

From Reddit to Pornhub, Websites Slow Down for Net Neutrality on September 10 - sinak2
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/reddit-pornhub-websites-slow-down-net-neutrality-september-10

======
whiskers
This kind of action from big names is absolutely crucial to halt the
ridiculous situation we're faced with.

I'd happily put up with "protest slow-downs" every day of the week if it helps
motivate the non-technical masses to understand the importance of what's being
slowly taken away from them behind the scenes.

------
rdl
We made a simple one-click way to implement this on CloudFlare:
[http://blog.cloudflare.com/participate-in-the-internet-
slowd...](http://blog.cloudflare.com/participate-in-the-internet-slowdown-
with-one-click)

------
Eiriksmal
Websites are only putting banners up with a loading spinner to help illustrate
the issue[0], not throttling their upload speeds. Wouldn't it be better to
_actually_ slow down their content? I suppose that hurts the bottom-line so it
can't even be considered. =/

[0] A quote from a TechHive.com article on the subject: " Note: The slowdown
will only be simulated, not actual—the spinning “loading” icons you’ll see on
those sites are entirely symbolic."

~~~
k-mcgrady
The reason I'm against actually slowing down is because they probably won't
bother to geo-target it. Net neutrality isn't a problem where I live, there's
nothing I can do to help people in the US, so I don't want my day disrupted. A
spinner I'm ok with.

~~~
nilliams
Please elaborate. Net neutrality affects the whole web no?

~~~
danudey
Net neutrality is about ISPs being able to limit or slow other services, or
force those services to pay more, for access to their customers. For example,
Comcast throttling netflix, forcing Netflix to pay Comcast for unrestricted
access to their customers, or forcing their customers to pay more for
unrestricted access to Netflix (or some combination of the three).

This is only really an issue with American ISPs, as the US is one of the few
(or the only?) jurisdictions where this sort of behaviour is allowed.

------
ChrisAntaki
> We’ve already made a huge impact. The Sunlight Foundation recently analyzed
> over 800,000 comments submitted to the FCC about net neutrality– and found
> that more than 99% of them supported stronger protections for neutrality.

99% of the comments support net neutrality? AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast must be
freaking out.

~~~
alistairSH
They would freak out if the public comments actually mattered. Unless you know
otherwise, I'm guessing the FCC doesn't much care what the riff-raff think is
a good idea. They're more interested in maintaining relationships with big
business and keeping that revolving door spinning.

~~~
ChrisAntaki
> They would freak out if the public comments actually mattered.

I disagree with your point that public comments don't matter, since they
reflect public opinion. The public are paying the bills of the telcos, and the
FCC for that matter. The public can switch providers at any time, if they feel
their current provider is acting against their interest. The public also has
the ability to elect decision makers who can assign or fire people from the
FCC. What are your thoughts?

~~~
alistairSH
In a perfect world, I'd agree with you.

But, in reality, how many Americans have any real choices in ISP/telco? I have
a choice of two mega-telcos (Cox and Verizon), neither of which provides good
value (when compared to plans in Europe).

As for the FCC, the revolving door is very real incentive for regulators to do
what existing corporate interests tell them. Why would they care if they're
removed from the FCC when they have a corner office waiting on K St?

------
mystik
I hope many other big companies will join them. Google, Cloudflare, Rackspace,
Digitalocean, Linode, and many others, I'm looking at you

~~~
aaron987
I like Rackspace, but I wonder if and how their position on net neutrality
might change if CenturyLink is serious about buying them.

------
yournemesis
"Don’t worry—Pornhub promises it won’t actually load pages more slowly."

Nice click bait title.

~~~
ChrisAntaki
Well, considering there's an extra banner with CSS, HTML, and images loading,
the page will load slightly more slowly. Also, there's no way to close the
banner for a second or two, so there's a short simulation of a browsing
experience being impeded.

------
diminoten
Except none of them actually slow down, they just run an extra banner.

~~~
hayksaakian
It takes more time to send you the banner, so they are slower to some extent.

~~~
yutah
this is negligible (the screen space it takes is probably more important)

------
icpmacdo
I am not a fan of this especially since it is happening during the workweek
and I wont have anything to do while sitting in lectures(I'm not talking about
pornhub here ;) ).

~~~
retejo
I don't think you're supposed to like it. It's supposed to show you how bad it
would get without net neutrality

~~~
justizin
Unfortunately absolutely nobody agrees what net neutrality means.

EDIT: I can be more specific. People have been constantly talking about
Netflix and Verizon in the past year with regard to Net Neutrality, but in
fact Netflix was being asked to behave as a big player and to help pay for the
costs of running the network. Whether they should be paying for peering is out
of scope for net neutrality, it's completely distracting. On a fully neutral
net, the traffic from Netflix could kill your visits to HackerNews and
PornHub, based on sheer volume. Network operators, though I agree they should
have been expanding capacity, took action to ensure the network continued
working for everyone.

If we had municipal internet _and_ neutrality, you would have a situation
where the burden to expand network capacity is on taxpayers, and whoever
shoves the most packets into the core network can dominate everyone.

The Internet would stop working immediately.

I'm certainly not arguing _against_ regulation, I'm arguing against the
naivete` of 100% neutrality. There is no greater friend to a small upstart in
a garage than network prioritization, but because you rarely have a network
service which is _intended_ to be a service provider in your garage, arguments
related to this don't much hold water.

It's frustrating for me because I largely agree with the intent and am on the
same side as people pushing neutrality, but it's a term which has come to mean
nothing and is largely talked about and criticized by people who do not know
how to run a computer network. :/

