F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

[Arthur]

Liberty dies when [-]corporations[/-] governments control it.

ftfy

The Hippies were wrong. Still are. Always will be.

I have no right to tell you or anyone else what you may or may not do with your property. Force and fraud are illegal. For the rest, laissez-faire.

 

[CataclysmZA]

Exactly the sort of arguments European socialists and statists used to establish state-owned telephone monopolies. After forty years they ended up with backward and expensive telecommunications infrastructure compared to the freer markets.

Perhaps you're unaware of the reality of the US internet market, but there is more than two decades of evidence that shows Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T would always take the money the government handed to them to improve services and infrastruture, and instead used it to provide the most basic services possible in areas where they were already a monopoly or could take away from existing competition very easily, and then either pocketing the change or using the money to squeeze their competitors out of the market by paying lobbyists to look after their interests in government.

Title II would have put paid to that, and Verizon is Pai's biggest benefactor. They have thousands of miles of dark fiber laying dormant in the US, and they put more effort into making sure Google and other competitors cannot co-locate or run services into areas that they consider their territory than actually providing good internet.

And then there's the whole data caps thing which annoys me the most.

 

[The_Assimilator]

Perhaps you're unaware of the reality of the US internet market, but there is more than two decades of evidence that shows Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T would always take the money the government handed to them to improve services and infrastruture, and instead used it to provide the most basic services possible in areas where they were already a monopoly or could take away from existing competition very easily, and then either pocketing the change or using the money to squeeze their competitors out of the market by paying lobbyists to look after their interests in government.

Title II would have put paid to that, and Verizon is Pai's biggest benefactor. They have thousands of miles of dark fiber laying dormant in the US, and they put more effort into making sure Google and other competitors cannot co-locate or run services into areas that they consider their territory than actually providing good internet.

And then there's the whole data caps thing which annoys me the most.

Dude, don't waste your time. Arthur will be still banging the drum of libertarianism while his corporate overlords are putting him in chains. Hell, he'll probably thank them for it.

 

[Arthur]

It's facepalmingly astonishing that you have a problem with private contracts for priority or exclusivity over privately-owned networks. As if that's somehow wrong or immoral or unethical or undesirable.

Analogously, you want to use the force of the law (ie courts, police and prisons) to force all courier, trucking, taxi, railway and transport companies in the country to carry and deliver one another's parcels. And without any freedom to package, containerize, priorities, or offer bulk or priority pricing.

In that sort of world you quickly end up with the best, unable to differentiate themselves, being dragged down, and the worst becoming the common standard. All in the name of 'fairness' and 'neutrality'.

The real word for it is socialism and that sort of expropriation inevitably leads to mediocrity.

---

As an aside, I presume you are aware that the so-called "Net Neutrality" regs haven't yet been implemented, so it's not as if anything changes by the scrapping of the regs.

 

[C4Cat]

This has been going for years, can't blame Trump for this.

Trump appointment https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/23/14338522/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-donald-trump-appointment

 

[battletoad]

Analogously, you want to use the force of the law (ie courts, police and prisons) to force all courier, trucking, taxi, railway and transport companies in the country to carry and deliver one another's parcels. And without any freedom to package, containerize, priorities, or offer bulk or priority pricing.

In that sort of world you quickly end up with the best, unable to differentiate themselves, being dragged down, and the worst becoming the common standard. All in the name of 'fairness' and 'neutrality'.

No. A more apt analogy would be: I, as a customer, pay courier fees for the delivery of items from some online retailer. Then the courier company charges the online retailer an additional fee (on top of my courier costs) all because a large chunk of their day-to-day deliveries comes from said online retailer.

Now the law comes into the mix to stop the courier company from double dipping.

 

[C4Cat]

It's facepalmingly astonishing that you have a problem with private contracts for priority or exclusivity over privately-owned networks. As if that's somehow wrong or immoral or unethical or undesirable.

Analogously, you want to use the force of the law (ie courts, police and prisons) to force all courier, trucking, taxi, railway and transport companies in the country to carry and deliver one another's parcels. And without any freedom to package, containerize, priorities, or offer bulk or priority pricing.

In that sort of world you quickly end up with the best, unable to differentiate themselves, being dragged down, and the worst becoming the common standard. All in the name of 'fairness' and 'neutrality'.

The real word for it is socialism and that sort of expropriation inevitably leads to mediocrity.

Do courier companies generally charge different prices for the exact same trip and parcel based only on who the package is from? Is it legal for them to do so? Fair?

 

[Arthur]

Do courier companies generally charge different prices for the exact same trip and parcel based only on who the package is from? Is it legal for them to do so? Fair?

Who knows. It's between them and their customers.

It certainly isn't the business of some government bureaucracy to legislate about that, or force everyone to be equal.

If you wish to offer your customers a service that's faster, better, more predictable in delivery times or whatever (for example) than your competition's, you should be free to do so yourself, or use a courier company that can provide that service for you. That is how liberty works.

 

[supersunbird]

This is not a good thing.

 

[supersunbird]

And to Arthur:

As long as all regulations and laws allowing for a monopoly to exist in any geographic area were also removed, then it's an OK move. It should be totally free market (with no private sector companies trying to lobby any level of government policy).

 

[C4Cat]

Who knows. It's between them and their customers.

It certainly isn't the business of some government bureaucracy to legislate about that, or force everyone to be equal.

If you wish to offer your customers a service that's faster, better, more predictable in delivery times or whatever (for example), you should be free to do so yourself, or use a courier company that can provide that service for you. That is how liberty works.

How about if they charged you more and delivered slower simply because they don't like your political opinion or disapprove of the type of goods you're ordering? In an ideal world where collusion didn't exist and easy alternatives were always available you may have a case - sure, use a different courier, but the reality with providing Internet access is it's highly specialised and there are not always easy alternatives available.

 

[Nick333]

It's easy to dismiss any evidence when you're arguing from ideology like Arthur is.

Principle not ideology. The principle being that we don't get to piss all over other peoples property rights on the assumption that the businesses that provide us with all the goods and services that we consume like ravenous locusts are actually evil and stupid.

Suddenly the FCC, who were basically just the American censorship board in the days of radio, were the heroes of consumer rights because they created a law to protect consumers from a problem that didn't even exist.

Ja, sorry. You don't get to be the champion of freedom by telling people what they can or can't do with their property. You certainly don't trample on the rights of the few to benefit the many and claim the moral high ground.

 

[Nick333]

And to Arthur:

As long as all regulations and laws allowing for a monopoly to exist in any geographic area were also removed, then it's an OK move. It should be totally free market (with no private sector companies trying to lobby any level of government policy).

Well, exactly. Obamas government sold the public more government control as a solution to too much government control and everyone lapped it up as "freedom".

 

[Arthur]

And to Arthur:

As long as all regulations and laws allowing for a monopoly to exist in any geographic area were also removed, then it's an OK move. It should be totally free market (with no private sector companies trying to lobby any level of government policy).

I quite agree.

The stranglehold that government still has on most of telecoms is outrageous. I want to see the repeal of all laws that grant exclusive or cartel-like monopolies and access to spectrum, etc.

 

[Arthur]

How about if they charged you more and delivered slower simply because they don't like your political opinion or disapprove of the type of goods you're ordering? In an ideal world where collusion didn't exist and easy alternatives were always available you may have a case - sure, use a different courier, but the reality with providing Internet access is it's highly specialised and there are not always easy alternatives available.

If the government got out of the way and removed barriers to entry, it'd take 2.774 milliseconds for at least twenty others to see what is called A Business Opportunity.

The root problem is government barriers to entry. Remove those, and there're ten thousand smart people prepared to step in and fill the gap. We all end up better off.

 

[ScottulusMaximus]

Anyone who thinks any of Trumps thoughts, musings, decisions or actions are for freedom, the little guy, good of the people needs a PK and their head examined. Trump exists for one thing, protecting big business at the expense of anything or anyone.

You do know that if the same regulations are applied here:

Naspers could decide, hey myBB slags off DSTV constantly, Mr Mweb boss, lock all your customers down to 1Kb/s.
Cell C could think, hey we have a streaming platform don't we, Showmax 1Kb/s for you.
If the Gupta's owned an ISP, they probably do, Daily Maverick, guess what, 1Kb/s for you.

Then offer the affected companies a choice, a million a month or you stay slow.

 

[Nick333]

Anyone who thinks any of Trumps thoughts, musings, decisions or actions are for freedom, the little guy, good of the people needs a PK and their head examined. Trump exists for one thing, protecting big business at the expense of anything or anyone.

You do know that if the same regulations are applied here:

Naspers could decide, hey myBB slags off DSTV constantly, Mr Mweb boss, lock all your customers down to 1Kb/s.
Cell C could think, hey we have a streaming platform don't we, Showmax 1Kb/s for you.
If the Gupta's owned an ISP, they probably do, Daily Maverick, guess what, 1Kb/s for you.

Then offer the affected companies a choice, a million a month or you stay slow.

You have it the wrong way around. Net Neutrality were the regulations that would avoid the dystopian scenarios everyone is dreaming up.

We've never had those regulations, yet we've seemed to have avoided all this nastiness that ISP's are supposedly dying to impose on consumers.

Why? Because we've lobbied for deregulation not more regulation. We've got competition in the morning and if ones ISP throttles ones Netflix one finds a new ISP that won't.

The yanks and "freedom" loving idiots everywhere have decided that what America needs is not less monopolies and duopolies, but more government control for some crazy reason.

Whatever you think of Trumps motivations, he's right about net neutrality.

Personally, I would question the motivation of an obviously intelligent person like Obama who wanted more government regulation of an industry that is already the victim of too much regulation. It would appear that Democrats are fine with monopolies and duopolies ripping off the public as long as they can control the monopolies and duopolies. I wonder why.

 

[konfab]

Anyone who thinks any of Trumps thoughts, musings, decisions or actions are for freedom, the little guy, good of the people needs a PK and their head examined. Trump exists for one thing, protecting big business at the expense of anything or anyone.

You do know that if the same regulations are applied here:

Naspers could decide, hey myBB slags off DSTV constantly, Mr Mweb boss, lock all your customers down to 1Kb/s.
Cell C could think, hey we have a streaming platform don't we, Showmax 1Kb/s for you.
If the Gupta's owned an ISP, they probably do, Daily Maverick, guess what, 1Kb/s for you.

Then offer the affected companies a choice, a million a month or you stay slow.

And if those companies do that, their competition will see blood and take advantage of their stupidity. The internet manages perfectly fine without government regulation

What people don't seem to understand is that organisations like Netflix and Youtube actually require a really good and well put together network. Since every consumer wants the best possible connection AND doesn't want to pay a lot for it, the ISPs are not left with any other wiggle room other than to slow down services that use their network. This is simply the market reacting to consumer demand. We haven't really had this problem before because there hasn't really been the demand for really high intensity bandwidth.

And I might add that if you are worried about censorship, then you shouldn't really be looking at the Democrats, Google, Facebook and Twitter when all four want their "net neutrality" whilst all four actively censor opinions they don't like.

 

[konfab]

, I would question the motivation of an obviously intelligent person like Obama who wanted more government regulation of an industry that is already the victim of too much regulation. It would appear that Democrats are fine with monopolies and duopolies ripping off the public as long as they can control the monopolies and duopolies. I wonder why.

Their end goal is have everyone dependant on the government, which gives them complete power over society.

 

[Cray]

Ja, sorry. You don't get to be the champion of freedom by telling people what they can or can't do with their property. You certainly don't trample on the rights of the few to benefit the many and claim the moral high ground.

How much of the average ISP's infrastructure is cabled through public land? It might be their property but their is now way an ISP could exist if they didn't have concessions to use either the wireless spectrum or do be able to lay cable on public land. If you are going to use public resources for your business then yes, you should be subject to government rules telling you to behave fairly to the public..