Good. Let competition for customers determine what is acceptable, instead of biased or self-interested rules pushed by Washington.
FTA: "Pai's order relies on consumers being able to shift providers should they find conduct, promises made or broken, or pricing by the ISP intolerable. The vast majority of the U.S., especially those outside of major metropolitan areas, have one broadband provider -- or have to rely on one wireless carrier for service."
15 miles to the south of this chair, there is one broadband choice. And, if you live more than 5 miles from 95 in that same area, you have one wireless choice.
Also, I'm a little unclear on "let all the data through, regardless of who it's from" is bias or self-interest from Washington.
I'm glad you focused on this part. I was going to ask specifically about the sentence you quoted: "The vast majority of the U.S., especially those outside of major metropolitan areas, have one broadband provider -- or have to rely on one wireless carrier for service." Is this from the proposal or, I expect, from AI? I believe is inaccurate or grossly misleading. Does "the vast majority" refer to individuals (as "those" would suggest) or raw geographic square miles? Given that a substantial portion of the population live in urban and suburban areas, I doubt a "vast majority" of Americans have no options,
I'm glad you asked! The data comes from the FCC itself. Given the FCC's definition of broadband as 25/3 (three!) until it ultimately gets downgraded, the vast majority of Americans by "census blocks" have no choices. Census block with insignificant populations were excluded, so by area, the number could be loads worse. Also, not every "census block" has every house covered with the speeds mentioned.
Study was published in 2016. There is no new study, but I'm expecting one next year at some point.
Net neutrality is an Obama era invention. How did we ever get along all these years without it? Before net neutrality was AI ever blocked by some Windows person at a carrier? It didn’t happen before the government’s power grab and it won’t happen after either even though it is ‘theoretically’ possible. Labeling Internet service as a utility no different than natural gas or electricity so the government could control it was a mistake and I’m happy it’s going away.
The only restrictions I remember from the days before net neutrality was that websites told me to go away because I was a Mac user and wasn’t running IE as by browser. The government didn’t fix that, competition and innovation did.
Why don’t you look at this from the perspective of internet capabilities? The internet continues to get faster and more capable and there are increasing opportunities in internet monetisation. The internet has stayed neutral despite commercial interest. There is no reason at all to think the internet will continue to remain neutral. As the capabilities increase the business opportunities increase, and even well-meaning entrepreneurs will seek out opportunities unaware of the effect of their actions. And, of course, there are plenty of people who will happily screw their customers and ruin anything if they can get away with it. As much as I did not like Obama policies in general the idea of net neutrality is vital in keeping the internet the way it is—it might be the one thing Obama’s administration did that I liked!
The internet is bigger than a commercial venture. While much of it is entertainment, that’s not its philosophy and shouldn’t be. It’s the easy and free distribution of information and communication. It’s more like utility services than it is like a television network.
Well, here we go, just another move by the Trump administration to take more rights away from us. Now, removing these rules, which were hard fought for, will allow ISPs to decide which sites they will carry. One day, if someone at Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon and others is a Windows person, we may not be able to get AppleInsider from them. Isn’t that just great?
What if, theoretically possible, maybe, could, might, possibility. Blathering nonsense. Net neutrality is an Obama era invention. How did we ever get along all these years without it? Before net neutrality was AI ever blocked by some Windows person at a carrier? It didn’t happen before the government’s power grab and it won’t happen after either even though it is ‘theoretically’ possible. Labeling Internet service as a utility no different than natural gas or electricity so the government could control it was a mistake and I’m happy it’s going away.
The only restrictions I remember from the days before net neutrality was that websites told me to go away because I was a Mac user and wasn’t running IE as by browser. The government didn’t fix that, competition and innovation did.
What Garbage! The entire idea her is for this to happen. We’ve seen baby steps with AT&T giving special privileges to subscribers if they also subscribe to Direct TV (or whatever it’s called). That automatically makes every other service more expensive. And that with net neutrality, and an administration that didn’t want to, enforce it. Other ISPs are following suit. Without the rule, it’s going to get much worse.
thecproblem with the right in this country is that you don’t want to be bothered to think about what these things end up doing. All you think about is what the so called benefits are by people who see the benefits for themselves. This is what regulation was invented for way back.
you don’t remember much, apparently. But things are much more complex that when the internet first started, and there was little bandwidth. Not much could be done then. We had no video streaming. Music streaming was just barely possible. We still got most of our news from Tv. Newspapers were second. The internet? Not so much. Buying over the internet? Not really.
thecmodern internet began in the mid/late 2000’s, when we began to get off dial-up. We weren’t so dependent on the internet for so much. Now that we are, we need net neutrality. Yeah, I know, that hinders the rights of the companies that make tens of billions a year off it. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing.
Well, here we go, just another move by the Trump administration to take more rights away from us. Now, removing these rules, which were hard fought for, will allow ISPs to decide which sites they will carry. One day, if someone at Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon and others is a Windows person, we may not be able to get AppleInsider from them. Isn’t that just great?
Agreed. It allows FOX to pay more for bandwidth forcing other less well funded "liberal" voices out of the marketplace. It also allows special interests to invest in news outlets thus giving them the capital to compete on the same level as big media, while effectively silencing poorly funded voices which represent those least able to represent themselves.
Yeah, right. Fox is a very rich company. They are also owned by a man who is almost a fringe rightest. His company is one of the biggest media companies in the world. He also supports smaller outlets of the same political bent.
killing neutrality will make it much harder for small outlets to gain anything. If their politics don’t match that of the provider, they won’t get on.
Well, here we go, just another move by the Trump administration to take more rights away from us. Now, removing these rules, which were hard fought for, will allow ISPs to decide which sites they will carry. One day, if someone at Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon and others is a Windows person, we may not be able to get AppleInsider from them. Isn’t that just great?
What if, theoretically possible, maybe, could, might, possibility. Blathering nonsense. Net neutrality is an Obama era invention. How did we ever get along all these years without it? Before net neutrality was AI ever blocked by some Windows person at a carrier? It didn’t happen before the government’s power grab and it won’t happen after either even though it is ‘theoretically’ possible. Labeling Internet service as a utility no different than natural gas or electricity so the government could control it was a mistake and I’m happy it’s going away.
The only restrictions I remember from the days before net neutrality was that websites told me to go away because I was a Mac user and wasn’t running IE as by browser. The government didn’t fix that, competition and innovation did.
AT&T blocked FaceTime, then they blocked Skype -- because they wanted users to rely on calls and then not-free texts. The FCC admits in the proposal today that Comcast blocked streaming video providers, and it was because they didn't want the competition for their cable bundles. Comcast later throttled Netflix traffic that it could identify. Verizon blocked contactless payments because they were working on their own.
And, those are just the big ones. Saying that ISPs never blocked anything before they were being watched by the Obama administration is a ridiculously false statement, and also ignores the market factors surrounding the internet's growth and usage in everyday life.
Good. Let competition for customers determine what is acceptable, instead of biased or self-interested rules pushed by Washington.
FTA: "Pai's order relies on consumers being able to shift providers should they find conduct, promises made or broken, or pricing by the ISP intolerable. The vast majority of the U.S., especially those outside of major metropolitan areas, have one broadband provider -- or have to rely on one wireless carrier for service."
15 miles to the south of this chair, there is one broadband choice. And, if you live more than 5 miles from 95 in that same area, you have one wireless choice.
Also, I'm a little unclear on "let all the data through, regardless of who it's from" is bias or self-interest from Washington.
I'm glad you focused on this part. I was going to ask specifically about the sentence you quoted: "The vast majority of the U.S., especially those outside of major metropolitan areas, have one broadband provider -- or have to rely on one wireless carrier for service." Is this from the proposal or, I expect, from AI? I believe is inaccurate or grossly misleading. Does "the vast majority" refer to individuals (as "those" would suggest) or raw geographic square miles? Given that a substantial portion of the population live in urban and suburban areas, I doubt a "vast majority" of Americans have no options,
For high-speed internet the option seems to generally be... ONE provider.
Why are you forgetting that there always be someone else to offer a better plans and undercut that overly greedy company?
That doesn't exist in the United States for the majority of internet users. You might get two choices for an ISP, and that doesn't necessarily mean that they even offer the same types of connections...so it's not really competition.
Private ISPs had their chance and have chosen to shaft consumers. Time to take it all public.
Why does the type of connection matter? I thought it is all about being able to access internetZ at a particular price per certain Mbps count. That is it.
" Time to take it all public. " Really? Do you think it will make it cheaper or more affordable? Do I need to remind you what happened when affordable healthcare act was passed? Why did "public" plans forced ALL providers to increase ALL plans cost 40-70%? Please, don't give me that crap about them "being greedy". When they all cry for prices being increased, that means, they do not see any other way of staying afloat. Believe me, if some of them saw how to keep the price down and undercut the rest of the competition, they would have done so...but they did not. That is likely because it was not possible.
Grow up and stop thinking that making something public means making it better. It is almost NEVER the case. Public means, MORE EXPENSIVE and LESS of a quality on average, because there is no direct connection between that being a bad public service and that service going bust (as it would in the private sector). You can fund ANY BAD public service and make it stay forever (assuming the state survives) with tax money. You, however, can't really do that to any business, because it will get undercut and go bust before you say "go". Gov-t anything is never the answer. The exception is only to some important things like cops and military and judicial system not being privatized. Anything IS and will be done better by private companies.
…our protections from predatory behavior by these companies are out the window.
Yeah, we sure fucking had those under the last bill, didn’t we. They totally existed. Infrastructure sure was built out using the taxpayer dollars they were given to do so. No one got bonuses instead of actually doing what they were told to do. There wasn’t collusion. There weren’t false monopolies. We were totally free.
Where’s your outcry against the fact that 6 companies own all of US media? I guess that’s fine, isn’t it?
As long as the bias is in favor of large companies it’s great, when it’s in favor of citizens, it’s not.
You have no idea what right-wing politics are, do you?
LordeHawk said: ISPs could charge the consumer more in regions where they hold a monopoly, but most likely wouldn’t in competitive markets.
1. So… FIX THE MONOPOLY, THEN. Doesn’t that sound like a better idea? 2. Where exactly are these competitive markets? I’d love to know, because there’s only one ISP available where I live (unless I move to a different city, and then I’ll just get a different single ISP).
If there’s no direct accountability, why would an ISP not charge more to these companies?
So where was the direct accountability for the money the ISPs were given to build out infrastructure?
The problem here is that we lose protections from the wizards behind the proverbial curtain.
The government wasn’t protecting you from themselves. Don’t be delusional.
I for one don’t trust a single ISP, maybe Apple’s satellite initiative will save us all.
Agreed. It allows FOX to pay more for bandwidth forcing other less well funded "liberal" voices out of the marketplace.
SURELY you are not suggesting that liberal media is less funded than conservative media. SURELY you are not suggesting that Fox is conservative media. You cannot be suggesting this. I refuse to believe it. This HAS to be simply an “example text.”
It also allows special interests to invest in news outlets thus giving them the capital to compete on the same level as big media, while effectively silencing poorly funded voices which represent those least able to represent themselves.
Oh yeah. That doesn’t happen now. Not in the slightest.
You don’t know what youre talking about. Too much consolidation in industry has been happening for a long time. One company after another buying out competitors. As long as they weren’t in the same “marketing region” it was thought to be fine. But it’s not. It’s become a race to become the biggest, at therefore to be able to squeeze out their conpetitors. That’s natural capitalism, and it should have been stopped long ago.
but what’s past involving that is here to stay, sadly. But that doesn’t mean we should allow it to continue to get worse, as you and the other right wingers in this country. Want, apparently. I understand right wing politics quite fine, thank you. I have friends who extoll that every week. They also show a remarkable lack of understanding of economics and politics.
i see way too much of the unfettered economic concepts from this administration. Considering who the president is, it’s not surprising, as he continues to push his own business interests even while in Office.
Net neutrality is an Obama era invention. How did we ever get along all these years without it? Before net neutrality was AI ever blocked by some Windows person at a carrier? It didn’t happen before the government’s power grab and it won’t happen after either even though it is ‘theoretically’ possible. Labeling Internet service as a utility no different than natural gas or electricity so the government could control it was a mistake and I’m happy it’s going away.
The only restrictions I remember from the days before net neutrality was that websites told me to go away because I was a Mac user and wasn’t running IE as by browser. The government didn’t fix that, competition and innovation did.
Why don’t you look at this from the perspective of internet capabilities? The internet continues to get faster and more capable and there are increasing opportunities in internet monetisation. The internet has stayed neutral despite commercial interest. There is no reason at all to think the internet will continue to remain neutral. As the capabilities increase the business opportunities increase, and even well-meaning entrepreneurs will seek out opportunities unaware of the effect of their actions. And, of course, there are plenty of people who will happily screw their customers and ruin anything if they can get away with it. As much as I did not like Obama policies in general the idea of net neutrality is vital in keeping the internet the way it is—it might be the one thing Obama’s administration did that I liked!
The internet is bigger than a commercial venture. While much of it is entertainment, that’s not its philosophy and shouldn’t be. It’s the easy and free distribution of information and communication. It’s more like utility services than it is like a television network.
The reason why net neutrality is essential is simply because it levels the playing field and makes the network more competitive. The idea that this legislation allows more freedom is preposterous the big corporation know this and are engaged in double speak, this is all about cementing their monopolies for competituve advantage and nothing less . The folks here who think the previous rule it is by definition bad because it was sanctioned by obama are stupid and ignorant . Most of them probably are paid shills from the like of comcast
Good. Let competition for customers determine what is acceptable, instead of biased or self-interested rules pushed by Washington.
FTA: "Pai's order relies on consumers being able to shift providers should they find conduct, promises made or broken, or pricing by the ISP intolerable. The vast majority of the U.S., especially those outside of major metropolitan areas, have one broadband provider -- or have to rely on one wireless carrier for service."
15 miles to the south of this chair, there is one broadband choice. And, if you live more than 5 miles from 95 in that same area, you have one wireless choice.
Also, I'm a little unclear on "let all the data through, regardless of who it's from" is bias or self-interest from Washington.
People make a choice to live in less population dense areas. Making such a choice results in less access to services which can be provided more practically and at a lower cost in the higher density cities. That’s how it should be. Economics in action. Greater demand drives competition to supply the demand. Less demand in the boonies means higher cost.
What Garbage! The entire idea her is for this to happen. We’ve seen baby steps with AT&T giving special privileges to subscribers if they also subscribe to Direct TV (or whatever it’s called). That automatically makes every other service more expensive.
You realize that happens just as much under Net Neutrality, right?
When an ISP can't single out Netflix for taking 50% of its bandwidth to serve 5% of the ISP's users it has no choice but to raise rates for all customers to cover the increased costs. Non-Netflix users are subsidizing the Netflix users.
The only difference between the two cases is that under "Netflix Neutrality" the consumer has no choice in what services to support.
Good. Let competition for customers determine what is acceptable, instead of biased or self-interested rules pushed by Washington.
FTA: "Pai's order relies on consumers being able to shift providers should they find conduct, promises made or broken, or pricing by the ISP intolerable. The vast majority of the U.S., especially those outside of major metropolitan areas, have one broadband provider -- or have to rely on one wireless carrier for service."
15 miles to the south of this chair, there is one broadband choice. And, if you live more than 5 miles from 95 in that same area, you have one wireless choice.
Also, I'm a little unclear on "let all the data through, regardless of who it's from" is bias or self-interest from Washington.
I'm glad you focused on this part. I was going to ask specifically about the sentence you quoted: "The vast majority of the U.S., especially those outside of major metropolitan areas, have one broadband provider -- or have to rely on one wireless carrier for service." Is this from the proposal or, I expect, from AI? I believe is inaccurate or grossly misleading. Does "the vast majority" refer to individuals (as "those" would suggest) or raw geographic square miles? Given that a substantial portion of the population live in urban and suburban areas, I doubt a "vast majority" of Americans have no options,
It’s the reality, which has been shown in surveys done every year by various organizations, including the US government. And in many major metropolitan areas just one ISP, or at the most two, are operating.
Subsidizing people who live in less accessible areas of the country is just plain bad policymaking. Subsidizing anything results very quickly in favoritism and corruption.
What happens when public policy is written by corporate lawyers and lobbyists. I oppose this change by the FCC. It does not serve the interest of the general public, nor does it protect the general public from corporate shenanigans.
Verizon’s statement amounts to: trust us. Kill the regulations and protections and trust us not to be greedy about Internet fast lanes and “pay to play” access to content. Whoops, Apple didn’t pay Verizon a tithe, so we’re going to slow down your downloads from iTunes Store to a crawl. Apple Music is buffering? Aww, maybe sign up for music streaming from one of or “preferred partners” who’ve paid us for the privilege. Never trust the wolves to watch over the flock.
Why are you forgetting that there always be someone else to offer better plans and undercut that overly greedy company? That is how disruptions occur. Uber was not mandated by the gov-t, but it surely disrupted taxi industry for good. Don't like uber? Fine, don't use it.
Sure, if we just didn’t like the concept of calling for a ride. But Uber is a very corrupt company that does what the little capitalists on this site seem to like. They disregard laws. They use software to get around the laws. Illegally. They lie to their drivers about how much money they’re making, or just don’t pay them. I mean, seriously, if you’re going to use an example of a company, use one that’s honest.
Good. Let competition for customers determine what is acceptable, instead of biased or self-interested rules pushed by Washington.
FTA: "Pai's order relies on consumers being able to shift providers should they find conduct, promises made or broken, or pricing by the ISP intolerable. The vast majority of the U.S., especially those outside of major metropolitan areas, have one broadband provider -- or have to rely on one wireless carrier for service."
15 miles to the south of this chair, there is one broadband choice. And, if you live more than 5 miles from 95 in that same area, you have one wireless choice.
Also, I'm a little unclear on "let all the data through, regardless of who it's from" is bias or self-interest from Washington.
People make a choice to live in less population dense areas. Making such a choice results in less access to services which can be provided more practically and at a lower cost in the higher density cities. That’s how it should be. Economics in action. Greater demand drives competition to supply the demand. Less demand in the boonies means higher cost.
Well, the underpinning for withdrawing title II was that DNS exists (yes, really), and the ability for everyday Americans to switch providers if they don't like what they've got.
I'd hardly call 15 miles away from the Washington DC border the boonies.
You do you, man. Otherwise, I don't know how to tell you otherwise that left unchecked, the ISPs are gonna get their screwing on because other laws and regulations, including the disapproval of municipal broadband by the FCC and common carriage on telephone pole regulations, render most of their argument why net neutrality is not needed, moot.
How's this for an idea - elect people in Congress who will pass a net-neutrality law. Or don't, depending on your viewpoint.
Every fiber of my being is revolted by Donald Trump, but a close second was the Obama administration's default position of using agencies under the Executive branch's control to circumvent the legislative branch of our government. Congress makes the laws, and federal agencies implement the laws - at least that's the theory.
"Net-neutrality" is just another euphemism for "Socialist policy." The Internet is a pipe for data, pure and simple, and like all pipes, there is a wide range of installation and maintenance costs. If somebody ends up making a windfall, the profit scent will carry on the economic winds, and the competitive wolves will track it down.
What other "x-neutrality" should government get involved with? We just returned from an RV trip where we spent a few nights in Ely, NV. A t-shirt in the RV park read: "Ely, NV - only 398 miles round trip to Wal-Mart." As you might guess, groceries in their one-and-only "supermarket" were priced through the roof compared with that far-off Walmart (in Winnemucca, NV, where we also stayed and shopped). Winnemucca also has an interstate freeway going right through town, where Ely only has a two-lane road.
I don't trust businesses to always do right by their customers - the thing is, I trust government even less with their policies and regulations.
What Garbage! The entire idea her is for this to happen. We’ve seen baby steps with AT&T giving special privileges to subscribers if they also subscribe to Direct TV (or whatever it’s called). That automatically makes every other service more expensive.
You realize that happens just as much under Net Neutrality, right?
When an ISP can't single out Netflix for taking 50% of its bandwidth to serve 5% of the ISP's users it has no choice but to raise rates for all customers to cover the increased costs. Non-Netflix users are subsidizing the Netflix users.
The only difference between the two cases is that under "Netflix Neutrality" the consumer has no choice in what services to support.
Netflix is already paying for faster content delivery. You aren't paying for Netflix you don't use, and your internet rates are NOT going to come down because Net Neutrality is dumped. https://www.techhive.com/article/2466592/netflix-now-pays-time-warner-cable-for-faster-video-delivery.html The difference is that Verizon can't currently intentionally slow down Apple's iTunes media delivery for example. Under the new (not any) rules they could and force Apple and/or others to pay if the consumer wants it faster, aka more reliably delivered. I really don't get anyone's argument that this will make ISP's more competitive or lead to more options. This is a control and money grab, plain and simple, IMHO.
Well, here we go, just another move by the Trump administration to take more rights away from us. Now, removing these rules, which were hard fought for, will allow ISPs to decide which sites they will carry. One day, if someone at Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon and others is a Windows person, we may not be able to get AppleInsider from them. Isn’t that just great?
Agreed. It allows FOX to pay more for bandwidth forcing other less well funded "liberal" voices out of the marketplace. It also allows special interests to invest in news outlets thus giving them the capital to compete on the same level as big media, while effectively silencing poorly funded voices which represent those least able to represent themselves.
Yeah, right. Fox is a very rich company. They are also owned by a man who is almost a fringe rightest. His company is one of the biggest media companies in the world. He also supports smaller outlets of the same political bent.
Replace Fox with CNN and you will get the same correct statement. What was your point?
I trust the ISPs to be neutral and apolitical more than I trust Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
All those companies have gone pro-censorship. Coming from a country without freedom of speech, that's frightening.
I don’t trust any of them. That what regulations are for. It’s too bad, but companies do what they do to push their own interest forward. If that happens to coincide with ours, that’s great, but when it doesn’t, then without a regulatory agency to keep them in line, we get predatory monopolies.
No, we don’t. We get predatory monopolies when competition is suppressed or excluded via legislation and regulations. Every single monopoly in US history came about thanks to political connections, not because the “free market” failed.
I'm glad most of the people here are informed. Still, we have a few "fantasy league free market" players in here like usual who think regulation is bad, because "freedom". Slap the word "freedom" on it and you can convince uninformed people to embrace even despotism.
"Freedom..."
Yes, let the doublespeak flow... Feel the hate for actual freedoms... like the freedom from corporate control... no, No, NO... THAT'S not American! Corporate control of everything is the REEL MURRIKA!!!!1!!11. WEER NUMBAR WON!!!11!
Disgusting. The only "freedom" is the freedom for corporations to do whatever they want without limitation. They're free to continue strangling consumer choice, destroying the once great resource known as the Internet, turning it into yet another deluge of advertising.
Welcome to the "free" market under corporate domination. The only real choice for most Americans? Pay for shitty "service" or go without it entirely. That's what your unfettered "invisible hand" really does. It squashes freedom for all but the few most wealthy and privileged.
Comments
The internet is bigger than a commercial venture. While much of it is entertainment, that’s not its philosophy and shouldn’t be. It’s the easy and free distribution of information and communication. It’s more like utility services than it is like a television network.
What Garbage! The entire idea her is for this to happen. We’ve seen baby steps with AT&T giving special privileges to subscribers if they also subscribe to Direct TV (or whatever it’s called). That automatically makes every other service more expensive. And that with net neutrality, and an administration that didn’t want to, enforce it. Other ISPs are following suit. Without the rule, it’s going to get much worse.
thecproblem with the right in this country is that you don’t want to be bothered to think about what these things end up doing. All you think about is what the so called benefits are by people who see the benefits for themselves. This is what regulation was invented for way back.
you don’t remember much, apparently. But things are much more complex that when the internet first started, and there was little bandwidth. Not much could be done then. We had no video streaming. Music streaming was just barely possible. We still got most of our news from Tv. Newspapers were second. The internet? Not so much. Buying over the internet? Not really.
thecmodern internet began in the mid/late 2000’s, when we began to get off dial-up. We weren’t so dependent on the internet for so much. Now that we are, we need net neutrality. Yeah, I know, that hinders the rights of the companies that make tens of billions a year off it. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing.
Yeah, right. Fox is a very rich company. They are also owned by a man who is almost a fringe rightest. His company is one of the biggest media companies in the world. He also supports smaller outlets of the same political bent.
killing neutrality will make it much harder for small outlets to gain anything. If their politics don’t match that of the provider, they won’t get on.
EDIT: Pip'd by Mike a few minutes earlier.
" Time to take it all public. "
Really? Do you think it will make it cheaper or more affordable?
Do I need to remind you what happened when affordable healthcare act was passed? Why did "public" plans forced ALL providers to increase ALL plans cost 40-70%?
Please, don't give me that crap about them "being greedy". When they all cry for prices being increased, that means, they do not see any other way of staying afloat. Believe me, if some of them saw how to keep the price down and undercut the rest of the competition, they would have done so...but they did not. That is likely because it was not possible.
Grow up and stop thinking that making something public means making it better. It is almost NEVER the case.
Public means, MORE EXPENSIVE and LESS of a quality on average, because there is no direct connection between that being a bad public service and that service going bust (as it would in the private sector). You can fund ANY BAD public service and make it stay forever (assuming the state survives) with tax money. You, however, can't really do that to any business, because it will get undercut and go bust before you say "go".
Gov-t anything is never the answer. The exception is only to some important things like cops and military and judicial system not being privatized. Anything IS and will be done better by private companies.
but what’s past involving that is here to stay, sadly. But that doesn’t mean we should allow it to continue to get worse, as you and the other right wingers in this country. Want, apparently. I understand right wing politics quite fine, thank you. I have friends who extoll that every week. They also show a remarkable lack of understanding of economics and politics.
i see way too much of the unfettered economic concepts from this administration. Considering who the president is, it’s not surprising, as he continues to push his own business interests even while in Office.
When an ISP can't single out Netflix for taking 50% of its bandwidth to serve 5% of the ISP's users it has no choice but to raise rates for all customers to cover the increased costs.
Non-Netflix users are subsidizing the Netflix users.
The only difference between the two cases is that under "Netflix Neutrality" the consumer has no choice in what services to support.
Sure, if we just didn’t like the concept of calling for a ride. But Uber is a very corrupt company that does what the little capitalists on this site seem to like. They disregard laws. They use software to get around the laws. Illegally. They lie to their drivers about how much money they’re making, or just don’t pay them. I mean, seriously, if you’re going to use an example of a company, use one that’s honest.
I'd hardly call 15 miles away from the Washington DC border the boonies.
Every fiber of my being is revolted by Donald Trump, but a close second was the Obama administration's default position of using agencies under the Executive branch's control to circumvent the legislative branch of our government. Congress makes the laws, and federal agencies implement the laws - at least that's the theory.
"Net-neutrality" is just another euphemism for "Socialist policy." The Internet is a pipe for data, pure and simple, and like all pipes, there is a wide range of installation and maintenance costs. If somebody ends up making a windfall, the profit scent will carry on the economic winds, and the competitive wolves will track it down.
What other "x-neutrality" should government get involved with? We just returned from an RV trip where we spent a few nights in Ely, NV. A t-shirt in the RV park read: "Ely, NV - only 398 miles round trip to Wal-Mart." As you might guess, groceries in their one-and-only "supermarket" were priced through the roof compared with that far-off Walmart (in Winnemucca, NV, where we also stayed and shopped). Winnemucca also has an interstate freeway going right through town, where Ely only has a two-lane road.
I don't trust businesses to always do right by their customers - the thing is, I trust government even less with their policies and regulations.
https://www.techhive.com/article/2466592/netflix-now-pays-time-warner-cable-for-faster-video-delivery.html
The difference is that Verizon can't currently intentionally slow down Apple's iTunes media delivery for example. Under the new (not any) rules they could and force Apple and/or others to pay if the consumer wants it faster, aka more reliably delivered. I really don't get anyone's argument that this will make ISP's more competitive or lead to more options. This is a control and money grab, plain and simple, IMHO.
"Freedom..."
Yes, let the doublespeak flow... Feel the hate for actual freedoms... like the freedom from corporate control... no, No, NO... THAT'S not American! Corporate control of everything is the REEL MURRIKA!!!!1!!11. WEER NUMBAR WON!!!11!
Disgusting. The only "freedom" is the freedom for corporations to do whatever they want without limitation. They're free to continue strangling consumer choice, destroying the once great resource known as the Internet, turning it into yet another deluge of advertising.
Welcome to the "free" market under corporate domination. The only real choice for most Americans? Pay for shitty "service" or go without it entirely. That's what your unfettered "invisible hand" really does. It squashes freedom for all but the few most wealthy and privileged.