self sustained via postage and such

 

[spinelli]

eh, the USPS is slowly loosing relevance anyway. They're closing redundant locations across the country and their monopoly isn't a very big deal in the electronic age. Besides, they're pretty close (or as close as you can get) to being privatized anyway. They don't recieve any sort of government money AFAIK (maybe with the exception of employee benefits), it's all self sustained via postage and such

USPS is in debt to the tune of roughly 10 billion, who do you think pays for that? It lost over 2 billion last quarter alone.

The monopoly is a big deal because clearly the USPS can not turn a profit or break even for whatever reason(s) and nobody can compete with them for the majority of mail.

A monopoly is a very big deal, regardless of what 'age' we live in.

 

[Derfman]

Yeah, good luck with that. If there is one thing that the government has proven is that they can't stop themselves from taking yet another step.

The same can be said about major broadband internet providers like Verizon and Comcast for starters.

 

[The-UselessNoob]

USPS is in debt to the tune of roughly 10 billion, who do you think pays for that? It lost over 2 billion last quarter alone.

The monopoly is a big deal because clearly the USPS can not turn a profit or break even for whatever reason(s) and nobody can compete with them for the majority of mail.

A monopoly is a very big deal, regardless of what 'age' we live in.

I thought its purpose was to provide postal service as cheaply as possible to americans, not make a profit
link to article
link 2

Also the problem with replacing it would be that people in the middle of nowhere wouldn't be able to get mail, or only at a ridiculous rate.

 

[Stiletto]

So let me get this straight...some people don't trust corporations to control the internet...so instead they trust the United States government to control it?

Yeah, dumb pretty much sums it up.

 

[spinelli]

I thought its purpose was to provide postal service as cheaply as possible to americans, not make a profit
link to article
link 2

Also the problem with replacing it would be that people in the middle of nowhere wouldn't be able to get mail, or only at a ridiculous rate.

1. Those links do not mean anything in relation to the monopoly.
2. Again, they run at a deficit in the BILLIONS of dollars...how is that to be covered?
3. You are making assumptions about who would/not get service and its potential cost
4. Opening things up to competition does not have to mean the USPS closes its doors so I do not see why anyone would be without mail. All it means is there would potentially be a choice.

 

[kledar586]

So let me get this straight...some people don't trust corporations to control the internet...so instead they trust the United States government to control it?

Yeah, dumb pretty much sums it up.

well the way I look at it I know the corporations will screw us for a buck and so would the government. but the government might not be competent enough to get it right...

 

[The-UselessNoob]

1. Those links do not mean anything in relation to the monopoly.
2. Again, they run at a deficit in the BILLIONS of dollars...how is that to be covered?
3. You are making assumptions about who would/not get service and its potential cost
4. Opening things up to competition does not have to mean the USPS closes its doors so I do not see why anyone would be without mail. All it means is there would potentially be a choice.

the links were more to show that the postal service isn't about making money

as for two isn't the deficit a new thing? not to say it isn't important, but at the benefit of having such a good system which everyone can use to get bills, and for voting cards.

three, fair enough it is an assumption, but not completely unfounded. People in far away rural areas that need planes for mail, it is not good business sense to do that for 44 cents, it costs a hell of a lot more. This ties in rather well with an interesting post I found on the xkcd serious business section, government funded program thread:

The situation is a little different because the USPS has such a broader mandate than any private corporation. I'm sure one could in fact provide cheaper mail delivery between Chicago and New York than the USPS because the USPS has to deliver to all these remote areas. But, if some company started taking over all these 'easy' routes, the USPS would only be left with these outlying, expensive areas, and so would either need to drastically raise prices, or ask for government funding. I don't think either is good for the country.

which I feel fits into the discussion rather well and shows what I see what is a problem with your point four.

 

[spinelli]

Honestly, I am not opposed to a major increase in postage, especially for the bulk mailings. What I would not like to see is a reduction in mail delivery/pickup from 6 to 5 days a week and that is being considered as an option to help the USPS reduce some costs.

I have seen estimates that salary accounts for 80% of the USPS's expenditures and that the USPS is the second or third largest employer in the US. Wal-Mart and the DoD are the other 2 biggest. Admittedly, I have not clue one about the inner workings of the post office nor its routes but it would stand to reason that since the vast majority of mail is junk mail (at least for me) then raising the rates for such could serve three purposes. It could either increase the amount of revenue for the USPS which is good, it could allow larger routes for carriers if bulk mailings decrease substantially...which is also good since it can reduce the overall number of routes and the associated salaries, and it could potentially stop filling my mailbox with more fucking spam then I get in my email accounts...which would be great.

I agree with you that the USPS was never intended to make money however the losses they are incurring have to be made up from somewhere and can not continue at their current rate...or even at a fraction of the current rate. Maybe privatization can help, maybe it cant...I really do not know how it could/would play out but I've never been much of a fan of monopolies.

The one thing I am hesitant on when it comes to either substantially raising rates across the board or the complete privatization of mail delivery is bill paying and legal notifications. While most folks can pay bills online, its not always an option and neither is walking down to the intended recipient and handing over cash. I do not think paying ones bills should carry a burdensome overhead but sending out catalogs/flyers/you've been pre approved!!/crap mail should carry a much steeper cost then it currently does.

I forgot this topic was even about Net Neutrality, we've strayed pretty wide of that. I'll hit that website you mentioned in your post, maybe its a more appropriate venue for our current discussion.

 

[Emission]

Did I read that free market in its purest form would be a disaster on many levels? I'll just come out and say it, you have no idea what you are talking about. Zero.

We don't have a free market in this country. The citizens that are asleep in this country think we do, but the government controls every aspect of it, and that's precisely why it's completely fucked up.

Now, onto what I came to post. I heard a story once, and I don't know if it's true or not, but basically, a long time ago, the "normal people" got fed up with the politicians and uber rich, and went to their homes, raped the wives in front of the husbands, then cooked the husbands alive and made the wives eat them. Or something really gruesome like that.

I, for one, wouldn't try to stop something like that if it happened now, to most of our politicians and heads of Wall Street/big business.

Sign me up baby!