The Internet Is F*cked

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
If this doesn't qualify as headline of the day, I don't know what does.

Massive companies like AT&T and Comcast have spent the first two months of 2014 boldly announcing plans to close and control the internet through additional fees, pay-to-play schemes, and sheer brutal size — all while the legal rules designed to protect against these kinds of abuses were struck down in court for basically making too much sense.
Click to expand...
 
PS_1050W_LARGE_GROUPS.jpg
 
yup. i remember joke images people made years ago about subscription plans for various services at obscene prices once net neutrality is gone. now it's there. i hope capitalism goes the way communism went and something more sane in between gets established. supply and demand does not work if you're dealing with a quasi monopoly.
 
temujin987 said:
yup. i remember joke images people made years ago about subscription plans for various services at obscene prices once net neutrality is gone. now it's there. i hope capitalism goes the way communism went and something more sane in between gets established. supply and demand does not work if you're dealing with a quasi monopoly.
Click to expand...
exactly!

you have to have some regulation.. otherwise the logical end state is monopolism. we have largely arrived there already ion all facets of us life..
 
XBarbarian said:
exactly!

you have to have some regulation.. otherwise the logical end state is monopolism. we have largely arrived there already ion all facets of us life..
Click to expand...

This is exactly why totally free-market capitalism is a pipe-dream. Greed wins out. For it to work, you'd have to have good people in all power positions. That's not going to ever happen.

Deregulation has historical precedence to not work (See 1929, 2007/8, Enron, etc.).
 
I'd hardly call what we got capitalism, with Gov't stepping in to make sure those oligopoly retain their power.
 
Who actually thinks we are a purely capitalist economy? We have the best congress and president money can buy.
 
I am not quite ready to classify the internet as a utility ... although it has some merits, it also has many downsides as well ... utilities move glacially slow from an innovative standpoint as they are by nature monopolies ... we also have very few public utilities left so turning the internet connection services into a utility would just give the existing monopolies a different kind of power (it wouldn't really diminish their influence much) ... and the biggest downside of making the internet a utility would be that it becomes mandatory (you cannot move into a house or apartment until you obtain a connection to the electric grid and a water account ... if we make the internet a utility then the same rules would apply ... which means we would be required by law to subsidize services for the poor, since the service is mandatory)

The internet is doing just fine ... could we manage the rules a little more effectively to facilitate better competition (certainly) but it is not, the place of the federal government to interfere in actions that belong to the state and municipal governments ... whether you want to make the internet a utility or not the regulation or management of the internet services still belongs to the states and cities (and not the Feds) ... if we want more competition then we should be handing out government research dollars to make DSL or existing phone line internet services more effective and encourage more research in power-line transmission and (since most internet users are not gamers) encourage development of more satellite based services ... those are the solutions, not turning the internet into a controlled monopoly like the water or power grid ;)
 
temujin987 said:
yup. i remember joke images people made years ago about subscription plans for various services at obscene prices once net neutrality is gone. now it's there. i hope capitalism goes the way communism went and something more sane in between gets established. supply and demand does not work if you're dealing with a quasi monopoly.
Click to expand...

You're a little confused. The problem we have with cable companies is that we DON'T have free markets. We have bureaucrats in cities and counties handing out cable monopolies in exchange for lobbying money or pork (up to 5% of cable revenues going to the city to pay for bullshit pet projects that buy votes). So while in a true free market 3 or 4 people might compete to be your ISP, instead we have a GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED MONOPOLY.
 
The quality of my life would be better without Internet. I would spend a lot more time on things that people ought to do rather than being glued to the screen watching streaming videos, writing work emails, and deciding which cat GIF is the most annoying.
 
kbrickley said:
I am not quite ready to classify the internet as a utility ... although it has some merits, it also has many downsides as well ... utilities move glacially slow from an innovative standpoint as they are by nature monopolies ... we also have very few public utilities left so turning the internet connection services into a utility would just give the existing monopolies a different kind of power (it wouldn't really diminish their influence much) ... and the biggest downside of making the internet a utility would be that it becomes mandatory (you cannot move into a house or apartment until you obtain a connection to the electric grid and a water account ... if we make the internet a utility then the same rules would apply ... which means we would be required by law to subsidize services for the poor, since the service is mandatory)

The internet is doing just fine ... could we manage the rules a little more effectively to facilitate better competition (certainly) but it is not, the place of the federal government to interfere in actions that belong to the state and municipal governments ... whether you want to make the internet a utility or not the regulation or management of the internet services still belongs to the states and cities (and not the Feds) ... if we want more competition then we should be handing out government research dollars to make DSL or existing phone line internet services more effective and encourage more research in power-line transmission and (since most internet users are not gamers) encourage development of more satellite based services ... those are the solutions, not turning the internet into a controlled monopoly like the water or power grid ;)
Click to expand...

I know some poor folks without home internet connections. I think providing a basic connection for them would be a stupendous improvement. For some of these people, just getting to the library on the bus and job hunting on craigslist takes up a good portion of the day rather than the ~15 minutes it should. I would much rather my internet $$$ go to paying for a poor person to be able to access a municipal broadband network than paying for the 7 figure bonus some Cable Co exec is going to invest with his broker buddy. The fact that by all accounts municipal ISPs end up being cheaper than the for-profit alternatives they're competing with is just icing on the cake.
 
If the internet was taken over by the government, it would be run like a utility.
That means you'd be paying by use. You would have a special router with a MB dial installed outside your house so they could employee some idiot in a beat up old pickup truck to pull into your driveway while you're trying to pull out, then make you wait 15 minutes while he walks over and takes a "reading" onto pencil and paper, then goes back to the car, asks for your WiFi password and tries 100x to send the data back to central.
 
Sounds similar to the oligopoly we've been dealing with in Canada for years. :(

TDLR : IT SUCKS BIG TIME!
 
mavrocket said:
Who actually thinks we are a purely capitalist economy? We have the best congress and president money can buy.
Click to expand...

How is that not capitalism? You can't figure out that the people concentrating economic power will concentrate political power?

Duh
 
That story about Kansas trying to introduce law that makes it illegal for anyone other than Comcast to set up shop was just beyond ballsy that it was scary, even if it did get shot down.
 
mavrocket said:
Who actually thinks we are a purely capitalist economy? We have the best congress and president money can buy.
Click to expand...

Capitalism just requires that industry isn't owned by the government ... it says nothing about government being owned by industry ... in a perfectly capitalist society there should be no individual rights except where they align with the requirement of industry to achieve profit ... if you are not making profit then you are not living in a capitalist society (profit is the ultimate success metric of capitalism, not competition)
 
Serpent said:
I'd hardly call what we got capitalism, with Gov't stepping in to make sure those oligopoly retain their power.
Click to expand...

What we have is crony capitalism. In their infancy, these companies thrived on free-market capitalism. They competed with good customer support, good products and good services. That made them the preferred choice over others. But now that they are at the top, they can afford to cut quality of customer support services and products and raise the prices to their black hearts desires without any worry of losing customers because they are the only option. Now they oppose free-market capitalism because it would allow a potential rival to grow, flourish and potentially dethrone the behemoth. So they do everything they can to get regulations passed that will allow them to maintain the status quo and prevent any competition.

We need another trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt.
 
sfsuphysics said:
That story about Kansas trying to introduce law that makes it illegal for anyone other than Comcast to set up shop was just beyond ballsy that it was scary, even if it did get shot down.
Click to expand...

Cities do that all the time though ... Rio Rancho New Mexico (where my Mom lives) only allowed the local provider (Cable One) to operate in their city ... Comcast, who operates in Albuquerque (the city right next to them) was not allowed to operate in Rio Rancho ... until recently my Mom only had access to very slow DSL (from Qwest) or very expensive and not much faster cable internet (from Cable One) ... that is pretty standard for many cities in the USA (they either grant a local monopoly access or assign one or more of the national players to provide service) ... only the biggest cities have enough subscribers to interest multiple competing providers
 
Where I am at we have multiple "choices" depending on where you live in the city.

Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, WoW(Knology), Mediacom, and Charter.

Pretty sure that there is at least one or two other providers around here as well.

However, a lot of the housing developments only have a single cable provider available as they make a deal with the developer to be granted exclusive access.

Pricing is pretty much the same between the cable providers AND if you have service from one company, and then move to a different area where they don't provide service, they will send you mail that tells you that and to check out another specific company in your new area that you can get access from (no price fixing or conflict of interests going on here.... HAH).

The only company that is really different with pricing around here is Charter, and I am unable to get it where I live... could get 60Mb down for only slightly more than I am paying for 25.

AT&T recently put fiber down where I live and I could get a whopping 14Mb down from them.
 
Aluisious said:
How is that not capitalism? You can't figure out that the people concentrating economic power will concentrate political power?

Duh
Click to expand...

Because the bought politicians then legislate the company's wishes so that the company can flourish and/or defeat it's competitors.

Duh
 
mavrocket said:
Because the bought politicians then legislate the company's wishes so that the company can flourish and/or defeat it's competitors.

Duh
Click to expand...

Which is perfectly fine, crony capitalism (what we have) and free market capitalism both exist.
 
Spazturtle said:
Gee, no wounder hosting outside the US is growing fast.
Click to expand...

I fail to see how that's relevant. If your server is in the UK and you're serving movies to Atlanta, you're still going to deal with some ISP and if that ISP is comcast they'll insist on money for streaming services.

I've never been against QOS. IP telephony should have priority over Torrents (or even Netflix), but it's pretty clear that Comcast is playing games with video sites. I've seen times where I have great service, but YouTube can't play a 480p video.
 
kbrickley said:
I am not quite ready to classify the internet as a utility ... although it has some merits, it also has many downsides as well ... utilities move glacially slow from an innovative standpoint as they are by nature monopolies ...
Click to expand...

I'd suggest you do a search on LUS Fiber and the time it took them to roll out service. The only part that was slow was the lawsuits brought by Cox and Bell South (now AT&T).

They were offering symmetric fiber connections for reasonable prices at least 5 years ago. No, it's not gigabit, but when Comcast was charging 40-50 bucks for 6Mbs, they were charging 30 for $30-$40.

In many places, Municipal fiber may be a viable alternative.
 
Seventyfive said:
You're a little confused. The problem we have with cable companies is that we DON'T have free markets. We have bureaucrats in cities and counties handing out cable monopolies in exchange for lobbying money or pork (up to 5% of cable revenues going to the city to pay for bullshit pet projects that buy votes). So while in a true free market 3 or 4 people might compete to be your ISP, instead we have a GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED MONOPOLY.
Click to expand...

Actually, I believe the original reason for the monopoly was the infrastructure costs. Even now there are companies that are offering to put in gigabit fiber, but in exchange they want long periods of exclusivity for Fiber.

Ultimately, the people of each city/county make that decision. The problem is that all of the cable companies are slowly becoming 2 or 3 very large cable companies and right now, 2 of those providers also provide a lot of content.

All you can hope is that the FCC does something on this issue and the the TWC/Comcast merger is killed.
 
SGA76 said:
If the internet was taken over by the government, it would be run like a utility.
That means you'd be paying by use. You would have a special router with a MB dial installed outside your house so they could employee some idiot in a beat up old pickup truck to pull into your driveway while you're trying to pull out, then make you wait 15 minutes while he walks over and takes a "reading" onto pencil and paper, then goes back to the car, asks for your WiFi password and tries 100x to send the data back to central.
Click to expand...

It's not like that in Lafayette nor is it like that in Chattanooga. I'm willing to bet that none of the municipal fiber utilities are doing what you allege.
 
NeghVar said:
What we have is crony capitalism. In their infancy, these companies thrived on free-market capitalism. They competed with good customer support, good products and good services. That made them the preferred choice over others. But now that they are at the top, they can afford to cut quality of customer support services and products and raise the prices to their black hearts desires without any worry of losing customers because they are the only option. Now they oppose free-market capitalism because it would allow a potential rival to grow, flourish and potentially dethrone the behemoth. So they do everything they can to get regulations passed that will allow them to maintain the status quo and prevent any competition.

We need another trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about Cable? As I recall, it was heavily regulated at least through part of the 90s and there was no competition at all until Dish and DirectTV came around. where I'm at, if you aren't facing a satellite, you have to get Comcast. In the 80's, if you didn't have a giant dish, you had to get whatever cable provider serviced your area or live with local stations.

Cable providers never were innovators.
 
nilepez said:
It's not like that in Lafayette nor is it like that in Chattanooga. I'm willing to bet that none of the municipal fiber utilities are doing what you allege.
Click to expand...

And I lived in a city that ran its own internet and competed with Time Warner once, boy did I get some cheap ass prices.
I'm not talking about a City running their own ISP, I'm talking about the federal government stepping in and taking over everything.
I honestly believe EVERY city should own its own ISP and directly compete with the big companies in order to keep them honest.
The big cable companies pretty much have a monopoly for their areas with no real competition minus a city here or there that has their own cable company.
 
aardvark sandwich said:
I...have no idea what that is, exactly.
Click to expand...

"ro-free market regulation" sounds oxymoron, but if we regulated the amount of shady deals deals governments can make with businesses then I'd say that would could as a legit and beneficial 'regulation'. But the hard part is, how to you get the government to regulate itself? :(
 
i think what we are talking about is the very lack of regulation. The fatcat deals only exist from regulation in the first place.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top