
Democrats to push to reinstate repealed 'net neutrality' rules - joeyespo
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet/democrats-to-push-to-reinstate-repealed-net-neutrality-rules-idUSKCN1QL1W0/
======
rdtsc
> In October, California agreed not to enforce its own state net neutrality
> law until the appeals court’s decision on the 2017 repeal, and any potential
> review by the U.S. Supreme Court

That was one positive "states rights" thing I was looking forward to, but they
chickened out? It's their state law, why not enforce it.

It's also been some time so it would be good to see how the predictions panned
out. Some of those were pretty grim:

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/net-neutrality-
in-2017-...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/net-neutrality-in-2017-what-
you-should-know_us_599debf0e4b06d67e334fa94) [warning: auto-playing video]

> "That means if Bing offers Comcast a hefty penny, you’ll never make another
> Google search for as long as you live. Yeah, it’s that bad."

I can't say I have seen any changes in the 2 or 3 services I have. It could be
because there are competitors in the region and they'd be afraid to rock to
boat too much. Maybe in other parts it was much worse.

~~~
Reedx
I haven't noticed any negatives yet either (to my surprise).

Saw some good news though - last year internet speeds increased nearly 40% in
the US.

[https://www.recode.net/2018/12/12/18134899/internet-
broafban...](https://www.recode.net/2018/12/12/18134899/internet-broafband-
faster-ookla)

~~~
rjf72
The argument in favor of deregulation of most things has some straight forward
logic behind it. Imagine that some major player did begin to act badly. This
would enable a competitor to offer a distinct value. Like the GP mentioned
some predictions were things like e.g. Microsoft being able to pay Comcast to
effectively disable Google search/products. That may be a legal possibility
without regulation but it the Huffington Post 'analysis' seems to assume there
are no consequences for actions. Google Fiber was a flop in large part because
they could not meaningfully distinguish themselves from the competition.
Imagine local monopolies start creating meaningfully poor experiences for
internet users. They would not be monopolies for long!

Some might argue that lower speeds for higher prices were creating
"meaningfully poor experiences" for users, but I think there is one important
distinction. Let's imagine an upstart competitor comes in and offers some
perk, such as lower prices for higher speeds. And the local monopoly ends up
matching these offers, as they did in the case of Google Fiber. Is this action
perceived as a 'de-crippling' of their system, or as an upgrade of their
system? In reality it's almost certainly the former, but in practice it's
going to be perceived as the latter. That means they actually gain public
props for anti-competitive behavior following what is effectively price-
gouging.

By contrast if some company is actively and outright blocking a site, then de-
crippling would not be seen as an 'upgrade', but instead as what it is -- 'de-
crippling.' And so it's likely that the competitor would be the one gaining
the public props (and subscriptions). And in reality, it's possible that our
incumbent monopoly might not even be able to de-cripple themselves due to a
contract with e.g. Microsoft.

~~~
dnbgfher
I think you're ignoring some very basic aspects of the ISP business and taking
entirely the wrong lessons away from Google Fiber.

There is no cheap way to enter many/most/all of these markets. This isn't a
world of cheap VC cash, because there is no chance of winning a lottery.
Google of all people couldn't make this make sense. Sure, they would have had
a better pitch if they were competing with incumbants who did things like
block Google Search. Except it's even more trivial to unblock Google Search
than it is to offer better service. This gets worse when you consider the
possibility of not outright blocking, but intentionally slowing services.

So yeah. If Google couldn't make Google Fiber work, there is no way any new
competitor is going to spring out of nowhere. The reality of the competition
hasn't changed - incumbants are at a massive advantage even compared to most
incumbants. Infrastructure is a massive barrier to newcomers, and any
competitive aspects that can be used to differentiate one offer from another
can be trivially and immediately matched by the incumbants. And in practice
most all of the offers are difficult or impossible to really compare to each
other in pratice, so most consumers have to rely mainly on the marketing
materials and subjective experiences.

And again I've left out a whole other side of the issue, namely the
relationships between ISPs and services.

This is just an awful system to rely on tradional markets. It uses expensive
infrastructure, and the products are indifferentiable in any meaningful way
over any period of time.

~~~
simula67
Google built a hugely successful Operating System ( Android ), Web browser (
Chrome ) etc because it was important to them that nobody won these platforms.
If someone had monopoly control, they could squeeze Google for a lot of money
through Traffic Acquisition Costs. Google currently pays potentially 100s of
millions of dollars to Mozilla

The same applies to ISPs. Why do you think they are pushing for net neutrality
? Do you think it is out of the goodness of their hearts ? Without net
neutrality Google might invest billions into building out a global, fast
Internet infrastructure. They may have no choice but to do it, because it is
strategic for them to own the entire ad delivery pipeline (
Computers/Phones/Tablets, Operating Systems, ISPs )

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
> Google built a hugely successful Operating System ( Android ), Web browser (
> Chrome ) etc because it was important to them that nobody won these
> platforms.

Or was it important to them that they win? They certainly seem to have with
Chrome at least. Does any company intentionally enter a space just to compete?
Would google rather not absolutely win in the infrastructure as well?

~~~
simula67
I think it was important to them that someone else did not win. Winning it
themselves was probably a bonus

> Would google rather not absolutely win in the infrastructure as well?

Probably, but it is up to it's competitors to try and prevent that.

If Google has no competitive advantage because of their other businesses it
should not be a problem. But if it competes unfairly, fair competition laws
should be applied

Either way, the customers could stand to benefit from increased investment

------
NoblePublius
How about they do something about random price increases, geographic
monopolies, bundling, or forcing customers to rent equipment that’s cheaper to
buy? These are issues that affect consumers. The only thing NN does is make
Netflix slightly cheaper.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Net neutrality won't make Netflix cheaper. It will ensure that Netflix can use
it's size and influence to scale better and squash any potential competitors,
who don't have the influence to force ISPs to colocate their cache boxes for
free. They're still probably continue to raise their prices on consumers,
because that's what monopolies (like Netflix) _do_.

Net neutrality is the creation of regulatory capture for Netflix, and probably
YouTube. Which is why it is _shocking_ these are the two companies funding
every single supposedly grassroots effort to support it.

~~~
screye
> monopolies (like Netflix)

I can't think of a single metric by which Netflix can be called a monopoly.

A comparable number of number have Amazon Prime Video and Hulu while trailing
isn't in a david-vs-goliath situation.

Netflix has been struggling to keep licences, let alone licence shows
exclusively.

Then you have groups like HBO-go who get a huge influx of users, when their
flagship show releases. But, users quickly leave when they realize they don't
like anything else.

Netflix is ahead atm, because it is better (or less worse) and not because of
monopolistic practices keeping themselves in front.

~~~
AndrewGaspar
Cable would also be reasonably called a competitor.

------
donatj
Honestly, I think the passage of Senate bill H.R.1865 “FOSTA” has quite
quickly done way more harm to the internet at large than killing Net
Neutrality has.

~~~
dilap
Absolutely.

It was crazy to watch everyone go crazy about net neutrality with triple-bank-
shot theories of how it might chill some site somewhere someday, but barely a
peep about the far-worse FOSTA, which almost immediately forced sites offline.

I'm still not sure how to explain this. Perhaps people are just dumb and prone
to irrational panics, perhaps I am dumb (i.e., NN > FOSTA), or perhaps
movements like NN support are not really particularly organic, and being
organized for reasons unknown.

~~~
sbuttgereit
"people are just dumb and prone to irrational panics"

Of any statement that I've read this year, this is the one that most
succinctly captures the entire spectrum of political life. Left or right, fake
news to hacker news... Understand that statement and you understand how far
we've come.

------
subdane
"The text of the proposed legislation has not been released."

~~~
jedmeyers
You need to pass the bill before you know what's in it.

~~~
vengefulduck
What? How would they know what their voting for?

~~~
amreact
That's a quote from a Nancy Pelosi speech about Affordable Care Act.

[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pelosi-healthcare-pass-
the...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pelosi-healthcare-pass-the-bill-to-
see-what-is-in-it/)

For the record, Snopes does a good job explaining how Pelosi's statement was
taken out of context by the right, especially when compared to Republican
actions that were much more questionable regarding a somewhat (?) comparable
Republican-sponsored bill called the American Health Care Act.

~~~
paulddraper
That article (and it's rating of "Mixed") has puzzled me.

The context "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,
away from the fog of the controversy." doesn't really change the way I think
about her remarks.

Controversy or not, it's a ridiculous assertion.

~~~
jancsika
It would be ridiculous if she hadn't spent the two previous paragraphs _which
are quoted on the same Snopes page_ outlining what she claimed was the content
of the bill.

Those paragraphs eliminate the possible interpretation of her sentence as _you
can only find out what 's in the bill if we pass it_. They also eliminate _you
can only be certain what 's in the bill if we pass it_\-- she was clearly
claiming the bill as an obvious positive step in health care.

It even eliminates _we have to pass quickly to overcome the Republicans '
criticisms_\-- because obviously the Republicans would (and did!) continue
vociferously critiquing it after it passed.

The only meaning left I can see is the obvious interpretation-- _we have to
pass this so that you can benefit from the things I just said, and those
benefits won 't be subject to controversy_. That's like bog standard political
rhetoric-- what every politician claims for legislation aimed at the general
public.

It's certainly an awkward sentence, but it's not difficult to figure out what
she meant.

~~~
paulddraper
Asserting that

"We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."

is equivalent to

"the bill as an obvious positive step in health care."

requires blackout-inducing inertial velocity.

> It's certainly an awkward sentence

Why not call a spade a spade and say she misspoke?

------
exabrial
The internet has barely survived?

~~~
JauntyHatAngle
Lets not be reactionary here.

Legislation can halt a slow decline, and companies move as slowly as they need
to.

Something taking 5-10-20 years to decline can often be traced back to a piece
of regulation (or deregulation) that occurred a long time ago.

Legislation being repealed doesn't mean the next day everything goes to the
dogs, it's often supposed to plug up a trickle, not hold back a flood.

That may or may not apply to net neutrality depending on your view. But just
because things haven't gone completely gone to the dogs yet does not mean it
wont in the future and that this legislation is or isn't necessary.

~~~
nrb
Exactly, these rights are going to be chipped away bit by bit, action by
action, over a long period of time so that eventually it just seems like the
new normal.

In the years before the repeal there were several enforcement actions of net
neutrality violations[1]

1\.
[https://reddit.com/r/KeepOurNetFree/comments/7ej1nd/fcc_unve...](https://reddit.com/r/KeepOurNetFree/comments/7ej1nd/fcc_unveils_its_plan_to_repeal_net_neutrality/dq5hlwd/)

------
mlindner
"Net Neutrality" is one of the biggest misinformation campaigns I've ever seen
in my life. I've never seen so many predictions of doom and gloom over such a
small thing. More so those opinions put out by non-technical people to mislead
non-technical people.

We've never had "net neutrality" and we never will. Doing so goes against how
the internet fundamentally works. All packets are not the same. QoS exists and
will always exist. Internet companies can't consume all the bandwidth and not
pay for it. This has always been about Silicon Valley vs ISPs with ISPs
wanting to charge the actual cost of service and Silicon Valley wanting a free
ride to all of the ISPs customers. No customer will ever see any change from
the creation of nor lack of net neutrality.

------
alkibiades
can anyone steelman the argument against net neutrality for me? The only one
i've ever heard was that its "government intervention". Which doesn't quite
add up for me.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
The primary impact of net neutrality, is that it prevents ISPs from charging
tech companies like Google and Netflix for data usage.[1] Google (especially
YouTube) and Netflix together take up about 75% of all bandwidth usage in the
United States, so this is really about charging these two companies, and these
two companies alone, for the amount of network buildout that's required to
support their increasing demands. Any bandwidth costs anyone else faced due to
this sort of thing would be inconsequential in comparison, if the ISPs
bothered to bill anyone else at all.

Google and Netflix do not like this, of course, and have created or funded
dozens of grassroots efforts to "save the Internet" by ensuring ISPs are
legally prohibited from billing them. My personal view is that when you are on
the "majority of the data usage on the Internet" scale, ISPs should have every
right to negotiate with you, and that preventing that process ensures that
Google and Netflix's economies of scale permanently win out as monopolists in
the space.

[1]Insert rhetoric from supporters about double charging here, don't bother
commenting to claim it. I've heard the argument before. And I was answering
the parent's question, not trying to start an argument with the opposing
position.

~~~
elliekelly
The primary impact of net neutrality is to regulate the internet as a utility
in order to prevent an oligopoly of two ISPs deciding who is allowed to access
what information online. What if all of the electricity in the United States
was generated by two unregulated companies? They would have sole discretion
over who got electricity, what time of day electricity was available to them,
and whether they were able to access electricity at an affordable price. They
could turn off an elderly person's air conditioning on a hot day because of
"peak traffic" on the grid if the retired person on a fixed-income couldn't
afford the surge pricing.

Of course that would be an unacceptable outcome. So why should we permit the
same with the internet access?

A college student writing a paper on the FCC might only have access to
academic articles opposing net neutrality because they can't afford the
articles that express an alternate view and Comcast doesn't want her to see
them.

The internet is about access to information. Net neutrality is about
profiteering from that access.

~~~
buboard
practically however it is the services offered at the application layer that
do all the censoring/wall-gardening, not isps.

~~~
betterunix2
This is irrelevant as long as we live in a world where anyone can set up a new
edge service or application -- which is what net neutrality guarantees.

~~~
buboard
Not when it is happening in coordinated fashion, which crucially cuts off
payment and revenue streams. NN would only guarantee a tiny fraction of
neutrality, which has never been an issue anyway (i.e. ISPs have never cut off
someone for political speech except when it's illegal)

~~~
betterunix2
Payments are a totally separate problem and basically irrelevant to a
conversation about NN other than an ISP's technical ability to block access to
a particular payment system (e.g. "we only support PayPal, go find another ISP
if you want to use Venmo"). Net neutrality is about the Internet and the role
ISPs and AS's play in providing Internet service; whatever other problems you
are worried about can be solved separately.

~~~
buboard
the reason most services started censoring was to appease payment providers /
advertisers. i dont think they are separate

~~~
betterunix2
Again, net neutrality is about _the network_ and not the policies of edge
services that happen to use the network. Unless you are claiming that an ISP
is blocking traffic to appease a payment processor you are talking about
something that is _completely irrelevant_ and serves only to distract from the
actual issue here.

Since you need this explained: when I said that in a world of net neutrality
you can set up your own edge service, I was talking about _the technical
ability to do so_ and not whether or not some other problem would stop you.
Maybe no payment processors are willing to work with you and you cannot afford
to pay for the kind of connection your service demands. Equally possible is
that you simply lack the technical skills needed to set up an edge service and
cannot find or afford to pay someone to do it for you. Maybe you are just too
busy. None of the above is relevant to the debate over net neutrality because
net neutrality only concerns the operation of the network itself and not the
endless other factors that might impact your ability to run whatever
applications you intend to run.

~~~
buboard
i was talking about neutrality in general (of which NN is a part)

------
willio58
What strikes me is how Republicans didn't realize net neutrality translates to
equal opportunity on the internet, which fits really well with free-market
capitalism.

~~~
paulddraper
That's not really true.

"Free" means "lacking from government intervention" or laissez-faire, not
"free of charge".

Good or bad, allowing ISPs to set their own rates are prices structures is
more laissez-faire than regulating them.

~~~
int_19h
That's an Austrian school conflation, and that largely because it refuses to
recognize that market failure is a thing. Originally, "free" meant "where
actors compete freely" \- this excludes not just government regulation, but
also monopolies. Since in practice monopolies form in unregulated markets over
time, at some point, such a market can become less free than one with active
intervention to bust monopolies.

~~~
DebtDeflation
>refuses to recognize that market failure is a thing

So much this. I call it "Econ 101 Syndrome". My undergrad was in Economics,
and the amount of damage that has been done by requiring Business majors (and
others) to take Econ 101 and only Econ 101 is staggering. People walk away
from those courses seeing the world through a lens of perfect competition, no
externalities, no information asymmetries, no transaction costs, etc. and so
end up coming to a faulty conclusion on every major policy question.

------
buttholesurfer
I'm sick of hearing about "net neutrality". Nothing changed when it was shot
down. Report this or rage has much as you want but NOTHING has changed. I'm
now more weary of "net neutrality" than ever before.

~~~
ionised
[https://nocable.org/news/whats-happened-in-the-three-
months-...](https://nocable.org/news/whats-happened-in-the-three-months-since-
net-neutrality-was-repealed)

