
The End of Net Neutrality = the Beginning of the Fragmented Web - dontFartInSpace
The internet as we know it today is the result of years of technological evolution. Now we have the hardware and the benefit of hindsight to make creating networks much easier than it was the first time around. I am suggesting that once NN is dead, alternative networks of free information exchange are going to start popping up. The internet will fragment as necessary for free information exchange.<p>When discussing this ideas, people often get hung up on infrastructure. Remember that Puerto Rico is enjoying wireless internet infrastructure right now.<p>And keep in mind that a computer network does not need to support high speed communication to be a valid means of exchanging free ideas- which is what is really at stake with NN.
======
chx
All this fighting for trying to convince the FCC not to dismantle net
neutrality. This cause is _lost_. It was lost a year ago when Trump got
elected. Fight in your state legislature to repeal any laws blocking municipal
broadband then get it built locally. Bankrupt the big ISPs by providing better
alternatives _everywhere_. Do it from the ground up. Two phone calls won't
save you now. That's the road forward. No other way.

~~~
xster
Seems like a strawman.

The media landscape's merging and anti-competitiveness started way back in the
Clinton years and textbook revolving doors continued right up to Trump with
Tom Wheeler being a textbook regulated becoming a regulator.

Nothing changed with Trump. He's just not (and probably not capable of) making
an increased effort to reduce the permanence of power among money elites.

Having his personal net worth reduced pre vs post election as opposed to an
increase for Clinton and Obama is probably as big a step in the right
direction in favor of net neutrality than anything. A proper publicly funded
election for the legislature is the next ultimate solution that will solve all
this. The next best possibility is a self-funded election. An elite-funded
election which is the state of the US is the worst option and the root cause
of this.

~~~
cokeandsympathy
Get out of here with that both sides the same bullshit. Wheeler was an
industry man, but the the Obama administration fought to preserve net
neutrality and Obama supported classifying ISPs as utilities.

Campaign donations and lobbying are a systematic problem, but laying the blame
there and only there ignores the fact that there there are degrees of
complicitness within a corrupt system, as well as degrees of the impact
imposed by the corruption itself. Ultimately only one side of the aisle seems
so eager to get in bed with ISPs to destroy the internet, to deny climate
change in support of their fossil fuel benefactors, and to dismantle the
healthcare system for the benefit of the rich.

Also, ask yourself which party supports citizen United, and which party
obstructed any progress on legislative efforts to address it?

~~~
xster
Identity politics is just today's means of mass control as an evolution on the
use of violence or religion or some such. Classic Orwell vs Huxley.

Getting the oppressed to self-drain oxygen by subdividing everyone into every
which way to stop conversation about their self interest is the success the
elites are seeking. The only meaningful distinction in today's america's
social struggles is the class distinction between the common and the elite.

The (CNN approved) examples you're giving are right. Though there are tons of
non corporate news reported 'republican' things democrats have more success
doing like making Bush elite tax cuts permanent, more wars of invasion,
banking deregulation, social security privatization.

> but laying the blame there and only there ignores the fact that there there
> are degrees of complicitness within a corrupt system, as well as degrees of
> the impact imposed by the corruption itself

Sounds circular. Or maybe I misunderstood what you meant. Can you rephrase?

~~~
untog
What a load of complete waffling nonsense. You admit that the OP was correct
that things were different under the Obama administration, then say it doesn't
matter because Democrats get the country involved in wars? Please.

"The only way to fix anything is to fix everything" is deeply intellectually
lazy and allows you to disengage from any politics until it meets your
idealised standard of what politics should be. Lets you feel great while you
achieve absolutely nothing. We can all do better than that.

~~~
xster
Are we on the same thread? Your comments seem unrelated to the post you're
responding to.

> You admit that the OP was correct that things were different under the Obama
> administration

What are you referring to?

> "The only way to fix anything is to fix everything"

What are you referring to? I'm saying let's fix the problem instead of being
dragged into beating each other over unrelated bikeshedding while the
beneficiaries of the problem continue to benefit. How did that translate into
"The only way to fix anything is to fix everything"?

------
IronWolve
The FTC is taking over and will uphold net neutrality, the FCC is giving it to
the FTC who can run it better for consumer protections. The rules for the last
2 years and the 300+ page document will go away under the FCC, but that doesnt
mean the FTC will not do anything. This will change the classification from
title-2 regulation to title-1 regulation, and enforce privacy protections and
access/censorship restrictions.

The end of the world it is not, and the hyperbole is at an alltime absurd
level.

As for access, 5 years, LTE 5, Viasat3/4 will provide coverage around the
world. FCC guidelines for internet access at the pole will go into communities
to allow the breaking up of limited choice ISP for some communities. Google
fiber and Facebook internet already helped promote the change.

~~~
mtgx
Wrong. They _say_ the FTC will be responsible for enforcing consumer
protections, but then they went right ahead and eliminated most of them, while
giving some BS reasons for doing so:

> _" We eliminate the formal complaint procedures because the informal
> complaint procedure, in conjunction with other redress options including
> consumer protection laws, will sufficiently protect consumers._

> _Additionally, we eliminate the position of Open Internet Ombudsperson
> because the staff from the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau—other
> than the Ombudsperson—have been performing the Ombudsperson functions
> envisioned by the Title II Order._

> _We also eliminate the issuance of enforcement advisory opinions, because
> enforcement advisory opinions do not diminish regulatory uncertainty,
> particularly for small providers. Instead, they add costs and uncertain
> timelines since there is no specific timeframe within which to act, which
> can also inhibit innovation. "_

Also, I don't think any _other_ "consumer protection" ever upheld the idea
that ISPs shouldn't be nickle and diming consumers by splitting the internet
into service packages, like what's happening in Portugal.

The _net neutrality_ rules were those consumer protections, and the ones the
ISPs wanted most to eliminate.

Oh, and as a bonus, they also eliminated the rules that said there shouldn't
be any interconnection fees - like the stuff that got Verizon and Comcast to
drastically slow-down Netflix and YouTube the last time around (before net
neutrality passed), until the two companies had to pay up.

> _" We believe that applying Title II to Internet traffic exchange
> arrangements was unnecessary and is likely to inhibit competition and
> innovation. We find that freeing Internet traffic exchange arrangements from
> burdensome government regulation, and allowing market forces to discipline
> this emerging market is the better course. Indeed, the cost of Internet
> transit fell over 99 percent on a cost-per-megabit basis from 2005 to 2015._

Google and Netflix didn't fight the net neutrality repeal this time around
because they thought they were safe. I think they will regret not fighting the
repeal very soon.

~~~
aerotwelve
Brilliantly put.

Just to add one more point: many of us are now bound by forced arbitration
agreements with our ISPs. That more or less eliminates the courts as an option
for class _or_ individual action. It's convenient that Pai glossed over this
little fact.

That means we're stuck with the FTC, and only the FTC. And if they don't do
anything for you, that's too bad.

This will be devastating, mark my words.

------
nickelcitymario
Unless I'm horribly mistaken, switching to your small local ISP won't change
things, either. Because they don't own the pipes. They lease them from (you
guessed it) AT&T, et al.

And as a non-American, this still terrifies me, because the U.S. is the
nucleus that holds the web together. It's darn near impossible to overstate
how much decisions in the U.S. will impact the whole world.

This is not an issue that a free market can solve, because when it comes to
main lines that connect the whole Web, it's practically a monopoly of the big
boys. It's their sandbox.

Net Neutrality hid the consequences of this from us by forcing them to play
nice. Scrap it and they have way too much power.

~~~
Bluecobra
I have wireless Internet from a local ISP delivered to my building by point-
to-point microwave. They have to get a license from the FCC but they
effectively "own" their own pipes all they way up to the ISPs that they peer
with.

Hopefully the silver lining in this is this will result in more wireless ISPs
popping up since they can bypass the incumbent wired phone/cable providers.

~~~
SirFatty
That's the point, I think. CDNs are all tier one, and tier one is where the
bandwidth shaping will happen?

~~~
Bluecobra
True, maybe we will see more content providers following the Netflix model.
They basically are their own CDN and will give ISPs free caching
appliances/settlement free peering.

[https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/](https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/)

Unfortunately, ISPs such as Comcast have already perverted this model and
demanded Netflix to pay up for access to their network despite throwing in
free hardware and peering.

[https://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix-
came-t...](https://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix-came-to-pay-
comcast-for-internet-traffic/)

------
hacker_9
As someone outside of the US, I expect there would be such an uproar over here
if we had to start waiting longer and longer for fb/twitter/youtube/etc pages
to load, that people will just switch to a European business instead.
Currently no one over here even talks about NN, but as soon as page loads
increase dramatically and actually affect people in their day to day lives you
can bet they'll switch. I imagine European businesses are scrambling right now
in order to be the next big social network.

~~~
chartgerink
Remember the experiment from 2009 where net neutrality was thought to be
implemented through competition in the EU? Horrible failure and definitely did
not results in NN being maintained, EU had to intervene with legislation to
stop the drift _away_ from NN.

~~~
pmontra
Do you mean this proposal?

[https://euobserver.com/creative/27859](https://euobserver.com/creative/27859)
(from 2009)

~~~
chartgerink
Yup

> This approach is backed by the European Commission, which argues that if
> consumers feel their content is somehow being compromised, they will switch
> to other providers.

So if anyone comes up with free-market will invisibly push for NN argument,
slap them with this and see how they respond ;-)

------
jamindaw
Why wouldn't market pressures force some ISPs to provide unfettered access to
the internet? As a consumer, you might choose an ISP that prioritises say
Netflix above everything else to guarantee a good experience. For someone who
prefers diversity of content, might pick an ISP that does not prioritise in
the same way.

~~~
cmurf
The vast majority of Americans have one or two ISP choices for broadband.
Where I am in Denver, it is only Xfinity. Some friends can choose between
Xfinity and Century Link.

~~~
libertyEQ
I don't know if you are aware or not, but Boulder is in the process of
'municipalizing' the electrical grid and will be moving on to broadband once
complete. It will be interesting to observe the process, though it will not
happen overnight.

------
monochromatic
Lack of net neutrality regulations for 25 years didn’t cause any problems. Why
is this now the end of the world?

~~~
strictnein
Lots of people are really emotionally attached to this issue, and kind of
ignore this simple fact. "Net neutrality" has never been a thing and it has
never prevented any of the nefarious nonsense people are imagining.

~~~
moduspol
It just makes all of this self-righteous outrage worth keeping in mind in a
few years when the issue comes back up again. If the world is still spinning,
perhaps we can all re-evaluate whether future doomsday predictions are worth
taking seriously.

~~~
nitrogen
The world always keeps spinning. Just in one future you have Star Trek, and in
the other, Blade Runner. Once dystopia becomes fait accompli, the
beneficiaries of the status quo also benefit from the difficulty of arguing
for counterfactual histories without access to a world with those histories.

But that doesn't mean nothing was lost, or that some huge chunk of human
potential wasn't sacrificed. In that regard, for the people who see how things
could have been, the predictions of doom were accurate.

~~~
moduspol
Well no--proponents are making very falsifiable claims about what will happen
without Net Neutrality. Freedom of speech on the net is at stake! Tiered
Internet access! Slower speeds for small business web sites. Those will be
easily verifiable.

For the rest, you're right. It's just like how we can't calculate the "huge
chunk of human potential" we missed out on as a result of decreased
competition and investment since the regulation was created in 2015. All we
can do is guess. Who knows--maybe we would have had the Enterprise!

Do you have any other colorful ways of "crying wolf?"

~~~
gfodor
Friendly reminder: it was just a couple of weeks ago when 3-4 lawyers could go
to congress and talk with serious faces about what they should do to control
speech posted on the internet without being laughed out of the room due to the
absurdity of the proposition.

We're already one foot in the dystopia, I'm afraid. Decentralization of these
services can't come fast enough.

------
mr_spothawk
> a computer network does not need to support high speed communication to be a
> valid means of exchanging free ideas

this ^^ a thousand times. the frequent focus on streaming media in the
discussion about net neutrality is disconcerting, to me. I've previously
gotten pushback for looking down my nose at the gems of modern creative
storytelling, but I still think the collective human experience would be
better served seeking fewer unidirectional modes of entertainment / more
cooperative & collaborative types of entertainment for ourselves.

taking this opportunity to plug
[https://scuttlebutt.nz](https://scuttlebutt.nz) which is where I get the
majority of my social media these days.

------
anigbrowl
This is somewhat true. It's a fact that a lot of the bandwidth on the web at
present is unwanted garbage - perhaps Sturgeon's law (that 90% of everything
is crap) is inevitable and innovations are just temporary departures from that
mean. I'm regularly horrified by the amount of bandwidth employed to deliver
me a tiny little bit of information in text form like a news story.

Anyone remember Hotline? it was sort of like a last-gasp implementation of BBS
culture across IP for a time when the web was small but heavily curated, and
people needed a simple, user-friendly, but unregulated channel to exchange
content in private, though from what I remember a lot of that inevitably ended
up being porn and other stuff which you now get on the dark web. It was not
unlike Facebook in terms of the actual UX (eg easy to send text, very limited
markup options), but distributed and client-centric.

Nothing would make me happier than a resurgence of Usenet, or a deployment of
the web annotation protocol (anyone know of activity in this area?) that was
scriptable and could allow federations of affinity groups to cooperatively
filter and trackback bullshit on the web, as a step towards the eventual
realization of the Infosphere.

------
sdrw
People have been suggesting this for 20 years. Unless you think there has been
some major change in how to achieve this it's not likely to happen. In fact it
will probably be even harder now when people might get facebook (etc.) for
free.

~~~
2close4comfort
Until Google has another BGP "accident" and takes down Facebook for 6 hours.
Think of the rise in GDP we might see from that!

------
woudsma
I'd love to see IPFS take off [https://ipfs.io](https://ipfs.io)

~~~
jesseb
While I am a fan of the project, what's stopping your ISP from disabling or
crippling all IPFS/P2P traffic?

~~~
aerotwelve
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The only solution to this is to organize and fight for NN in legislation at
this point. All of these alternative internet systems are a complete waste of
time until someone tells me how they're going to get around traffic shaping at
the backbone level. There's not going to be a continent-wide wireless mesh
network either.

I know regulations can be anathema to many HN readers, but if there was ever a
justification for one, it's the 2015 Open Internet Order.

------
2close4comfort
Your last point is one that I find the most troubling. That NN would mean that
the freedom of data is being subverted. Imagine the company (YC:2020!!) that
could position themselves to be junctions on those disparate networks. I am
sure there is a YC app being completed right now!

------
zerostar07
A problem with the fragmented internet is at the current stage it wont be able
to match the speeds. So some sort of non-neutrality would have to be possible
anyway, otherwise people watching netflix would render the network unusable
for everyone.

------
justinzollars
Does anyone know how to skip an ISP and plug directly into the internet?

~~~
strictnein
Become an ISP

[https://hackaday.com/2017/11/18/becoming-your-own-isp-
just-f...](https://hackaday.com/2017/11/18/becoming-your-own-isp-just-for-
fun/)

------
shmerl
Pai won't get away with it - he will likely lose in court. The problem is,
that this will shift to the Congress, which is plagued by the same corruption.

------
Rotareti
_> I am suggesting that once NN is dead, alternative networks of free
information exchange are going to start popping up._

I don't think they would allow that.

~~~
2close4comfort
That is the beautiful part implemented correctly, they wont have the chance to
object. Heaven help all of us should it come to that.

------
Sophistifunk
You don't need NN if you just pay per byte.

~~~
nathan_long
That's a separate issue. Even if you pay per byte, the ISP can charge more for
bytes from one domain than from another, or refuse to transmit some bytes.

~~~
Sophistifunk
That's true, but when you're paying per byte its in the ISPs' best interest to
get you as many bytes as possible. I firmly believe that the reason most ISPs
_want_ to be able to throttle isn't some nefarious plan to prioritise friendly
providers, but simply to advertise more bandwidth than they have - in the past
that's been fine because most customers didn't use much. But now that IP has
replaced dedicated video bandwidth in the form of cable and FTA, the usage
patterns no longer support that, because most customers are using shitloads of
bandwidth- and more importantly, they're all doing it at the same time when
they get home from work and sit down to watch some telly.

~~~
nathan_long
> when you're paying per byte its in the ISPs' best interest to get you as
> many bytes as possible

Yes, all other things being equal. But if the ISP owns a video streaming
service, all other things aren't equal. Bytes from their own service bring
them more revenue.

> I firmly believe that the reason most ISPs want to be able to throttle isn't
> some nefarious plan to prioritise friendly providers, but simply to
> advertise more bandwidth than they have

This would also be nefarious.

"We said we can deliver X but we can't, so let's selectively degrade our
service to make it seem like we can" is a nefarious plan.

An honest plan would be to advertise "up to X Mbps, minimum of Y Mbps, charges
prorated by available speed" and deliver on it.

------
partycoder
How would this affect crypto currencies?

~~~
downrightmike
Consider that there is no way to inject ads or snoop on the sites you visit.
There is no way they can productize crypto currencies. Unless they can steal
it, or make you mine them on your machines for the ISP. So they'll probably
cut them off to reduce the load on the network so they can spend less on
infrastructure and stop any needed upgrades.

~~~
partycoder
I was referring from the perspective of:

\- how the network would respond to degraded connectivity.

\- which protocol is more resilient? bitcoin, ethereum, etc.

~~~
downrightmike
Probably take forever to verify something.

------
ocdtrekkie
This is one of the main reasons I am not panicked about net neutrality. Net
neutrality favors giant, centralized entities that have more than enough
issues of their own. Net neutrality is, in effect, designed to preserve the
status quo of the Internet, as it is ideally beneficial to net neutrality's
primary sponsors: Google and Netflix.

I think there are ISP options that net neutrality prohibits which are _worth
exploring for some people_ , and if repealing net neutrality benefits
decentralization or creates a radical shift in the Internet design instead, I
won't consider that a catastrophic outcome.

Fragmentation, in this context, is the negative connotation of the word
decentralization.

~~~
givinguflac
"Net neutrality favors giant, centralized entities that have more than enough
issues of their own. Net neutrality is, in effect, designed to preserve the
status quo of the Internet, as it is ideally beneficial to net neutrality's
primary sponsors: Google and Netflix."

You clearly don't understand how any of this works. _Not_ having NN is much
closer to what you're describing, as it will stop new competitors from being
able to compete, because the big guys can pay to always be faster/cheaper/more
accessible/free.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I heavily disagree. Google and Netflix together account for approximately
70-80% of all Internet traffic. All of the rest of the Internet is a footnote
from the standpoint of traffic management.

The understanding that is so often missed here, is that Google and Netflix are
large enough that ISPs want to negotiate those arrangements individually,
because it's a significant part of their business. None of their competitors,
none of the startups, even make a _blip_ on the radar of an ISP.

If ISPs start billing websites, they will be sending out bills to two
companies, and only those two companies.

