
Ask HN: How realistic are the fears coming from the NN 'day of action' crowd? - Toast_
Fears like: packaged internet, or throttling specific sites that didn&#x27;t pay a fee.<p>I don&#x27;t know very much about routing, so I thought I&#x27;s ask HN for it&#x27;s opinion.
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microwavecamera
Very, in my opinion. It goes beyond throttling, ISPs could also choose what
sites they carry and what types of traffic they carry. It would create a
backdoor in censorship laws and regulations. An ISP could use any excuse, such
as cost, bandwidth utilization etc. to suppress anything they see fit. It goes
beyond just websites, VPN traffic, TOR traffic, and similar privacy
technologies would also be at risk. Think of the implications. Open-source
software? Bitcoin and cryptocurrency? Torrents? What if ISPs decide not to
carry the traffic or charge prohibitive amounts of money to carry the traffic?
With Net Neutrality internet access is regulated as a utility, like
electricity. Just like like a power company can't refuse to provide you with
electricity, ISPs can't refuse to provide full internet access to you. Net
Neutrality isn't just about internet access, it also protects our civil
liberties and right to free and fair access to information. It also stifles
innovation. If you're a startup, how could you compete with companies like
Facebook or Google who can afford to negotiate contracts with ISPs and pay for
full access? What if a company like Facebook uses their influence and capital
to get ISPs not to carry sites critical of them or competing with them? How
could Linux and other open-source projects afford to compete with companies
like Microsoft and Apple? Those companies could certainly afford it. A handful
of companies would control what you see and can access on the internet. Open
access to the internet is vital to freedom and democracy.

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Toast_
Thanks for the response.

Would an ISP blocking IP's or services cause any issues to one that isn't?
(i.e., peer exchanges/access points)

~~~
microwavecamera
Potentially. It would still be up to the carrier but in much of the U.S. there
is limited or no choice in the ISP you have access to and major ISPs such as
Verizon, AT&T, Comcast etc. control much of the internet backbone. Independent
companies could try to route around them or build out their own infrastructure
but it comes down to cost. The major players can just outspend the competition
and charge whatever they wanted to carry 3rd party traffic through their
networks. The implications of full deregulation that's being pushed are
concerning to say the least.

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cheald
So far, every "day of action" banner I've seen has basically been pitched at
mock "you've hit your bandwidth cap" or "your throughput has been limited"
messages, both of which are in place _today_ and unaffected by neutrality
regulations (consumers pay for a line that is capped at a given level of
throughput, is not guaranteed to deliver their top-end throughput, and is
often capped at a maximum level of bandwidth consumed - wanting more costs
more).

The messaging feels deceptive to me because it seems to be pitched with
juvenile "you should be able to have as much as you want without having to
care about price!" tone, rather than the more nuanced concern that
monopolistic ISPs could promote or deny traffic in anticompetitive behaviors.
That concern, while real, doesn't seem to have shown much threat of
manifestation outside of a few edge cases (two that immediately spring to mind
are Comcast throttling torrents back in ~'07 and T-Mobile not counting
bandwidth consumption against quotas for near-edge hosted media from their
their "Binge On" partners). It honestly seems to me that the number of
"consumer-friendly" neutrality violations have outnumbered the anti-consumer
ones in recent history - which is a concern in that it makes it harder for a
startup to compete with an entrenched player, but that's WAY outside of any of
the messaging being pitched to the unknowing masses today (probably because
"companies giving you service perks for no extra charge is bad!" is a hard
message to sell). Things like the Verizon/Netflix flap was a peering dispute,
which isn't a new concern and probably isn't resolved to any real degree under
neutrality regulations, but people still reference that as a flagship case for
neutrality regulations.

There are some legitimate fears. Most of them haven't manifested, and are most
robustly resolved through opening up competition in the ISP space, IMO. The
messaging seems to be, in the majority case, unrealistic scare-mongering, and
that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

~~~
Toast_
> The messaging seems to be, in the majority case, unrealistic scare-
> mongering, and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Complete reason why I've made the thread. Nearly every reason I've received
(via whatever channel) has been a pre-written, appeal to the least common
denominator response. The only thing I care about is if what has been
suggested is actually possible; and assumably, if so, what we can do to negate
it. I really appreciate a real response, thank you.

~~~
cheald
Much of it is _possible_ , sure. I don't think most of it is feasible, or
likely. Prioritization of classes of traffic is and has been a thing for a
_long_ time, and consumers broadly benefit from it (we all want VOIP traffic
to have better latency sensitivity than Netflix traffic, and we all want
Netflix traffic to have better bandwidth utilization than VOIP traffic, for
example). (De/)Prioritization of individual _products_ is a bogeyman that has
yet to manifest outside of some products being excepted from mobile data
quotas (Binge On, FB Zero, Wikipedia Zero).

Then you have things like the utterly ridiculous "your internet plan doesn't
include commenting on this reddit thread!" stunts, which are either blindingly
ignorant of the actual aims of net neutrality advocates, or are willfully
deceitful (there is no technological way that an ISP could restrict or upsell
layer 7 features given that TLS is a thing) - neither of which does very much
to produce sympathy in me for the cause.

"Your single ISP could engage in behavior that doesn't benefit you" is an
obvious threat - that's the threat of any monopolized market. But the vast
majority of nightmare scenarios cooked up to scare the masses into action are,
IMO, somewhere between fantasy and outright lies.

~~~
Toast_
I'm not sure if my thought process is even valid, but I remember watching a
blackhat presentation on hacking docsis 3 (may have been "hacking docsis for
fun and profit"?) and the basic consensus was that docsis 3 security was just
swiss cheese. I'm curious how such a system that can barely regulate it's
users, could somehow become a totalitarian behemoth overnight. It's like
satire being taken seriously.

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e59d134d
It will make it harder for smaller and startups to compete with established
players.

You can think of it as if phone companies grouping businesses in different
buckets and then charging extra for better service. Small businesses will have
to pay phone companies extra if they want their customers to call them.

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auganov
I don't buy into the consumer-side of the scare. The most misunderstood part
is the FCC will still absolutely have the authority to intervene when rights
are being violated. And it has, way before there was a big public debate.

Worst case scenario stuff goes bad and we introduce that regulation again.

The entrepreneur side is more reasonable. Obviously hard NN brings some
barriers to entry down.

