
More than 800 startups sign letter objecting to plans to kill net neutrality - ergo14
http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/27/15447394/fcc-net-neutrality-roll-back-startups-letter-y-combinator
======
LoSboccacc
At this point the problem isn't Net Neutrality, it's the internet is privately
owned by for profit companies.

Imagine what'd be if every single road and water pipe was ran by private
company for profit without oversight.

Internet needs to be treated like infrastructure, because that's what is, both
to service consumers and providers.

There are many ways to have private company to profit over infrastructure if
they so chose it, but having a guaranteed baseline would resolve most issue
about having to regulate private companies or stifling innovation. I.e. there
could be private pipes with state subsidized access having guaranteed QOS.
There could be public pipes with state renting access to private companies.

There are plenty solution, but the issue is that public can't lobby for what
benefits them and deep pocket can and will buy legislation.

~~~
briandear
>Imagine what'd be if every single road and water pipe was ran by private
company for profit without oversight.

We'd have higher quality, lower cost water and roads.

"Government agencies less likely than private to comply with environmental
regulations, study finds" Here are key points from the article linked below:

For power plants and hospitals, public facilities were on average 9 percent
more likely to be out of compliance with Clean Air Act regulations and 20
percent more likely to have committed high-priority violations.

For water utilities, public facilities had on average 14 percent more Safe
Drinking Water Act health violations and were 29 percent more likely to commit
monitoring violations.

Public power plants and hospitals that violated the Clean Air Act were 1
percent less likely than private-sector violators to receive a punitive
sanction and 20 percent less likely to be fined.

Public water utilities that violated Safe Drinking Water Act standards were 3
percent less likely than investor-owned utilities to receive formal
enforcement actions.

[http://archive.news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2015/10/when-
gov...](http://archive.news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2015/10/when-gov..).

Here's another viewpoint on the benefit of road privatisation:
[http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate-uk/2012/03/22/road-
pri...](http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate-uk/2012/03/22/road-pri..).

As far as "imagining" what it would be like with private water and roads --
instead of imagining, perhaps we ought to look at the topic rationally.

Here's another (opinion) article about privatized roads:

[http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2012/05/a_glimpse_of...](http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2012/05/a_glimpse_of..).

[https://fee.org/articles/privatize-public-
highways/](https://fee.org/articles/privatize-public-highways/)

And here's an academic study about water privatization benefits in Argentina:
[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=648048](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=648048)

~~~
exdaedalus
> without oversight

Your examples are "with oversight" via environmental regulations and quality
regulations.

~~~
mseebach
That's a goalpost on wheels. Anyway, it doesn't change the fact that the GP
offered than _even under the same regulations_ , public facilities perform
significantly worse than private ones.

~~~
tdb7893
When privatization works it is good but it doesn't always work. The current
cable industry seems to be just exploiting a monopoly so I think
"privatization" has already failed here

~~~
twoodfin
So your cable broadband service has been stagnant for a decade? Mine has
gotten about 10x faster for roughly the same cost.

~~~
tdb7893
I only have 1 possible cable provider and it's pretty expensive and their
service is terrible. It's gotten better in they last 10 years but that doesn't
mean that it is a competitive market.

EDIT: Maybe it's changed but when I checked last they had low customer
satisfaction but really high profits, which is bad for consumers and (I'm not
an expert here so take with a grain of salt) would be really unlikely if the
market was competitive at all

------
cm2187
To me the problem is not net neutrality, it is monopolistic behavior in
broadband providers. If there was a true competition, providers trying to
control the access of their subscribers would meet the same fate that AOL
(with their custom email, browser, etc), they would become irrelevant.

~~~
oxide
Ah, but try to take away the monopolies and they throw money at it until you
lose.

First they'll lobby. If that fails, they'll sue. They'll have all kinds of
bullshit reasons why this is necessary for growth, investment and
infrastructure.

They have better access to legislators and regulators, as well as more
sympathetic ears in the government due to having, for lack of a better term,
monopoly money to throw around.

It's frustrating to say the least.

~~~
rtx
Many big companies are suing smaller ones in their industries. And that is the
result of regulation. We shouldn't be creating more of them.

~~~
jackmott
>And that is the result of regulation

It might be the result of some local regulatory deal they have made to become
a monopoly, but it isn't the result of FCC's net neutrality regulation.

Have you ever looked around the world and found a nation that has no
regulations at all, or nearly so, that you want to live in? There are still
places that are wild west like. Aren't really teeming with VC or good internet
though.

Where do you people get this fantasy?

~~~
rtx
You are the one living in fantasy. Where you think, there are people in this
world who want to live in a lawless society. Less regulation is dosent mean no
regulation. Many laws are designed to stifle class mobility. Why, because rich
are closer to the politicians.

~~~
Retric
By your own argument there is good regulation.

So, now rather than simply saying less you have to defend what's specifically
wrong with each regulation as there are some you want to keep.

~~~
Goronmon
Come on. This is a super simple problem to solve.

All you have to do is get rid of all the bad regulations, while keeping all
the good regulations. Boom, issue resolved.

------
gravypod
Why don't these 800 startups, their thousands of brilliant employees, and the
hackers on hacker news start a push to build a part-wireless and part-cable
mesh network?

The only reason why the loons in the government or these companies have any
clout is because they have the only working network that spans the US/Globe.
If citizens just got together, on their time, and built a free and open
network we'd have something better. It's not like it's never been done before
[1].

[1] - [https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/greek-off-the-grid-
internet-...](https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/greek-off-the-grid-internet-
mesh/)

~~~
unityByFreedom
What is to prevent _that_ from becoming privatized and incentivized by whoever
owns it?

Why rebuild the wheel?

We have decent infrastructure already. We just need society to not mess it up.

~~~
gravypod
It's hard to privatize a system of radio links. When everyone's network is
owned by themselves no one can really take that away from them.

The only reason most networks are privately owned right now is the extremely
high cost of laying down physical infrastructure. We saw that severely slow
the progress of Google(!) Fiber. If a giant like Google has troubles with the
cost of laying down cable on ciy-land then imagine what you or I have to deal
with?

This goes away with radios and building interconnects.

~~~
unityByFreedom
Aren't radio frequencies regulated by the government, which can be lobbied by
private interests?

I still think focusing on net neutrality is best. If someone out there would
rather work on a radio system, that's great!

Personally, I feel the government could take that away by punishing people who
operate using rogue waves, so, why not work together and get it right in our
existing society and infrastructure.

~~~
nebabyte
Yes. The underlying systemic issues do not get addressed or solved by "well
let's just get to the next tech revolution first", that is simply a lazy
idyllic 'solution' for those who don't think through their proposals.

In this case, meshnets would likely be lobbied into only being operable by
licensed entities as radio waves are now.

\- Lobby to quickly fabricate and sell appropriate talking points (ensure some
anti-terrorism or anti-CP laws in there to gain mass support) to congress and
the media

\- catch a few mesh operators and bring the hammer down on them, quickly
making an example that kills off support for the niche community

\- provide the alternative; enumerable 'licensed' operators to exist that sap
demand for unregulated comms ('not worth the effort' or consequences of point
2) and maintain the same (or likely evolved - there'd probably be a smarter
way to profiteer off meshnets than trying to meter mesh devices for
'fastlanes' but maybe they'd start there) regulations that maintain your
profit margin

And there goes your 'fix'.

The reality is that whatever technology you develop, the monkeys with big
sticks will always be able to skewer you, so it's up to you and everyone to
collectively agree what we decide are skewerable offenses, not merely to say
'well let's just get to the iron age first so we don't have to worry about
it'.

~~~
louithethrid
You could make transport-nodes illegal, as in a cellphone-virus which silently
does transport duty?

I also wonder if people in non-democracies wouldnt be willing to have this
app- aslong as there is a chance to provide ability to deny installing it.

------
RugnirViking
Is there a single good argument for removing net neutrality?

No conspiracy theories, or anything like that. Why is it a issue even worthy
of debate? I am utterly confused

~~~
rtx
Yes Free Market. Less regulations is always beneficial in the end.

~~~
aninhumer
That's not an argument, it's a statement of ideology. You might believe it,
but it's not going to convince anyone who doesn't share your premise that less
regulation is always better.

Many people believe that regulations can create something far closer to the
economic ideal of a Free Market than property rights alone. For example, food
labelling regulation arguably moves the market closer to perfect information,
which is a necessary feature of an idealised Free Market.

~~~
rtx
The problem is, its difficult to control people who create those regulations.

~~~
aninhumer
But is that an inherent problem with regulation? Or with the way they're
created in (e.g.) the US?

Also, regulatory capture can lead to regulation that causes market
inefficiency, but (if you accept my previous argument) lack of regulation may
also cause market inefficiency (e.g. due to obfuscated product information) so
it's not necessarily better.

~~~
escherize
If nutrition facts regulations went away tomorrow, I suspect the market would
enforce their existence anyway.

I think consumers want to know what is in the food they're eating, so you
would get many startups who study what makes something healthy, or finding
cheaper ways to list calories and ingredients, instead of listening to the
government telling you about the food pyramid etc.

Even if customers deem it too expensive to pay for the nutrition facts, then
how do you or others gain the right to intervene in a voluntary act between
two people?

~~~
root_axis
This is demonstrably false as we've already seen companies fight against
regulations that force them to provide information about products (like
country of origin or GMO labeling). The companies actually argue that giving
the consumer more information puts them at a disadvantage because consumers
might be misinformed about the implications of this new information, e.g.
"GMOs are bad, so I won't buy them".

For the record, I think the argument is correct, I just don't think it
justifies concealing the information, people should be able to use whatever
arbitrary or incorrect criteria they please when it comes to how they spend
their money.

------
unityByFreedom
Forget the red vs. blue politics for once.

This isn't about that. This is something that most of us, as techies, believe
is a bad idea.

This should be a campaign issue. We don't need to build more silos.

If it's unpopular, politicians won't pass it.

------
nickpsecurity
People signing letters should donate money to politicians' campaign with
letters to those politicians advocating specific legislation. That legislation
might also have compromises that consider all parties or at least concretely
show benefit to them. Alternatively, convince rich people and profitable
businesses to donate as well.

------
miguelrochefort
1\. Should a school or workplace be allowed to block specific websites? Why
shouldn't ISPs be allowed to?

2\. Should cable providers be forced to distribute 100% of channels? Why
should we apply a different standard to a different protocol?

3\. Should toll-free telephone number be banned?

4\. Should ISPs charge for data used to check your balance or account
statement? Should phone companies bill the minutes used to call their customer
services?

5\. Should ISPs be allowed to cache arbitrary content on their servers to
reduce their loads (e.g., Netflix movies), and distribute the savings to their
users?

6\. Should a taxi driver be allowed not to serve specific neighborhoods, or
should they be forced to serve 100% of neighborhoods?

7\. Should posting a letter to someone in the same city cost the same as
posting a letter to someone in a different country?

8\. Should ISPs that implement their own proprietary protocol as an
alternative to the Internet be forced to be neutral as well?

9\. Should restaurants be forced to serve both Pepsi and Coca-Cola?

10\. Should Netflix be able to reduce your subscription price when used
through a specific ISP?

11\. Should toll roads be allowed?

12\. Should a workplace be able to reimburse bandwidth fees associated with
the use of their VPN?

13\. Should web hosts (e.g., Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud,
Heroku, etc) be neutral as well? Should Amazon charge the same fees to all of
their customers (including themselves)?

14\. What should be done about small startups that can't handle all the
incoming traffic? Should some other regulation subsidize their hosting cost so
that they can compete with larger competitors?

15\. How many new laws and regulations will be required (if they don't already
exist) just to address the above examples? Wouldn't these laws and regulations
only make it more difficult for startups to emerge and compete with the so-
called monopolies?

~~~
simula67
Why is this getting down voted ?

~~~
twoquestions
It's also attempting to argue by rhetorical questioning alone, rather than
directly and honestly stating a position. I didn't downvote, but I find
arguing in such an indirect way bad form and mildly disrespectful of the
reader.

IMHO even a bad argument presented directly and honestly is better than a good
argument that cowers behind questions.

~~~
miguelrochefort
Hopefully I'm wrong, but I'm convinced that most net neutrality advocates
haven't asked themselves these questions.

I can't think of a better way to challenge an idea than by asking questions.

~~~
pawadu
I think the past actions of these companies speaks for themselves.

The question _YOU_ should ask yourself is why you think ATT & comsat will do a
180 turn and stop their attempts to kill the free market after this.

~~~
rtx
They will not, that's why we need better ISPs.

~~~
noxToken
But you've been an advocate of deregulation all over this thread. The barrier
of entry to becoming an ISP is high. A sort of compromise is to use sensible
regulation to protect users from the active players. The keyword here is
sensible, because I don't care for government mandated regulations. I do
recognize that they are necessary. Profits (among other things) cloud
judgement, and there are some ruthless, despicable people running companies.

Unless a company with lots of expendable income is going to enter the market
as a competitor, there won't be very many new ISPs that can offer more than
aDSL speeds. Most US communities have one or two local ISP outside of the
cable company and teleco providers like Time Warner and AT&T. The speeds are
only good for people who check email and don't mind watching video at 480p.
The other is satellite with similar speeds at even higher prices.

~~~
rtx
What created those barriers, regulation?

~~~
noxToken
I edited my comment. The key takeaway from the edit was sensible regulation.

To answer your question though, no. It was misused infrastructure that was
basically given away to telecos. Instead of sharing it like a utility, they
took it and ran with it.

~~~
Karunamon
I don't at all agree with GP's point, but "the infrastructure being given
away" is, objectively, an instance of regulation. Laws were passed, government
bureaucracy was involved, papers were signed in triplicate.

If we're really on the regulation-is-bad-mmkay train, then also on the
chopping block needs to be franchise agreements, agreements where high-density
housing buildings can only use one provider, and so on.

------
rtx
Startups asking for more regulation, very hypocritical of them. I understand
need for regulation in mobile internet as it is a limited resource.

~~~
acdha
How is asking for a free market hypocritical? Most U.S. households have a
single broadband option and the large ISPs have already demonstrated that they
are willing to abuse their network control to attack services like Netflix
when their own services aren't competitive.

~~~
beaconstudios
Internet service is one of those areas where you can only free up one market
by limiting another. You create an even playing ground for internet companies
and users by heavily regulating ISPs.

I'm not a fan of either side to be honest - I think efforts should be made to
make it easier to enter the ISP market so that competition and consumer choice
forces competition between ISPs to provide the best service.

~~~
acdha
What market is being limited in a natural monopoly? “Market” is commonly used
with the implication that multiple sellers exist and the buyer can choose any
or none, all of which is unlike the ISP situation for millions of people.

What I think makes the most sense is going back to what we had with DSL:
require the owner of the cable to the house to provide access at cost,
allowing competition for the higher level services.

~~~
beaconstudios
ISPs aren't a natural monopoly - trunk cables are. I can see a good case for
having those be federally owned and managed if they aren't at the moment - I
can't really speak to the US situation at that level because I'm from the UK
and most cables are owned by BT who lease access to other ISPs.

