
Network Neutrality - tweakz
https://stripe.com/blog/network-neutrality
======
tolmasky
"We’re building a platform ourselves, and we work hard to ensure that Stripe
treats businesses of all size neutrally."

Since they set up the comparison themselves, I wonder if Stripe would be in
favor of legislation that forced them to forever treat all their customers
neutrally vs. us just trusting them to "work hard to ensure" that end. Perhaps
making it illegal to offer sweetheart deals to bigger clients for example?
Arguably payments is the next most fundamental piece to a functioning internet
after bandwidth, so its not unreasonable to request. If MegaCorp A received
much lower rates on credit card processing than little Startup B, how could we
have fair competition after all?

~~~
runako
I think your analogy is flawed, and here's why.

As a broadband customer, I pay for access to "the Internet". Over the last
couple of decades, "the Internet" has meant access with something akin to net
neutrality in place.

What my ISP wants to sell me is not "the Internet", but something new, which
they have yet to define. But from what their lobbyists have put into the FCC
proposal, the "Internet" they want to sell me is one where both sender and
receiver of data pay them for data. This is not a wholly unreasonable payment
model, but it would represent a profound shift in how the Internet is paid for
in the U.S.

Further, under their proposal, my speeds to any particular website are
dependent on how much I pay _and_ how much the other side pays to my ISP (not
theirs). Crucially, half of this is wholly outside my control. Of course, I
still pay for the full pipe regardless.

Note that in particular the source server has not been a customer of my ISP,
but the FCC thinks they should become a customer of my ISP so that I can have
the speeds I have been sold as of today. This is not how the Internet has
worked, and is a new service offering being marketed as "the" Internet.

So a better Stripe analogy would be that Stripe offers would be if they 1)
first became as big as Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and American
Express combined (that would give them approximately the market heft of the
American broadband ISPs); 2) required cardholders to buy a Stripe Consumer
subscription before processing their cards for merchants. I'm fairly certain
that even our lax banking regulators would have something to say about this.

~~~
tolmasky
So....?

Just because the internet would work differently it needs to be absolutely
abolished? Consider the following:

If the funds ISPs get from service providers begins to completely overshadow
the monthly fees from consumers, you may end up with really interesting
incentives: namely, it may be in an ISPs best interest to provide as many
people with as cheap as internet as possible. Doing so would mean more people
using Netflix, which means Netflix paying them more. We _could_ end up in a
situation where the services providers do all the paying, and internet becomes
free for consumers, since every additional free consumer is cheap for ISPs,
and every additional byte delivered by Netflix to the consumer is a huge win
for them. I'm not saying this WILL happen, but I think its silly to assume
that everything in the world will fall apart with this model, just because its
different.

~~~
neura
So, you're saying, we should trust the business that's currently trying to
milk more money from any tit they can find, to lower their prices because
they're bringing in a new revenue stream elsewhere? The same business that has
no incentive to do so because they probably only have one competitor in a
given geographical area?

The internet itself was basically built on equality. Look at any of the
articles and blog posts being written by the actual internet backbone
providers. They've been keeping the equality stable through the years with
their peering agreements.

We would basically be giving the rights to providers like Comcast to say
"We've decided that Wikipedia should pay extra if they want consumers of their
information to continue to receive it in a timely manner." "Oh, we're also
starting up a new service called Xfinipedia that provides a similar service,
but one where we moderate the content."

Call it paranoid, but this is exactly what they're intending to do with video
streaming services. They want to provide on demand video streaming to their
online customers, while making it more expensive for competitive services to
operate. What prevents them (or other providers) from doing the same with any
service?

~~~
tolmasky
No, I'm proposing that there may be a scenario in which it becomes beneficial
to provide a free service to customers in order to maximize profits. I other
words I'm asking you to trust that they will want to make money (not be kind),
which I don't imagine to be a hard hung to imagine. Just how google doesn't
offer you search for free out of the goodness of their hearts but rather
because it is an ultimately a more profitable model than charging us. Again,
I'm not suing this will necessarily happen, and you should read runaku's reply
for some good counter points.

------
jusben1369
"We’re building a platform ourselves, and we work hard to ensure that Stripe
treats businesses of all size neutrally."

One assumes larger customers get more favorable processing rates than smaller
customers. So if two services do largely the same thing and both use Stripe
and one is substantially larger than the other then I suspect Stripe is
directly, even if inadvertently, favoring one over the other. Stripe's in the
payments business and they favor one set of customers over the other based on
their size and pricing power.

My issue isn't with Stripe. It's with the language around net neutrality.
Basically 1000+ entrepreneurs and VC's who generally bemoan all things
government are now asking that this area be protected from market forces. Very
awkward. Any half way decent free market economist will tell you that every
non Netflix user is subsidizing the crap out of Netflix users under the
current set up and that's not very free marketish.

~~~
jessriedel
> My issue isn't with Stripe. It's with the language around net neutrality.
> Basically 1000+ entrepreneurs and VC's who generally bemoan all things
> government are now asking that this area be protected from market forces.
> Very awkward.

Right. There's a good argument to be made that ISPs have local monopolies (due
either to natural failings of utility markets, or to crony government
intervention, depending on your political persuasion) and therefore government
regulation is a necessary evil that can be accepted in this case even by
people who are generally free-market oriented. But that distinction must be
made clear by anyone who wants to salvage their free-market credentials.
Likewise, they must acknowledge that net neutrality will unfortunately destroy
benefits that would naturally accrue in a without government regulation: the
ability for users who need it to pay a premium for fast or reliable service, a
la first class mail. (You can try to carve out exceptions for this with _even
more_ complex regulation, but the serious downsides of this must too be
acknowledged.)

~~~
ejain
> the ability for users who need it to pay a premium for fast or reliable
> service, a la first class mail

Net Neutrality does not prohibit an ISP from charging their customers more for
a faster or more reliable Internet connection; it simply prohibits the ISP
from accepting money from Dominos to speed up access to their website (or slow
down or even block access to Pizza Hut's website).

~~~
jessriedel
But I only want to pay a premium for a fast connection to _certain websites_ ,
and I _don 't_ want to have to renegotiate with Comcast every time I'd like to
connect to a new website that is worth enhancing with a fast connection. Nor,
in a perfect world, should it be illegal for a website to _cover_ this fee if
the website can derive unusual profits from it.

If net neutrality applied to mail, then it would be illegal for Amazon to send
me pre-paid first-class envelopes for returns. (This turns out not to be
useful for mail, but the analogous case could be very useful for data.)

~~~
pdonis
_> But I only want to pay a premium for a fast connection to certain websites_

What the cable companies are trying to do isn't about you, the user, paying a
premium for faster access; it's about you, the user, _and_ the web service
provider, both paying a premium to _your ISP_ for faster access--even though
the service provider is already paying a premium to their own ISP for faster
access to the Internet as a whole.

From the ISP's point of view, selling you faster access only to certain
websites would probably be a lot harder, technically, than selling you faster
access to the whole Internet, because the ISP would have to inspect every
packet you send or receive to see whether it was part of a connection with a
website you want faster access to. Plus, you would have to have the physical
bandwidth present anyway, which means you could just as easily get faster
access to the entire Internet. So I don't see how an ISP could sell you faster
access to a limited set of sites any more cheaply than faster access to the
Internet as a whole; in fact it seems to me that it would be more expensive to
do the former.

 _> Nor, in a perfect world, should it be illegal for a website to cover this
fee if the website can derive unusual profits from it._

Websites that can benefit from faster access already do this in the real
world: they put their content on CDNs--or in extreme cases, like Google or
Facebook, they build their own CDNs--and spend extra resources in other ways
to give users faster access to their content.

What I think you're missing in all this is that the cable ISPs do not
(currently) own the entire Internet; they only own their own networks. That
means they can only extract artificial scarcity rents from their own
customers, not from the rest of the Internet. What they would like to do is to
effectively own the entire Internet so they can extract artificial scarcity
rents from everybody.

------
moskie
Comparing themselves to an ISP does not do anybody any favors. It just
confuses the issue. ISPs should treat all their customers (and their traffic)
the same for reasons that do not apply to Stripe, and do not apply to the
market Stripe is in.

~~~
pc
For sure; they're different -- our argument isn't that ISPs should treat
traffic equally for reasons that apply to Stripe. In mentioning Stripe, I
think Jon was simply saying that we spend a lot of time thinking about
platform neutrality in general since it's an issue that _does_ (in other ways)
have a bearing on what we do.

------
Alupis
Typically I'm very anti-regulation -- but it seems proven ISP's need to be
regulated to some degree. An ISP should do nothing more (or less) than just
pass data from point A to point B (aka. "dumb pipes"). We are in the
Information Age and unhindered access to information should be a commodity.

It's a conflict of interest to be both an ISP and a content provider.

------
fayyazkl
Until we find a way to truly achieve network neutrality which also means (from
service provider's perspective) to throttle and keep in reasonable usage limit
applications such as video streaming, specifically illegal torrent usage which
chokes carriers bandwidth and prevents normal users too, this debate will
continue. I don't see any thing principally wrong with providers point of view
(i might be biased because i work in the industry that provides these
tools/software. But logically, the word "neutral" to me should equate both
sides - not prioritizing some high paying customer's traffic, but at the same
time not allowing a regular user to eat every one else's bandwidth to download
his favorite pirated content. I feel the discussion on the topic is mostly
targeted at the former only. A side effect of such capability could also be
better utilization of network resources i.e. charging customers ONLY when and
what they use - there by decreasing costs as well.

------
adventured
The Internet is already divided into fast lanes and slow lanes. Netflix is
currently paying Comcast for a fast lane, after previously having been cast
into the slow lane.

Whether the FCC plan goes forward or not, will change nothing about what
Comcast and others are doing. Courtesy of an extremely accommodating Obama
Administration, Comcast has joined the government protected monopoly crew,
with Verizon and AT&T. They are now untouchable, which is why there is nearly
zero political opposition to their acquisition of a cable monopoly. They're
going to continue to degrade major services as they see fit to exact fast lane
tolls, and there is no political group that is going to stand up and do
anything about it.

The people fighting this fight, are waging a war they lost a long time ago. An
entirely new approach to dealing with the FCC, the Internet, and the monopoly
telecom providers is necessary.

------
nakedrobot2
the vote is tomorrow, but I haven't seen a widespread, concerted effort to
make a visible and effective protest online, as was done successfully with
SOPA.

I wish all interested players (including the huge ones, especially Google!)
had agreed to slow down all USA internet users to "dialup speed" for the day,
explaining why it is being done, and prompting people to phone/email the FCC
about it.

------
toddsiegel
Even if this plan is not approved this is not over. Telecoms will just try
again and again.

------
theoh
It's all very well to talk about "platforms", but wanting to separate
mechanism and policy is one thing, outlawing policy is something much more
serious.

------
danielweber
Where is the primary source for the actual proposal the FCC is voting on?

~~~
ewams
Meeting information: [http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-hold-open-commission-
meeting...](http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-hold-open-commission-meeting-
thursday-may-15-2014)

Related Topic Info: [http://www.fcc.gov/guides/open-
internet](http://www.fcc.gov/guides/open-internet)

------
happyscrappy
This is the most succinct explanation I have seen, most attempts make people's
eyes glaze over from specifics.

------
JDDunn9
The issue of Net Neutrality is consistently misrepresented. ISPs are not
trying to extort the little guys (who have no money), they want to throttle
YouTube and Netflix. The giant corporations have convinced average people to
join their cause so they don't have to pay for their bandwidth hogs (which
does cost ISPs more money than small sites).

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
>The issue of Net Neutrality is consistently misrepresented.

This is not only _not_ true, but the problem is typically understated.

I'm paying for the bandwidth to my house. I pay extra to get a higher
bandwidth capacity, in fact.

Under _absolutely no circumstances_ is it OK for my ISP to throttle YouTube or
Netflix or _any other site_ just because it's popular.

They are double-dipping, it's that simple. I've _already_ paid them for a pipe
(allegedly) of a certain size. If I want to watch YouTube, then _give me the
bits at the rate that fit in the pipe I paid for._

If I want to watch SomeOtherVideoStreamingSite, then I want it to stream to
the limits of the pipe _I 'm_ paying for, whether or not
SomeOtherVideoStreamingSite has coughed up extortion money.

In markets where there are one or two ISPs available, if all available ISPs
are engaging in this extortion, then _my_ experience is degraded any time my
ISP hasn't extracted its shakedown money from the site I want to visit. And
that is abuse of a monopoly position, plain and simple.

~~~
JDDunn9
I agree it's unfair to the customer, but the message is still being twisted to
serve corporate interests. ISPs have been throttling bittorrent for a while
now and no one was making a fuss about net neutrality then...

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Loads of people make a fuss about bittorrent throttling, you know. Spend 5
minutes on Google backing up points before you make them.

~~~
JDDunn9
Not even close to the hype about net neutrality. Spend 5 minutes researching
before spouting off garbage.

------
jonallanharper
"Why Net Neutrality Regulation is the Path to Ending Net Neutrality"

[http://hustlebear.com/2011/01/05/why-net-neutrality-
regulati...](http://hustlebear.com/2011/01/05/why-net-neutrality-regulation-
is-the-path-to-ending-net-neutrality/)

Article is from 2011, but still pertinent.

~~~
x0x0
Judd is deeply stupid.

    
    
       So… greedy companies “might” restrict us from things, or they “might” 
       prioritize content delivery to the highest payer.
    

in the sense that they are (to also use stupid quotes) "already" doing "just
that"

Further:

    
    
       One problem with the diagram above is that our homes are not connected to 
       just one big ISP. The FCC’s own data shows that as of June 2008, 98 percent 
       of zip codes have at least 2 broadband providers, and 88% of zip codes have 
       at least 4 broadband providers
    
    

oh, wow, _two_ (maybe four) isps! Ignoring, of course, that for most of us
there are only two (cable + telephone) and everyone else has to pay to run on
those wires. And for many, telephone line delivered internet is very slow, so
now we're down to one actual isp.

And comcast costs $65/mo where I live for just internet. And they're looking
at neflix and google and all those other internet businesses and chomping at
the bit to steal some money from them.

Also, weirdly enough, my internet bill keeps going up but the speed doesn't.
Feel the competition!

~~~
smokinjoe
Also, just because a zip code has 2 broadband providers, does that mean the
entire population residing within that zip code has that access?

~~~
x0x0
Not at all. dsl speed strongly varies based on distance from who-knows-what;
all I know is that it tops out at 1.5MB/368K where I live in the peninsula (in
Belmont, CA -- between the valley and sf for people not from the area).

