Internet NEUTRALITY is VERY BAD

[Mini-Me]

The principle of net neutrality is a great one - it's what made the Internet what it is today. NOBODY wants ISP's (local, regional, or backbone) blocking out sites they don't like. After all, sites like this would be the first to go!

However, we have to realize there's a reason why these big companies have the power to exploit consumers and call the shots like this: It's because they derive monopoly power from government in the first place, and they therefore have no competition to keep them in check. As I mentioned on another thread, most ISP's are quite literally given 15 year monopoly contracts by local governments based on who can wine and dine your local politicians the best. So, some people are essentially saying, "Let's continue to give the corporations monopoly contracts, and THEN, let's pass some regulations to ensure they treat customers fairly! Nevermind the fact that those regulations will only make it even worse for us, since the federal government is corrupt and these same corporations will be the ones writing the laws."

Although net neutrality is one of the most important principles of the Internet, allowing the federal government to get involved in regulating the Internet to "protect us" will make it even harder for us to break free of the stranglehold monopolies have on us. We need to fight at the local level to stop monopoly contracts to local ISP's, and if there are contracts at other levels (regional or backbone) at well, we then need to focus on those.

The fact is, most people on both sides of the debate in this thread are missing a crucial point:

• The "let the free market work!" people are forgetting that we don't have a free market at all, and we need to fight for one by getting rid of the state-enforced monopolies. Once we have a free market and give it a few years to flourish, THEN it will work beautifully and we'll have a lot more choice in ISP's. Until that day comes, however, we really are at the mercy of the telecom companies.
• The "let the federal government enforce net neutrality!" people are forgetting that government regulation is the whole reason we're in this mess in the first place. The corporations write the laws. Although the telecom companies are lobbying against net neutrality right now (hence current legislation probably is favorable to us...for now), setting the precedent that the federal government can regulate the Internet will only give those corporations an opening to bribe other regulatory legislation out of Congress that will put us right back where we started - except worse. (Not to mention the fact that allowing the government to regulate the Internet, even by just saying that ISP's have to keep it neutral, sets the precedent that they can regulate it toward the ends of the establishment itself, too.)

We're really between a rock and a hard place here, and there's no easy solution - the only real solution is doing this the hard way by dismantling regulations and monopoly contracts from the bottom up (or the top down...not sure which direction is more effective ).

 

[Redcard]

But it's not regulating the internet to say "You can't filter out things you don't like." It's regulating the business.

Saying we have "the power" to go to another company is a joke. What other company do you know of that will support the concepts of "Net Neutrality" that provides broadband high-speed access? They're ALL against it. It's ALL a land grab. Even the backbone providers are against it.

If we were dealing with something that was actually on the "Free market", that'd be different, but there is _NO_ _WAY_ that you can start up an internet company right now and NOT deal with these big businesses. Either you're buying business service from them directly, you're buying from their bandwidth suppliers, or you're buying from the backbone, and those are ALL owned by big business.

 

[nebulous]

in an ideal situation, this would work...sadly, in most cases, it's Comcast or dial-up (though, in some instances, it's Comcast, a phone company, or dial-up)...

Some areas has/had a satellite option I once had this and never had a problem, I moved and have not yet looked into that option but will.

 

[Mini-Me]

But it's not regulating the internet to say "You can't filter out things you don't like." It's regulating the business.

While you are correct, this is a matter of semantics; in the eyes of the federal government, network neutrality legislation will be considered a precedent for regulating the Internet whether we like to think of it that way or not.

Also...what makes you think that the law will merely say "you can't filter out things you don't like?" There are always loopholes, and they rarely work in the favor of the public...

Saying we have "the power" to go to another company is a joke. What other company do you know of that will support the concepts of "Net Neutrality" that provides broadband high-speed access? They're ALL against it. It's ALL a land grab. Even the backbone providers are against it.

If we were dealing with something that was actually on the "Free market", that'd be different, but there is _NO_ _WAY_ that you can start up an internet company right now and NOT deal with these big businesses. Either you're buying business service from them directly, you're buying from their bandwidth suppliers, or you're buying from the backbone, and those are ALL owned by big business.

You've hit the nail on the head - this is exactly why we're in such a tough situation. We've allowed ourselves to get to the point where local ISP's have monopoly contracts and there's really no competition at the backbone level, either. Large companies own and control all of the routers and "tubes" () in the infrastructure. What we really need is more competing pathways - the more routers there are and interconnections between them, the less clout the existing hubs will have and the less they'll be able to get away with (because people will just route the packets through someone else). Building more infrastructure is certainly a monumental task; the Internet is a very expensive and large-scale project. All of the regulations in place that discourage competition make this even harder (which is why we need to get rid of them...). Even if someone did come up with a new infrastructure and marketed their backbone routers based on net neutrality principles, we'd need competition at the regional and local levels so we'd have friendly regional and local ISP's to take them up on it (which would require people to get rid of local monopoly contracts and such). However, this is the only way we will ever be able to free ourselves from the current corporate "gatekeepers" of the Internet.

Who can afford to create such an infrastructure? Well, for one, there ARE certain large companies (Google, for instance) that are very pissed off about the telecom industry's desire to filter traffic to their pleasing. If we don't enforce net neutrality and let things get really bad for a while, these companies will say "enough is enough" and create their own competing infrastructure. While this is the most likely solution to occur in the short-to-medium term, it obviously isn't the ideal situation: The infrastructure will still only be controlled by a handful of companies. Even if a new competitor (like Google) were to market their backbone based on network neutrality (and enough regional and local competition existed that some ISP's would take them up on it), they could always "join the telecom cartel" if they wanted.

A better solution would be for smaller companies and individuals across the country to come together and plan out infrastructure that would be owned by much smaller, more numerous, and more diverse interests. In order to ensure competition, we don't need the redundancy of ten backbone networks all owned by a a few huge companies competing against each other. Instead, we just need one alternative path with many different sections owned by many different companies with diverse interests. No single node in the web would dare to infringe upon net neutrality, because it would only piss off everyone else, who could then create a new router to bypass the jackass. In other words, each independent node in the web would agree to be neutral because it's in their best interests for everyone else to remain neutral.

Another solution I've kicked around is the idea of a single [nonprofit, perhaps] backbone company created "by, for, and of the people." I'm imagining a "coop" kind of situation where a very large number of individuals and small businesses team up and pool their resources to create a new company which guarantees network neutrality (among other things) in its corporate contract (a "corporate constitution" of such) and uniform contract with its ever-expanding number of shareholders (each of which, by contract, own an equal token share of the infrastructure). As far as I'm aware, the major cost of running an ISP is buying the infrastructure, and maintaining it for day-to-day use probably isn't quite so bad. If enough people signed onto a contract promising to pay a certain up-front fee once a critical mass of pledges was reached, we could create a "publicly" owned infrastructure that cannot be interfered with by corrupt politicians. I haven't thought of the details on how this would work, but the basic idea is for a very large number of people to collectively own small bits the infrastructure in a manner that it cannot ever be controlled by a few big shareholders. Depending on how this arrangement was formulated, this solution could also reduce our monthly ISP charges by a lot, too


The point is, yes, we're in a situation here, and the free market solution (once we can get a damn free market and get governments to lay off ) would take a bit of work. However, it IS possible, and it's a much more permanent solution than allowing the government to step in and "enforce" net neutrality, which would likely tie a new double-knot in the regulatory chains that are holding down the free market.

 

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

I think a lot of people think that the little guy cant beat the big corporation.

3 letters:

A O L

If people are not happy with your services, they will go somewhere else. The market will always open. Other companies will always come in to take up your slack.

 

[Redcard]

I think a lot of people think that the little guy cant beat the big corporation.

3 letters

A O L

If people are not happy with your services, they will go somewhere else. The market will always open. Other companies will always come in to take up your slack.

But the market didn't open.

Time Warner bought AOL, and intentionally screwed it over so that they could sell people on Time Warner Cable. They bought AOL for the subscriber base, not to continue running a good service.

What happened with AOL is that a big fish got eaten by a bigger fish.. and then the smaller fish was gutted to encourage people to move to even larger companies. That's not the "little guy" beating the big guy.

A little guy beating the big guy would be a "Mindspring" or a "Delphi Internet" being a provider of Broadband. Where are they now?

 

[Smiley Gladhands]

But the market didn't open.

Time Warner bought AOL, and intentionally screwed it over so that they could sell people on Time Warner Cable. They bought AOL for the subscriber base, not to continue running a good service.

What happened with AOL is that a big fish got eaten by a bigger fish.. and then the smaller fish was gutted to encourage people to move to even larger companies. That's not the "little guy" beating the big guy.

A little guy beating the big guy would be a "Mindspring" or a "Delphi Internet" being a provider of Broadband. Where are they now?

And how has that worked for Time Warner?

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=TWX&t=my&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=

In a free market, a large corporation can make silly mistakes and cost its shareholders money. In a corporatocracy, the large corporation instead uses government regulations to get the general public to pay for its mistakes.

 

[Redcard]

And how has that worked for Time Warner?

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=TWX&t=my&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=

In a free market, a large corporation can make silly mistakes and cost its shareholders money. In a corporatocracy, the large corporation instead uses government regulations to get the general public to pay for its mistakes.

Well, let's see.

Time Warner reported revenues of $44,000,000,000 for the year ending 2007.

Much of the stock is held within the company or by higher ups in the company.

I think that means it's going pretty damn well for them, don't you?

 

[Mini-Me]

BTW, if people insist on going the regulation route, a much less dangerous (and more Constitutional) proposition would be for state and local governments to make an ultimatum to telecom companies based on property rights: If your "tubes" () are going through public property (and of course, they must in order to get across roads ), you must make all routers you own network neutral, and you may only connect your lines to other companies who make their routers network neutral as well.

That would avoid the corruption of the federal government, keep it Constitutional, and enforce network neutrality through government force all at once...and in a way, it's completely legitimate, since public property should only be used in the interests of the public (and therefore the public can make demands to companies that route their permanent infrastructure through such property).

There are many alternatives to federal regulation, and I find this one in particular quite satisfying in a sick little way. Telecom companies invoke property rights when they say they want to regulate their traffic however they want - it's quite ironic that we can make the door swing both ways, since they're using our public property to connect their routers. Without using our public property and agreeing to our terms, these telecom companies' routers are just little islands cut off from each other

 

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

AOL bought up 55% of the shares. Your entire premise is wrong, because AOL bought Time Warner, not the other way around.

AOL has lost most of their subscriber base, they are losing more every day, and their net value is plummeting. Nobody uses AOL anymore.


You can not maintain a business if your buyers are not happy with what you are selling. They will go somewhere else. If there is nowhere else to go, and enough customers are unhappy, a new competitor will emerge.

Wake up. This is a scheme for the corporations to set up monopolies. Ted Kennedy doesnt write the Net Neutrality bill. The guys over at Comcast do.

 

[brandon]

lol, it is funny how "series of tubes" really is a terrific description of the internet, yet everyone always uses it sarcastically.

 

[polomertz]

I just saw this.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/2...on-net-neutrality-talks-on-other-tech-issues/

 

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

lol, it is funny how "series of tubes" really is a terrific description of the internet, yet everyone always uses it sarcastically.

Well, its certainly not a truck.

 

[Mini-Me]

lol, it is funny how "series of tubes" really is a terrific description of the internet, yet everyone always uses it sarcastically.

Not really; a "series of tubes" is indeed an apt description for part of the Internet, but that part is only about half of the infrastructure of the Internet's core (the other half is routers). Intangible things like protocols are a big part of the net as well, and of course, all of the millions of endpoints...so the sarcasm is really directed at the implication that tubes comprise the entirety of the net.

 

[brandon]

Not really; a "series of tubes" is indeed an apt description for part of the Internet, but that part is only about half of the infrastructure of the Internet's core (the other half is routers). Intangible things like protocols are a big part of the net as well, and of course, all of the millions of endpoints...so the sarcasm is really directed at the implication that tubes comprise the entirety of the net.

Right, but I think things such as routers would be included in the phrase "series of tubes."

Like if i said that the sewer system is a series of tubes, would you argue back and say "No it also has valves and filters, and you cant forget about the toilets!"? SO while series of tubes is quite an oversimplification of the internet, at its core it still makes sence.

Anyway, back to net neutrality. lol

 

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

Really, the entire pro- Net Neutrality argument comes down to this:

"The corporations want to make your internet go slower unless you pay them more"

...

THEY ALREADY FUCKING DO THAT!

 

[TheInvestigatorOfFreedom]

net neutrality should be abolished internet shouldn't be owned by anyone and i don't think anyone owns the internet as a matter of fact

 

[Redcard]

net neutrality should be abolished internet shouldn't be owned by anyone and i don't think anyone owns the internet as a matter of fact

Uh. The internet is owned already. Net neutrality states that, at least in concept, that no traffic should be given preference over other traffic, that, in short, a packet is as equal as any other packet. Content, origin, or destination should not factor into the priority that the network handles the packet.

 

[brandon]

Uh. The internet is owned already. Net neutrality states that, at least in concept, that no traffic should be given preference over other traffic, that, in short, a packet is as equal as any other packet. Content, origin, or destination should not factor into the priority that the network handles the packet.

Who owns the internet?

Do you also support affirmative action?

 

[Kade]

There are trolls appearing on this forum trying to tell people that

INTERNET MUST STAY NEUTRAL.


This is the name of tha Government legislation NET NEUTRALITY ACT, which is basically GOVERNMENT CONTROL of the Internet.

Don't be fooled by the word NEUTRAL.

It is same kind of lie as FEDERAL RESERVE.

INTERNET MUST STAY FREE.

Proper legislation will protect the internet from big government or big business. Net Neutrality means just that. The internet belongs to the people. The government belongs to the people.

Take back your government and stop with the all caps and bold colored lettering.

You are like a screaming ranting car salesman for my eyes.