
One Step Closer to a Closed Internet - Vinnl
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/05/18/one-step-closer-closed-internet/
======
orthecreedence
I want to say this first: I love net neutrality and I support it 100%.

That said, I think this battle will go on forever until either

\- We have a decentralized network anybody can plug into _without_ ISPs (mesh
net) or

\- Cities build their own fiber infrastructure (or 4G towers for rural areas)
and rent it out to companies. Cable/DSL become a thing of the past, and you
connect via radio/public wifi/direct fiber.

This battle is starting to get ridiculous. The "let the market decide" shills
don't seem to understand there's no market. So let's give them one, on public
infrastructure. Either that, or make the internet some kind of mesh-connected
network that routes around blocks/slowdowns.

Until then, let's all just agree the net neutrality is a common-good consumer
protection, and there's absolutely no reason, _at all_ , to get rid of it
until we either have a viable marketplace or we don't need ISPs..

~~~
durandal1
My Stockholm apartment had multiple ISPs competing for service over fiber laid
down by a state-owned company. In 2007 this meant symmetric 100mbit for about
$30/month.

~~~
mulletbum
I live in the country and have this right now. 100mb for $50 or 1000mb for
$100.

~~~
nulagrithom
Where I'm at in the US, we have a Public Utility District that's "owned" by
the city (top position is an elected position too). They've run fiber
_everywhere_ and leased it to local ISPs.

I can get gigabit for under $90/mo. Lowest tier is 100x10 for under $50.

One of our local ISPs even built a real nice wireless mesh network with a
fiber "backbone". You can get low-latency 35x2 service way up in the hills of
nowhere.

It's amazing what happens when Internet is treated like a utility.

~~~
natemeier
Great to see that these projects are popping up all over --- I'm also in a
town in the US with municipal fiber. I get bidirectional gigabit for $50/month
(early adopter --- the normal rate is $100/month). Our ISP is also vocally
pro-net neutrality.

~~~
arcticbull
Similar in SF with Monkeybrains -- for a one-time setup fee of $2500 about two
years ago, I've been paying $35/mth for 600/600 microwave internet. They're
also super pro-net neutrality. They even peer with SFMIX, a not-for-profit
hipster internet exchange. The normal rate is $35/mth for 50/50.

~~~
girvo
What's latency like for microwave?

~~~
quicklyfrozen
I doubt you'd notice a difference. Over a long distance it should be faster
then fiber (hence the private networks set up by HFTs). Had an office in
Boston with a microwave link; it normally worked great, but could be disrupted
by extreme weather (like heavy snow).

------
jbob2000
Where is Apple, Google, and Microsoft on this? What is the point of an app
store if I can't use 90% of the apps on it? What the hell do I need a search
engine for if there's only a few websites to search? Why would I use a
computer at all if it just serves me the same garbage as a TV?

Come on, throw your fucking weight around, jesus...

~~~
BinaryIdiot
I think my viewpoint here is more devil's advocate because I'm not entire sure
I believe it myself. But it seems like a possibility so I wanted to share:

One thing to consider here is the large juggernauts in the tech industry would
actually benefit to this type of legislation. Let's say Comcast adds a fee to
get priority access. Google, Apple, Microsoft; pretty much all of the existing
and large-enough companies would likely be able to pay for it without much
issue. While this would cut into their profits to some degree it makes the bar
much, much higher for competition to come into their space.

If competition springs up it'll likely not grow as fast in an environment with
many paying for special access so the tech companies could buy them at a
likely cheaper price if they see them. Alternatively this may help kill
existing competition like Spotify who has razor thin (or negative, I can't
remember) margins so they wouldn't be able to compete.

Aside from a, likely very small, cut into profits there isn't much down side
for any of the big tech companies. Are we sure they will _want_ to band
together?

~~~
jbob2000
All three of those companies survive off acquisitions. They rely on small
independent companies taking a risk and doing the hard work, and when they
find the diamond-in-the-rough, they get snapped up and brought under the
corporate umbrella.

This legislation dries up the well. No small companies to buy = no progress.

~~~
wvenable
In this environment, they wouldn't _need_ acquisitions. Progress isn't
necessary for profit.

~~~
arcticbull
Ah yes, that little loophole.

------
skrebbel
It's probably a nitpick, but to me Mozilla has always been an organisation
with a global mission. They make it seem like these decisions have a global
impact, whereas in reality, if I'm not mistaken, this is about national policy
for a single country. A country which is not mentioned by name at all in the
entire article.

I wish authors would step away from the "USA == world" idea a bit more often.
I'd like to get an idea of whether this impacts the rest of the world at all.
My impression is "no" but most articles on the subject are too busy screaming
"fire!" to clarify much about this.

The title of this article is "one step closer to a closed internet". That
really does make it seem like this can have internet-wide impact though, but I
don't see it. Anyone?

~~~
ajdlinux
As an Australian I agree that Americans have a tendency to forget that the
world exists beyond US borders, but the internet and the tech industry is
still dominated by US companies. A less-free US internet absolutely has flow-
on effects to the rest of the world when the rest of the world is dependent on
US services.

Furthermore, the FCC is setting a very poor example for other regulators...

~~~
anewday
And also that US law propagates through the world by trade deals and such.

------
AndyMcConachie
"this decision leads to an internet that benefits Internet Service Providers"

I would correct this to: "this decision leads to an American internet that
benefits Internet Service Providers"

The FCC can really only screw up the Internet for Americans. If you're an
Internet user not in North America there's very little reason for you to care
about the decision the FCC made today.

~~~
TJ-14
American decisions can set precedents which other countries follow, and are
often pushed by their trade policies. They also affect American IT companies,
which are used by people all over the world.

There's good reason for non-Americans to care about the American Internet.

~~~
a2decrow
If this forces non-US Americans to use US IT company services less, there are
less angles the US government can use to spy on the rest of the world. Plus,
data protection laws in other countries (especially European ones) are far
more restrictive.

I don't think there's any reason for us non-US-Americans to care at all about
the US internet. Just like we don't care about pretty much anything else
that's happening in the US.

~~~
bogomipz
>"I don't think there's any reason for us non-US-Americans to care at all
about the US internet. Just like we don't care about pretty much anything else
that's happening in the US."

The "US internet" is the same internet that has allowed Google, Youtube, FB et
al to flourish. Do you not use any those? Didn't all of those presuppose an
open internet?

Can you really divorce Silicon Valley from you refer to as the "US internet"?

Heck even take a non-US tech company like Spotify. Do you think they would
have been able to launch in the U.S 6 years ago if they had to pay ISPs not to
de-prioritize their bits?

You say we don't really are about whats happening in the US, but presumably
you do care what's happening in the US if you are interested in technology and
read Hacker News where S.V. as well as other U.S tech company news features
quite prominently.

~~~
a2decrow
You do realize that not all technology originates in the US, yeah? The US
isn't the center of the world. You don't have a monopoly on technology or IT
and in fact, most of it wasn't even conceived in the US or by US inventors.

You need to get off your high horse about "US-America being the greatest
country in the world" because it's not.

And to answer your question, no, I don't use Google, nor Youtube and
especially not Facebook. I go out of my way to explicitly block them all to
protect my privacy.

~~~
bogomipz
I didn't say that all tech originate from the U.S, I even referenced a Swedish
company in my comment.

I never said the U.S was the greatest country in the world or even implied
that. You are projecting. You also seem to have a quite a chip on your
shoulder. You have no idea what my nationality is.

That being said please tell me the country that has produced more successful
tech companies than the US? Or what country has more available funding for
tech startups and the appetite for risk? What country is that if it is not the
US? I would like to know.

~~~
a2decrow
Let me ask a counter question.

How much innovation in other countries was stifled because of the way the US
companies operate?

And to get back to Google and Facebook, these two companies are building
walled gardens not unlike the way ISPs in the US operate. They either force
the competition out or buy them. They do everything in their power to keep you
inside their bubble. In a few years down the road, we may just end up with
only the services those companies offer and no alternatives to go to, because
everything that threatens their dominance will be suppressed with everything
they got.

Just like the US ISPs are doing it and the US government is doing it.

The US getting some of their own medicine certainly isn't a bad thing. Maybe
it'll wake them up.

~~~
bogomipz
You didn't answer the question, who produces the most successful/influential
tech companies if not the US?

>"How much innovation in other countries was stifled because of the way the US
companies operate?"

So the reason the US leads in tech is because they have stifled other
countries tech development? Can you provide some concrete examples of that?

Maybe you aren't aware but foreign talent is a corner stone of U.S tech. More
than a third of top US tech companies(Tesla, Qualcomm, Google, FB to name a
few) have founders born born outside the US[1].

This has been discussed many times on HN. So why did those people go to the US
and start tech companies? Were they prevented from leaving the U.S and
starting companies in their native countries?

In terms of companies building walled-gardens and consolidating market share
that is called capitalism and it wasn't invented in the U.S. Additionally
nobody is forcing anybody to use any of those platforms. You yourself said you
don't use them.

I get it, you are anti-American and your entitled to that. But your statements
are really naive and seemed to be informed solely by anger. I find your sense
of victimization quite sad.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/top-tech-companies-founded-
by...](http://www.businessinsider.com/top-tech-companies-founded-by-
foreigners-2014-5)

------
BinaryIdiot
When I worked in the DoD contracting space there were rules handed down that
outlines what browser(s) and version(s) you MUST use due to security concerns.
It was always Firefox.

This may be an _insanely stupid_ idea, but, as sort of a thought experiment:
what would the fallout be if, say, Mozilla changed their license on Firefox to
disallow the usage of their browser by government representatives and
associated contractors unless they have a viable, open internet policy in
their country? Maybe even restrict future updates to existing Firefox builds
to require the same license change?

Might cause some significant headaches as they can't update to the latest IE
on likely most of their systems and Chrome has too much Google functionality
built into it that, I believe, they'd have to use Chromium.

Like I said, probably a dumb idea but I wanted to throw it out there as a
thought exercise because I'm curious if something like this could be
effective, much like the original internet blackout was.

~~~
Jtsummers
None. DoD doesn't require Firefox, Chrome, or IE. But the base install is
typically IE only with the option to install Firefox or Chrome upon request.

If anything, it'd hurt Firefox's market share, but would have no impact on the
government beyond not being able to use it. Especially these days with sites
making themselves Chrome-first like the damned IE-only sites from 20 years
ago.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> None. DoD doesn't require Firefox, Chrome, or IE. But the base install is
> typically IE only with the option to install Firefox or Chrome upon request.

Hmm, maybe depends on where you are in the crazy large DoD system. Our company
was told the DNI office passed down requirements to use specific versions of
Firefox and Firefox only for security purposes but IE was typically installed
for when you were forced to use it.

But it's also been 3 years now since I've been out of that space.

~~~
Jtsummers
This is an example of the DoD's insane bureaucracy. I can absolutely see this
being the requirement or recommendation passed on to contractors. But the
USAF, in building their default images, uses IE only. Like I said, other
browsers can be installed on request.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
Ah fair enough that's probably true. Though at the time we were told it would
be considered a security violation if anything but Firefox version X.XX was
used for govies or contractors. But who knows.

I do not miss the insane amount of bureaucracy :)

------
mabbo
> During the public comment period in 2015, nearly 4 million citizens wrote to
> the FCC, many of them demanding strong net neutrality protections. We all
> need to show the same commitment again.

Do they really think that the people who made these decisions did it because
they care about the best interest of the people?

~~~
justforFranz
Well look, for the time being, it's a democracy. It could be called off due to
lack of interest however. The FACT of low voter participation while
politicians are bashing us in the face is at least as big a problem as being
bashed in the face.

------
rickdg
From the perspective of non-tech people, the internet has actually grown by
shedding its neutrality. Huge numbers came to the net because of the "e" of
IE, the "s" of skype or the "f" of facebook. As we watch people spend all of
their time online locked in a closed platform (or spend all their money in
hardware they don't control), we can't be surprised that net neutrality
doesn't resonate with them. We can't just fight the occasional battle and then
wonder why we're losing the war. If there's more money to be made in crushing
net neutrality than in leveraging it, it will get crushed (specially in
America).

A basic problem is that technological literacy is not growing fast enough. In
fact, ignorance is celebrated. Both Apple and Microsoft are lowering the bar
for their operating systems every year. The lack of monetization solutions has
made it necessary to sell the user, and their ignorance or just lack of
interest facilitates this tremendously. If you want to be able to choose
freedom over convenience, you need to care for how things work.

Meanwhile, modern corporations are perfectly aware of how net neutrality got
them to the top, of how relinquishing it allows them to stay on top and of how
suppressing it keeps other companies from doing to them what they did to the
older corporations that used to rule the world.

------
guelo
Google and Facebook's silence on net neutrality is deafening. It makes no
sense. Are they thinking they'll be able to pay for access to the customers
that their competitors won't be able to afford?

~~~
bigbugbag
Aren't those two mentioned in the death of transit ?

Besides, facebook is a fierce opposant to net neutrality, remember their
facebook basics offer as an attempt to conquer more users in emergent markets
? Pay less than a regular ISP and have an internet access limited to facebook
and its partners, the exact opposite of net neutrality.

------
ianai
Make no mistake, regulations like this can lead to bubble bursts. This could
very well be a first step toward the end of the current technology boom.
Silicon Valley should be nothing but up in arms. Or, SV should be working on
technological ways to circumvent throttles based on content.

~~~
lithos
Getting rid of 35-50 megabyte "text" pages would be a good start.

~~~
ianai
I think you just made me a proponent of ending net neutrality! /s

------
ChuckMcM
People forget sometimes that the ARPAnet was a closed Internet. And it didn't
have some of the problems of todays internet like spam for that same reason.
(you could be kicked off) And the thing that lived alongside of it was FIDOnet
and Usenet which exploited another closed network (the switched network
service known as the telephone network) to run a parallel and notionally
"open" internet.

Then (as now) the challenge was that for long distance communication you
needed someone who was paying for that infrastructure. The way it typically
worked was that a big company like Xerox which nominally had a coast to coast
telephone system that was being maintained for corporate reasons but had
excess capacity, was notionally "ok" with a couple of engineers creating a
'tunnel' between the west coast and the east coast. Locally people would use
their 'free calling zone' to call.

We have companies that have their own wide area networks, and we have things
like software defined radios and ISM bands that allow for nominally low cost
'hops'. Is it time to dig up the old Usenet architecture?

------
amcca029
We need to take a ground up approach to solving this, get open infrastructure
into the community and build local isps. Over time replace our broken network
with a new generation.

~~~
YCode
ISPs in the U.S. are already way out in front of this on both legislative and
legal fronts.

They help write and push state legislation to make this difficult/impossible
and sue anyone who tries into oblivion while finding ways to deny access to
the supposedly shared lines tax dollars paid to build.

Not saying it could never work, but that's a hell of an uphill battle to take
on.

I'm convinced the disruptive change to this mess will be some kind of WiFi
mesh-based network that pushes ISPs out of the loop. I'm just not sure how
you'd go about porting that mesh network back into the regular Internet since
local ISPs would control all the gateways.

------
Shivetya
I would hope people understand that the only true fix will come out of
Congress so having the FCC who is staffed by people who don't report to voters
vote this way puts the issue back into our hands.

get on your Congressman's ass and ride them hard

------
doctorshady
The FCC under Pai has become an absolute joke. Unless a piano happens to fall
on his and Trump's heads in some sort of freak accident, this crap is just
going to keep happening. For whatever it's worth, there's a group of people
trying to raise money to sue the FCC as sort of an alternate approach:
[http://www.irregulators.org](http://www.irregulators.org)

------
theprop
While I think this is a terrible idea, there's not that much to worry about
for us as ordinary internet users. There's not going to be a slow & fast lane,
at least not anytime soon. ISPs want net neutrality banned so they can
"extort" money from Google, Facebook, YouTube, Netflix (to some extent in
place), Amazon, etc. They're going to artificially slow those big, rich sites
down unless they pay up. Netflix already is paying Verizon fees to avoid being
throttled (btw the throttling was easily demonstrated by using a VPN to mask
the Netflix traffic, speeds went way up). This is analogous to the AdBlock
extortion racket where they charge Google to allow Google's ads through
AdBlock.

~~~
jackmott
>there's not that much to worry about for us as ordinary internet users.

>"extort" money from Google, Facebook, YouTube, Netflix

That's going to degrade my experience or raise my bills at those sites, and
make it impossible to make informed decisions when picking an ISP, as I won't
know the true costs involved.

~~~
YCode
> picking an ISP

If you're even lucky enough to have a choice.

------
apatters
I support the principle of net neutrality in some philosophical abstract, but
increasingly it seems like we're being asked to choose between:

A) A cabal of Comcast-centric billionaires who control key infrastructure on
the Internet

B) A cabal of Sam Altman type VC billionaires who control key infrastructure
on the Internet

What are ANY of these guys other than profiteers who seek to pervert the open
protocols of the Internet for the sake of their own profits? I think they are
all aspiring emperors with no clothes. I dare any of these profiteers to
respond.

~~~
thomastjeffery
I'm not sure what that has to do with net neutrality. Care to elaborate?

------
strin
Love the vision of neutrality, but it feels disheartening that net neutrality
has been broken with increasing number of platform companies.

Google's algorithm decide which content show up in search results, and
Facebook's ranking model determines the news you will see.

Same wth app store, only apps that fit the "Apple philosophy" can get
approved.

Since most of our times on internet nowadays are spent on platforms, it turns
out unconsciously we've already lived in a "closed internet".

------
erikb
Sadly this kind of battle can only be extended, not one. There will always be
parties on both sides of the net-neutrality spectrum. But sadly one side needs
to active millions of people for each battle and the other one can be
confident with just a handful of politicians and two hands full of lawyers.
Kind of obvious that you can't push people every two years to rally on the
streets for the same topic, again and again.

------
newsat13
The optimist in me sees this as a good things. Maybe Google will bring back
it's Fiber program. Maybe the heavy weights of IT industry will start a
conglomerated ISP? Maybe new startups will appear that provider an unregulated
internet. In the long run, the only solution that is going to work is to have
proper competition to the likes of comcast.

------
epx
The dynamic IPs were the beginning of the end. Even the IPv6 connection of my
ISP does not allow incoming connections. Sad :(

~~~
BenjiWiebe
Surprisingly enough, my (tunneled) IPv6 address from CenturyLink has no ports
filtered that I can tell, and is regularly higher bandwidth and lower latency
than the IPv4 portion of our link.

------
rocky1138
Do the people in the USA elect the leader of the FCC? If so, can't they elect
someone better? If not, why not?

~~~
orthecreedence
The FCC is "ruled" by five people: two democrats, two republicans, and a
chair. The president appoints the chair of the FCC and at any given point,
there have to be at least two members of each of the two political parties on
the FCC.

The the position(s) in the FCC are not elected, except indirectly by who you
vote for as president.

(Please someone correct me if I'm wrong).

~~~
thomastjeffery
> each of the two political parties

What about all the _other_ parties? Independents?

Edit: cnnsucks explained it more clearly:

> The commission may not have more than 3 members from the same political
> party.

~~~
orthecreedence
Thanks, that makes sense.

------
kumar878
Suggestion - %s/Ajit Pai/Robert Taylor/ . Or some other DARPA person.

------
bigbugbag
One Step Closer to a Closed Internet ... in the USA

This probably means internet business will move outside the USA where it is
way too centralized, some good could come out of such a move.

On the other hand we have mozilla not putting money where its mouth is, not
giving a shit about non-majority users and using skewed users tracking to
justify those decisions. Have a look at how they dropped alsa support and
refused to admit they made a mistake rejecting the responsibility on people
disabling their spying, refused to backtrack when someone came forward to fix
their code and maintain it.

When mozilla's action will be in line with the air they push out of their
lung, I'll pay attention and support them again. Right now and after 15+ years
supporting them, I'm giving them the same support they give me, the faster
mozilla fails and disappears the faster a competent body can replace them and
start doing the right thing and give the right direction to firefox.

------
subterfudge4
Is there any evidence anywhere that non-neutral net actually makes money for
ISPs ?

~~~
Jtsummers
In what way would it not? ISPs could leave everything as it is, and there'd be
no change. But without net neutrality they will have the ability to extort
_cough_ , sorry, "request" that companies and (potentially) customers pay them
extra for prioritizing certain content. They'll also have the ability to
deprioritize content, potentially costing companies that don't pay (why I call
it extortion) customers. If Comcast does this to Netflix (deprioritizes) then
Comcast can drive customers to their own VOD services. If Netflix doesn't pay,
Netflix loses customers, Comcast gains customers. If Netflix does pay, Netflix
retains customers, Comcast gains money.

Either way, Comcast is better off. The primary issue is that ISPs are not
_just_ ISPs. They have many services which compete with 3rd party providers
(some big, some small) and their market position will allow them to abuse the
hell out of both customers and other service providers.

