
Trump’s F.C.C. Pick Quickly Targets Net Neutrality Rules - phaedryx
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/technology/trumps-fcc-quickly-targets-net-neutrality-rules.html
======
ScottBurson
A contrary view: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrydownes/2017/01/24/why-is-
th...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrydownes/2017/01/24/why-is-the-media-
smearing-new-fcc-chair-ajit-pai-as-the-enemy-of-net-neutrality/#302a479f4c7f)

I'm not really sure what to think about a lot of this. What I do believe is:

() We need meaningful competition for broadband. (I live in _Silicon Valley_
and all I can get is Comcast!)

() A given company should not be able to be in both the content and
connectivity businesses. If classifying broadband as a utility is the right
way to accomplish this, let's keep it; otherwise, let's find a different way.
I'm open to argument about the means, but not so much about the goal.

() Laws proscribing localities from setting up their own broadband utilities
are unconscionable and need to be gotten rid of. I don't know if the FCC or
even Congress can do this -- these are mostly state laws.

I don't know if Ajit Pai is going to bring us any closer to this world or not.

~~~
ComradeTaco
I disagree fundamentally with Ajit Pai's reasoning that minimal regulation
will lead to innovation and lower consumer price.

There are some industries that are natural monopolies, like water and
electricity, because it's incredibly expensive to build both last mile
connections and core infrastructure. They're also natural monopolies because
you don't really have great, cost competitive alternatives to water and
electricity provided on a large scale.

When you consider hard wired internet, it bares of a lot of similarity to
utilities, in the cost and difficulty of accumulating infrastructure and in
the absence of effective alternatives.

For that very reason, internet should be classified, like other natural
monopolies, as a utility.

Moreover, last mile lines should be rentable or available through competitive
bidding. There's actually enough dark cable to make some regional ISPs viable
if they could actually get access to consumer level last mile lines. But
Comcast won't get off them unless they're kicked off them. And if you try to
build lines then Comcast will half their rates in the areas that you offer
service in!

Of course, Ajit Pai will have a lobbying job earning well north of 400K the
moment the Trump administration runs out the door so it's really not his
concern.

~~~
lupin_sansei
This was the argument against privatizing the telcos in Europe in the 80s. But
once they did competition and innovation thrived. Classifying something as a
utility leads to stagnation.

~~~
tyfon
What happened in Norway at least was that when the state telephone company
Televerket that is now Telenor was privatized, they required them to lease the
land lines and mobile spectrum to others at cost.

This worked really well so now there is a health population of companies in
both the telephone/mobile and isp sectors.

I can get at least 5 different wired isps and maybe 50+ mobile broadband
providers in the outskirts of a town of 60k people.

~~~
zo1
I can attest that the same thing happened with the telephone company here in
South Africa. A while after its monopoly was taken away and regulation
required that public infrastructure be rented out to any ISP that wished to
use it, things started thriving after a long period of stagnation.

In fact, ISPs thrived, and a lot of them are now installing and contracting
the installation of their own Fibre to a lot of residences. Essentially, side-
stepping the existing copper infrastructure that kept people tied to the telco
monopoly.

------
ChicagoDave
They will certainly kill city-run broadband and anything else that the big
companies view as encroaching on their monopolies.

In 2008 we should have let the banks fail and all the wealth in the world
evaporate like it's supposed to in a Capitalistic society. Instead, we
basically made the banks bigger and the rich richer and more powerful.

~~~
ComradeTaco
The global economy as of 2008 was and continues to be absurdly leveraged,
often combined with a wonderful smorgasbord of complex financial instruments
that obfuscate risk.

If the banks holding these complex instruments were allowed to fail, if Lehman
Brothers collapsed along with AIG, then it's very likely that the financial
system would have been dragged down with it. The resulting recession would be
likely on the same magnitude as the great depression.

The bank bailout inserted a huge amount of liquidity into the market, which
absorbed much of the shock of reduced consumer spending. Combined with the
auto bailout and Obama propping up state budgets, the economy was able to hold
together.

Truthfully, I believe that the banks should have never been able to be too big
to fail. Let it be said, however, that main street and wall street are
intimately linked, and failure of one deeply imperils the other.

~~~
humanrebar
Regarding bailouts saving the economy... that's the narrative. I'm not sure
how anyone can be confident that it is accurate.

Either way, it's fatalistic to say that wall street and main street are
linked. We could have easily picked main street banks over wall street banks.
To some degree, that's what the opposite of too-big-to-fail looks like.

~~~
bmelton
> We could have easily picked main street banks over wall street banks.

If there aren't any community banks, it's pretty hard to choose them. Dodd-
Frank, according to many -- including Barney Frank, the "Frank" in Dodd-Frank
-- had a number of unintended consequences, the largest of which was the
compliance cost, which smaller banks couldn't manage.

The result of burdensome compliance, more often than not, was consolidation;
couple that with the too-low threshold for what counts as 'too big' and the
end result was that most community banks were too small to succeed - where we
once had 18,000 main street banks in America as of 1985, we currently have
fewer than 2,000.

~~~
wlll
It would be interesting to see the number of banks pre and post Dodd-Frank,
say 2010 -> now to really gauge the impact. It would have taken a remarkably
foresightful bank to close in 19xx on account of law passed in 2010.

~~~
astrostl
Graph with citations at [http://www.unbiasedamerica.com/media/say-goodbye-to-
small-ba...](http://www.unbiasedamerica.com/media/say-goodbye-to-small-banks)

~~~
TimJRobinson
I had a look at the sources for that post and couldn't find anything showing
small banks growing up to 2008.
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/US1NUM](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/US1NUM)
(from exploring citation #4 in the post) was the closest I could find and that
shows that over the long term small banks have been in decline since the 80's.

------
Analemma_
Wouldn't it be great if, right after net neutrality was scrapped, some ISP
came out and said this:

"Thanks to the innovation-promoting policies at the new FCC, we're pleased to
announce that, starting next month, FoxNews.com, Brietbart, 8chan, the Drudge
Report and reason.com, will be deprioritized to 1 Kb/sec unless you purchase
our premium plan for only an extra $100/month. God bless America and the free
market."

What would be even better is if they only did it in markets where there was no
competition, and they announced that they would drop the plan as soon as
another competitor offered service in the area. Wonder how fast people's
ambivalence about net neutrality would shift then.

C'mon, doesn't anyone have the balls? Sonic?

~~~
davesque
I'm not sure they would ever do that. They're going to try and set up a
favorable environment for the politicians who will pad their bottom line. That
means making it easier to access sites like foxnews.com and breitbart.com.

~~~
croon
I think that was his point. Of course they would never do that, as it's
opposite their motives.

But it would be the utopian thought experiment of transparently communicating
a concept in practice.

------
LeoPanthera
I've been thinking about this for a while but I might have to actually do it
now. Start a business, and get a server hosted in colo under the business
name. Then get a permanent openvpn connection between your home router and the
colo'd server.

Now your "ISP" is the colo provider, not your home ISP, who only gets to see
an encrypted pipe, and everything you do is under a business name.

Seems like the best way forward to me.

~~~
nullpage
> home ISP, who only gets to see an encrypted pipe

Until your home ISP that doesn't care about net neutrality just decides to
throttle your OpenVPN encrypted pipe and make it useless, they don't need to
see what is inside of the encrypted pipe to fingerprint it as a VPN tunnel.

~~~
LeoPanthera
VPNs are so ubiquitous in business that a move like this would seem like
corporate suicide.

~~~
nullpage
Totally, but they could just spin it to the consumer like TV cable packages.
"Get our Internet 'Social Media Plus' plan for $100 / month, featuring blazing
fast speed to our premium partners Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit! Use a
corporate VPN from home? For an extra $10/month add on our VPN Pro PLUS
package to get ultra fast connection back to your office! __

 __terms and conditions apply, all other internet traffic is at speeds of up
to 1mb /s"

It is far fetched sure, but I honestly wouldn't put it past some ISPs to
attempt something super lame like this.

~~~
creeble
It is not far fetched.

------
lettergram
Well, it's kind of funny. I was joking about starting a political party. Now,
as a business owner, I feel it's my duty.

Seriously, I've decided after reading this. I just want to vote for a party
that supports abortion rights, gun rights, a open Internet, and a generally
smaller government (focused more on research and education).

FYI Ill be moving to Champaign, IL if anyone is interested.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I just want to vote for a party that supports abortion rights, gun rights, a
> open Internet, and a generally smaller government (focused more on research
> and education).

The first thing you'll need to do is engage in activism directed at replacing
the current electoral system with one that supports more than two viable
parties (or, alternatively, convinces enough people of your set of priorities
that it replaces one of the two major parties or becomes the platform of one
of them.)

This activism will, necessarily, need to be a lot more than just voting.

~~~
nosuchthing

       electoral system that supports more than two viable parties
    

This would be:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting_systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting_systems)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-
runoff_voting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting)

Explanation of USA's FPTP count as root cause of a two party system:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo)

~~~
rrradical
Just an observation-- every time the topic of alternate voting systems is
brought up on HN, or anywhere really, the discussion devolves into an argument
over which alternative system is the best. It's quite obvious to me that if we
are ever going to actually move on from FPTP we need to change the
conversation to "this one works; it's better than FPTP; let's implement it".
Unfortunately, I don't know how we get there, because anyone that cares about
this stuff loves to debate the merits of their chosen system. And to top it
all off, you can prove that no system is the best in all circumstances!

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Not just on HN but in real life too. In the UK we had a referendum on
switching to a ranked voting system known as "AV" a few years back. It was
defeated with 68% voting against.

Of the people I asked, the older more politically conservative people opposed
it because of the perception that it would make it more difficult for their
party of choice to win (I heard this argument on both sides of the political
spectrum) and the younger, more liberal voters opposed it because it "wasn't
good enough". Less than half of the population even bothered to participate.
So we're still stuck with FPTP.

The only chance we've had to completely overhaul our election system and
people voted overwhelmingly against it. Ho hum...

~~~
iainmerrick
I was bitterly disappointed in that too. The universal lack of interest was
just appalling. I felt particularly betrayed by Labour's lukewarm support -- a
proposal for a big, permanent change and they were fretting over how it would
damage them in the short term.

------
plandis
What power do I, as a citizen have to affect change in the FCC?

Short of violence is there anything to do other than wait four years and elect
a president who will put someone not so blatantly against consumers?

~~~
rhino369
You can elect congressmen in 2018 that could codify Net Neutrality as law
instead of a regulation. Trump would probably veto, but with a sufficient
margin you could override it.

Administrative regulations aren't really democratic. Easy come, easy go.

~~~
germinalphrase
Further, there is redistricting in 2020 so the 2018 elections will be
particularly important.

------
bogomipz
I keep coming back to this Ajit Pai quote form December:

"During the Trump Administration, we will shift from playing defense at the
FCC to going on offense," he said last month. "We need to fire up the weed
whacker and remove those rules that are holding back investment, innovation,
and job creation."

This seems like a pretty incongruous statement from someone heading a
regulatory agency whose mission is to:

"make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States,
without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin,
or sex, rapid, efficient, Nationwide, and world-wide wire and radio
communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges."

Weed whackers and offense? That sounds like like an (ex)Verizon lawyer and not
someone who is now supposed to be looking out for citizens of the United
States.

Sources:

[http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2016...](http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2016/db1207/DOC-342497A1.pdf)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commiss...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission)

------
shmerl
_> The agency has strayed from its core mission,” said Marsha Blackburn, a
Republican representative from Tennessee who oversees a telecommunications and
tech subcommittee._

Yeah, in her view, the mission of the agency is to serve the monopolists, and
to strengthen the market stagnation by preventing any trace of competition. Of
course in exchange for generous bribes (aka donations) to the likes of her.
Why are such people even being voted for?

~~~
wallace_f
>serve the monopolists, and to strengthen the market stagnation by preventing
any trace of competition. Of course in exchange for generous bribes (aka
donations) to the likes of her.

Somebody coming from real estate, like Trump, sounds like the ideal person to
put someone like that in that role. However, coming from law or politics also
would be a great background, as well.

>Why are such people even being voted for?

When was the last time a self-made engineer, scientist or doctor was
president? Ever?

The qualities it takes to become president in modern America are the exact
qualities which should disqualify you from being President. This includes both
Clintons, Trump, Bush and yes, even Obama.

~~~
Cd00d
Ben Franklin! He was all three!

(I feel funny)

~~~
forgotmysn
Ben Franklin was never a president

------
coldpie
I hope you like paid priority lanes for big companies, less oversight of
telecommunication company fees, data caps on home internet connections, huge
telecom mergers, and no regulation of the growing mobile industry, because
that's what you're getting with Pai's FCC. You voted for fewer regulations,
Americans, so you get fewer regulations. I hope you like the results.

We've got another election this coming November. And another one next
November. If you want consumer protection and some amount of oversight on big
companies, turn out to vote every single year and kick the Republicans out of
office.

~~~
jfaucett
> I hope you like the results.

They probably will. If the economic study of the history of regulations has
taught me anything its that deregulation coupled with stable governmental
institutions has over the longterm, always led to better products, increased
production, increased competition, more rapid innovation and more satisfied
consumers.

For a good study you need look no further than the histories of the FDA or
even the FCC itself.

As an example, assuming some deregulation occurs like the article says, I
would expect to see a lot of different pricing models and products pop up. Do
you want access to particular websites say, wikipedia, youtube and yahoo, well
just pay $5 a month. Now you also don't need google anymore, so your service
provider can partner with other search startups to offer you built in search
functionality. Or perhaps you want the "no video plan" well that would be much
cheaper than $20 a month, etc. It would actually be very interesting to see
what new industries would crop up and which major players could be disrupted.

1\.
[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.159...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.159.6340&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

2\.
[http://www.jstor.org/stable/2646905?seq=1#page_scan_tab_cont...](http://www.jstor.org/stable/2646905?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents)

3\.
[http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/tpe.12.2006...](http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/tpe.12.20061854)

~~~
fn42
The crux of it is that competition is necessary though. Do cable companies in
the US have any competition? I'd argue they do not

~~~
jfaucett
> Do cable companies in the US have any competition?

No they do not. Yet, this is due to government regulation. If you'd like to
read about the historical development of cable regulation this article
provides a decent summary: [http://www.uclalawreview.org/cracking-the-cable-
conundrum-go...](http://www.uclalawreview.org/cracking-the-cable-conundrum-
government-regulation-of-a-la-carte-models-in-the-cable-industry-2/)

~~~
Jach
It's also due (perhaps more) to the nature of television. The content
producers due to copyright hold almost all the strings, and benefit from a
small choice of delivery providers to bid against each other for exclusivity.
The delivery providers also benefit from acquiring content producers (or
otherwise delivering "original content" themselves). Content for television
that people want to watch (in competition with other content currently
available) is expensive which also has an effect on a price floor even if
exclusivity deals can't be made. Content can only be watched one way, or at
best a handful of ways depending on if the producer spent effort making it
3D-enhanced or whatever.

Meanwhile setting up a site is cheap and comparably much easier, and can even
be free or profitable in many situations for many audience sizes and site
types and levels of effort. Pretty much anyone can do it, even children and
teenagers, and reach arbitrary audience sizes. Content is often cheaply
produced, and when it's text, cheaply delivered. Content is furthermore
produced by people who don't have a share in the server itself, i.e.
interactive users, and those users aren't required to exclusively post their
content in one location, nor are they required to continue producing content
at any given location. There are many sites in competition to host user
content for free so that individuals don't even have to go through the hassle
of setting up their own site when they can sharecrop on someone else's, and if
they feel like it, move on later. The way browsers work doesn't require any
visitor to view the website in the way intended by the site owner, either.
More wide-spread encryption (and wide-spread damages for failing to encrypt or
otherwise do security properly) makes it harder for anyone but the site owner
and the user's computer to know what's going on.

There are so many fundamental differences with cable TV and with how the
internet and web function and will continue to function (even if in a less
universal way) that comparisons and predictions of everything becoming
"packaged" like TV are laughably ridiculous and simplistic. Sure, we might see
some business models attempted where ISPs charge for access to certain sites,
but if those sites contain links to other sites and users don't have access to
those, they're going to be annoyed. When more and more of the web is served
over HTTPS, how can ISPs know? Furthermore the cost of plans like "youtube
only" or "wikipedia only" can only in the limit ever be as expensive as the
"cost per GB delivered" plan that VPN users will have. VPN will continue to
exist, if not for the general public at least private parties and probably
universities will still want because they can't predict what
employees/students/professors will want to access or set up for access that
they want it all (as it currently is). Not to mention work-from-home/remotely
employees. I'm sure with less regulation many interesting and unforeseen
business models could appear, some I'll have no interest in, but I don't
foresee the destruction of some way to keep my internet experience more or
less what it currently is.

My only concern would be not as a consumer but a big company. No neutrality
law lets ISPs more easily attempt to shakedown large or popular companies like
Netflix, Facebook, Google, etc. and put them in a standoff of who would
survive customer outrage the longest if users couldn't access them anymore. I
don't think ISPs can win that fight in the long term without strong support of
the government to stop those other companies from providing their own methods
of delivering their content to people. Google Fiber was a warning flag to the
ISPs to show they're capable of it, and that was just Google acting alone.

~~~
creeble
Not really disagreeing, but:

>There are so many fundamental differences with cable TV and with how the
internet and web function

They function differently, but they're delivered on the same wire. Under a
completely different set of rules. Big part of the problem.

------
bluetwo
We screwed up by not making this a campaign issue.

Now we are going to pay the price.

This is a freaking disaster.

When I was at the Women's March talking with friends, I said the smart thing
to do was not react to every issue, but to pick one and focus. This is the
issue I care the most about.

I feel like we are way behind on fighting this. Million Techie March? If only.

Going to have to figure out what the right actions are regarding this issue.

~~~
astrodust
A) Emails.

B) Emails.

C) Emails.

D) Emails.

E) Benghazi. Also emails.

This campaign was a train-wreck of bullshit. There was no time to talk about
actual issues.

~~~
kevando
DNC wants to eliminate a free internet as well.

~~~
mikeyouse
That's weird since HRC's campaign explicitly backed net neutrality:

> _Hillary believes that the government has an obligation to protect the open
> internet. The open internet is not only essential for consumer choice and
> civic empowerment – it is a cornerstone of start-up innovation and creative
> disruption in technology markets. Hillary strongly supports the FCC decision
> under the Obama Administration to adopt strong network neutrality rules that
> deemed internet service providers to be common carriers under Title II of
> the Communications Act. These rules now ban broadband discrimination,
> prohibit pay-for-play favoritism, and establish oversight of
> “interconnection” relationships between providers. Hillary would defend
> these rules in court and continue to enforce them. She also maintains her
> opposition to policies that unnecessarily restrict the free flow of data
> online –such as the high profile fight over the Stop Online Piracy Act
> (SOPA)._

------
kilroy123
This is great news! Now YouTube, Apple, Netflix, Google, etc. products will
run way faster. No more wasting internet and bandwidth on any small crappy
websites or companies products.

Honestly, if you're not a billion dollar company, you shouldn't even exist and
be on the internet. /s

~~~
gph
Pull that ladder up behind you, lest anyone should try to climb up there with
you.

~~~
ska
It's the American Way, right? Errr, nevermind.

------
beepboopbeep
For anyone that followed along with the actual meetings, this man was a
pissant all through out the proceedings.

Not just against the rulings, but visibly perturbed and aggravated by the
outcomes. Thus it was no surprise to see him picked to head the FCC.

His revenge if forthcoming.

------
scarface74
I have different views on prioritization and providers not counting some data
as part of your data allotment depending on the circumstance.

T-Mobile. If you are a legal video or audio streaming provider and you meet
T-mobiles technical requirements, you can get zero rating. Everyone is on a
level playing field.

Verizon and AT&Ts zero rating of their own services: there are four national
carriers and a few regional carriers with their own networks. There is plenty
of competition in the wireless space.

Cable companies zero rating their own content on their own network:
Technically, all internet providers have peering arrangements where if they
have more outbound traffic than inbound traffic, they make up the difference
with payments. Since it is there own traffic, they don't have to pay another
network provider. Of course, realistically, the cable companies are doing it
to be anticompetitive.

The real answer is make it easier for there to be multiple companies to
provide Internet access in a given area. they would start competing on price,
speed, data limits, etc.

Luckily, I live in area where I can choose between Comcast's crappy service
and AT&Ts gigibat internet service - no data caps and a flat $70 a month.

~~~
ch4s3
> The real answer is make it easier for there to be multiple companies to
> provide Internet access in a given area.

How? This is a serious question. Laying cable/fiber is tremendously expensive
and is a natural monopoly. At best competing providers must lease
infrastructure. So how does government induce "competition"?

~~~
scarface74
And somehow in the more affluent parts of the city where I live, Comcast,
Google and AT&T are all competing. AT&T and Google are both offering gigabit
internet for $70 a month.

I moved into a brand new subdivision and I had a choice between AT&T fiber and
Comcast. It's also ranked as one of the 25 most affluent counties in the U.S.
I'm not bragging, any senior software developer making an average salary in
the city could easily afford a house here.

On the other hand, in some parts of the state, they use to have a choice
between low data cap cable and even lower capped DSL. But AT&T doesn't even
offer DSL in some places that they use to. They either pulled out the market
or are not accepting new customers.

Make it easier to get right of way to lay cable for internet. Also state
governments are making it illegal for counties to offer municipal broadband.
The government gives incentives for everything else, why not internet service?

~~~
Leon
> And somehow in the more affluent parts of the city where I live, Comcast,
> Google and AT&T are all competing. AT&T and Google are both offering gigabit
> internet for $70 a month.

Google is offering service in limited areas of 8 cities and have put on hold
any future expansion. That is not comparative to the rest of the country and
shouldn't be used as an example of competition. The country has no real
competition for internet service providers.

~~~
scarface74
Well, I guess that narrows down the metro area where I live....

But AT&T seems to be being more aggressive about their Rollout between DSL
(slowly dying), and their newer fiber offerings.

[https://m.att.com/shopmobile/internet/gigapower/coverage-
map...](https://m.att.com/shopmobile/internet/gigapower/coverage-
map.html?referrer=https%253A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F)

------
tabeth
Just curious: in an ideal society, where there are no super large corporations
that would abuse their advantage here, would this be a big deal?

Isn't this similar to the advantage that capitalists have when buying huge
swathes of land? I imagine that if this passes companies would then start
selling their "high priority" traffic to smaller companies.

I'm pretty ignorant to the history of Net Neutrality, but this seemed
inevitable to me. Seems to me that every time there's a "constrained" resource
(though internet access is arbitrarily constrained) large companies end up
dominating it.

It sounds to me that the real problem is the existence of large companies that
have the resources to exploit advantages to begin with.

~~~
metaphorm
"ideal society" thought experiments get degenerate and wacky in a hurry. let's
talk about reality, if you wouldn't mind.

Net Neutrality is specifically the idea that delivery of bytes of data over
internet connections amounts to a global public commons that is a shared
resource for everyone. Just as we make laws to prevent someone from putting up
an enclosure fence around public meadows, we also have the idea of net
neutrality so nobody puts up a virtual enclosure ("high priority lanes")
around the internet. i.e. everybody pays the same rate for traffic delivery
regardless of the origin or content of the traffic.

you're right that this was an inevitable power play that would be made by
monopolist rent-seeking corporations as soon as they could get away with it.
the importance of strong regulations on this issue cannot be emphasized
enough.

~~~
tabeth
ah, I guess I wasn't clear. the point/opinion I was trying to convey is that
without getting rid of large corporations there's no way to avoid these
issues. I was just curious why there's so much emphasis on his particular
issue, which I believe not to be the real problem.

I agree with your claim that we need regulations. I just don't see how they'll
last, given corporations' influence on our democracy and government. Isn't
this article in particular case and point?

~~~
metaphorm
there's a lot of emphasis on this particular manifestation of the larger issue
(our society is ruled by monopolist rent-seeking corporations) because it is
1) highly visible and effects something in everyone's daily life and 2) was
previously the subject of a partially successful popular campaign that
temporarily pushed back against monopolists

~~~
tabeth
ah, I see. I certainly don't disagree with you. however, since people I
believe have a limited amount of "political capital" to spend on various
issues, I worry that we'll waste it all putting on bandages to problems that
the "enemy" will take off in short time, instead of solving the problem.

and then, (hopefully not, but maybe) we'll grow tired of trying to fight and
just accept things as being the new status quo.

~~~
dagss
If you somehow manage to ban large corporations across the board you will
probably just move that level of power underground to the mafia, pulling the
strings of a set of smaller companies...

------
throw2016
One way this could get solved is by a tech breakthough that dramatically
reduces costs. Or accept the market doesn't always work efficiently and do
something about it in the now.

The current way is to 'trust the market' and pray that eventually it will all
work out is. Eventually we will all be dead.

In the real world there is regulatory capture, lobbying, collusion and
agressive misinformation campaigns by orwellian named 'public interest
groups'.

The plain fact is in certain markets heavy capital and regulatory costs make
it nearly impossible for new entrants. And even a few brave new entrants who
are heavily capitalized face eventual co-option into collusion with the status
quo if successful. None of this is in the market or public interest.

This is not free markets but corporatocracy masquerading as free markets. The
problem of monopolies, collusion and regulatory capture are conveniently
ignored or hand waved away by economists when its the 'natural end state' for
capital intensive industries and cannot simply be wished away or ignored.
Concentration of economic power can not only undermine markets but create
entrenched political and economic power structures.

We have to acknowledge a lot of 'economists' are often paid lobbyists to
promote a particular 'view'. Municipal wifi and public interest inititiaves
are the only solution for the now until proper measures can be found to manage
these kind of markets.

------
anigbrowl
On the bright side, these are exactly the conditions that promote the
flourishing of new protocols, just as internet culture took off among those
who found censorship undesirable in a previous era.

~~~
nosuchthing
Not a new protocol, a new infrastructure.

With no net neutrality, ISP DPI will drop your protocol or service not on the
approved whitelist.

~~~
cmdrfred
​Obfsproxy can get around the great firewall of China's DPI. I assume it would
work for this use case.

I imagine this would work in the same manner as long distance cards back in
the day. The VPN provider would buy "fast lane" access and sell connections to
it's users.

[https://blog.torproject.org/blog/obfsproxy-next-step-
censors...](https://blog.torproject.org/blog/obfsproxy-next-step-censorship-
arms-race)

------
exabrial
Can we stop making this into a partisan issue please? The Democrats are not
scot-free in this matter.

~~~
epistasis
How about we demand accountability? That is more important than protecting a
political party from criticism.

We also need to stop thinking down logical chains of "well if I accept
criticism of this decision, than that means criticizing my side, which weakens
that side, so maybe I shouldn't try to hold my party accountable." That's an
excessively partisan way to deal with these things.

We can't not criticize the party in power that's doing things just because the
other party might have done some things too at some point.

Also, love to see what Democrats have done on this so I can complain to my
Democratic congresspeople. Please share!

~~~
exabrial
Refusing to collaborate with the Republicans:
[http://www.thewrap.com/democrats-and-republicans-battle-
over...](http://www.thewrap.com/democrats-and-republicans-battle-over-
competing-net-neutrality-plans)

The "my way or the highway" attitude is something that both parties suffer
from. Whoever wins changes every 4 years. Whoever loses stays the same: The
people

~~~
epistasis
Your link does not support your contention that they're refusing to
collaborate with Republicans. In fact, your link describes them talking about
the loopholes in the proposed legislation. This would seem to actually be
cooperation in improving the legislation.

>Congressional Democrats and Republicans offered widespread agreement
Wednesday that the time has finally come for the government to step in and
take action to preserve net neutrality. Then again, they disagreed strongly on
the shape that protection should take.

I have yet to see party-based Republican support for solid net-neutrality
proposals. I have seen some proposals using the name "net neutrality" that in
fact undermined it deeply.

If you give me some examples of this "my way or the highway" that's something
I can push back on my congress people with.

It matters who we vote for, "the people" don't lose equally no matter who is
in office. This "all politicians are bad" thing comes up frequently when
criticizing them, but it's simply not true that all politicians are equal, and
it's not an excuse fro their bad behavior. The difference between the Pai and
Wheeler are clear and stark. And that's not to say that Pai is innately evil,
he still could do some good for the internet, and some of the things he says I
agree with. Wheeler was intensely criticized as a shill for cable companies
when he entered, however he turned out not to be one in the least. Was it our
criticism that had an effect? Who knows, but by calling him out as a former
lobbyist, people were at least aware of what was going on.

Perhaps if we publicly shame Pai for his bad behavior we'll see the same
thing. Let's forget whether we are a D or an R, lets focus on the policies.
That's what non-partisanship is.

~~~
exabrial
And that's exactly close minded thought process at the root of the problem.
You don't even consider the fact there's another method: let elected members
of Congress decide. The problem with wheeler and Pai is that they don't report
to us, the people.

~~~
epistasis
No, I did consider that congress decide, when I read the news article you
linked about it. Any evidence that I didn't consider it? Any evidence that I'm
"close-minded"? Or further, any evidence for your original contention, that
was unsupported? Or have you just silently admitted that there's no
stonewalling, and gone on to other accusations?

But considering that Pai is also acting, his actions must also be considered.

------
caseysoftware
Trump promoted him to _head_ the FCC but he's served on the Commission itself
for almost five years:

> _He was initially nominated for a Republican Party position on the
> commission by President Barack Obama at the recommendation of Mitch
> McConnell. He was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate on May
> 7, 2012,[1] and was sworn in on May 14, 2012, for a term that concludes on
> June 30, 2016 (though he may stay on until 2017 even if not reconfirmed)._

Ref:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_Varadaraj_Pai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_Varadaraj_Pai)

------
maxxxxx
Like it or not, but Trump may become a transformational president. They are
wasting no time. Have other presidents been that aggressive with their agenda
when coming in?

~~~
anigbrowl
I don't think that following existing rulemaking practices is a waste of time
(I know you were just using that phrase loosely). It seems clear that the new
administration is indifferent to existing norms and aims to sweep most them
aside, but those norms are generally the product of experience and (as we're
seeing) disregard for them is generating so much opposition that the strategy
may be self-defeating.

~~~
maxxxxx
Totally agree with you. The funny thing is the "conservatives" in the US are
not conservative at all. I would think that conservative means to change
things only after careful deliberation but they act in exactly the opposite
way.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I would think that conservative means to change things only after careful
> deliberation but they act in exactly the opposite way.

That's not what political conservatism has ever meant.

~~~
rotten
I would have believed the original meaning of "conservative" was someone who
wanted to keep things they way they are. Advocates for the status quo, which
is good enough. Usually it means they are relatively risk averse. Changing the
system is likely to make things worse, not better.

"Progressive", on the other hand, traditionally meant advocating for
continuing change to the system with hopes we can get even better.

Since those original meanings, the terms have co-opted into meaning something
else entirely. Conservative = Capitalist or Royalist. Progressive = Socialist
or Populist.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I would have believed the original meaning of "conservative" was someone who
> wanted to keep things they way they are.

In a sense, this is correct, but it wasn't an orientation toward generic
absence of, and failing that slow pace of, change, but instead defense of the
hold on political and economic power by traditional elites based in privilege
of birth justified appeal to religious tradition that was opposed by classical
liberalism , to which political conservatism was defined in response.

And conservatism _still_ largely stands for defense of established elites and
privilege of birth justified by appeal to tradition, largely religious.

> "Progressive", on the other hand, traditionally meant advocating for
> continuing change to the system with hopes we can get even better.

No, it "progressive" as a political label originally meant "populist" (or, at
least, a sepcific populist platform of a particular time), it was later, after
being mostly unused for several decades, borrowed by American social liberals,
mostly within the Democratic party and mostly in response to perceived
devaluation of the "liberal" branding, to denote a different specific policy
platform.

------
amelius
I think net neutrality should extend to other means of content delivery. For
example, native apps are very similar to web pages in many respects, but app-
stores still have control over them more than my ISP has control over the web
pages I'm viewing.

------
Shooogur
This is extremely interesting. Wonder what the POTUS has planned...

------
beedogs
Impeachment sure would be nice.

------
jjawssd
As long as the FCC stays on track to do its best to encourage competition in
the Internet ecosystem I see no problems with what they are doing. I am too
uneducated to understand the real downstream effects of "net neutrality"

~~~
anigbrowl
If you know you're uneducated on a topic that a lot of people insist is
problematic, perhaps you should rectify that before choosing your position.

~~~
mjmsmith
Or commenting.

~~~
jjawssd
It's difficult to form a position with so much misinformation around

~~~
anigbrowl
OK, here's a few rules of thumb to get you started.

First, be selective about whose information you consume. Nobody is right 100%
of the time but you can identify news and information providers who are
consistently more reliable than others. The best way to do this is by
measuring their predictive power over time. You don't have to do this in a
spreadsheet unless you enjoy that sort of thing, but if you notice that a
source of information on some topic consistently informs you about issues
earlier and more accurately than the general news media, then you should give
extra weight to hat source.

Second, don't make the mistake of assuming that all claims are true from the
claimant's perspective, and that if you just seek to understand all the
competing claims you'll be able to synthesize some great overall
understanding. There are quite a lot of people who will lie and deceive either
to promote their own ideology or for money. Default to assuming good faith,
but never exclude the possibility of bad faith, and if you encounter it burn
the source down (not literally, but by calling out the deception to raise
awareness among others and undermine the deceiver's credibility).

Third, never stop maintaining your own intellectual foundations. The study of
economics is especially rewarding because economic insights can be applied to
any area of life. I don't mean that you should sit around doing basic calculus
problems all day - indeed when there are too many numbers flying about you
should be cautious, because most economic mistakes derive from choosing
incorrect starting assumptions rather than a failure of logic, so I'm a little
suspicious of economic claims that look too like a math paper (Nobel Prize
winner Ronald Coase used to refer contemptuously to 'blackboard economics,'
and warned against falling too in love with one's models to the detriment of
empirical observation).

Rather, treat economics as a set of techniques with which to assess a complex
problem. An excellent introduction to the field that has the merit of being
intellectually neutral and exploring ideas from both left and right
perspectives is Todd Buckholz's _New Ideas From Dead Economists._ IIRC it has
a pretty good bibliography too, if not it'll still give you a decent overview
of the field.

~~~
jjawssd
Thanks

