
Battle for the Internet - anigbrowl
https://www.battleforthenet.com/
======
Clanan
Can someone please respond to the actual pro-repeal arguments (in a non-John-
Oliver-smug way)? Everyone is focusing on "woe is the unfree internet!" which
seems like a spoonfed, naive response with no content. And just having Google
et. al. on one side isn't enough of a reason, given their motivations. The
given reasons for the current FCC's actions appear to be:

1\. The Title II Regs were designed during the Great Depression to address Ma
Bell and don't match the internet now.

2\. The FCC isn't the right vehicle for addressing anti-competitive behavior
in this case; the FTC would be better.

3\. The internet didn't need fixing in 2010 when the regs were passed.

~~~
throwawayjava
Could someone make a pro-repeal argument that doesn't boil down to caring more
about which bureaucrat enforces the rules than the rules themselves?

Seriously, the whole FTC vs FCC thing is deeply confusing to me. I mean, WTF?
I've never seen the public care so much about a battle over jurisdiction
between two federal agencies. For this reason, I suspect it's all a bullshit
red herring tactic -- the FCC is stripped of power to enforce net neutrality
because "the FTC should do it", but then FTC's hands are also tied. Suddenly
you can deregulate without actually making a _substantive_ argument for
deregulation.

~~~
CWuestefeld
I'll jump in and take the hate.

Reddit is framing the issue like this: _Net neutrality ensures that the free
market—not big cable—picks the winners and losers_

This seems like double-think to me. The net neutrality regulations actually
prevent me from negotiating an agreement that models my priorities. It forces
me to accept everything one-size-fits-all, explicitly preventing a
differentiated market from developing in the commodity of bandwidth.

There are a couple of examples where I think this is relevant.

1) I imagine a hospital that performs surgery via telepresence. This seems a
pretty clear area where I would really _want_ the opportunity to pay more, to
ensure that the connection between the surgeon and his robot never even
suffers the slightest amount of jitter. This is life-and-death, and I can't
see why people would object to a right to pay more for higher-priority for
this traffic.

2) A few years ago I recall reading about a cell phone provider who wanted to
provide a very basic service level that would allow free use of Facebook and a
couple of other apps, but going outside of that narrow box would cost much
more. Providing to poor people a way that they can participate in the online
community seems like a positive, even if what they get is rather hobbled. The
idea that we would say to them, "no, you're not allowed to save your money by
buying a lower level of service; if you can't afford the whole enchilada, you
can't have anything" seems awfully unfair.

~~~
losteric
> This seems like double-think to me. The net neutrality regulations actually
> prevent me from negotiating an agreement that models my priorities. It
> forces me to accept everything one-size-fits-all, explicitly preventing a
> differentiated market from developing in the commodity of bandwidth.

There are downstream effects on consumers and websites which lead to the same
problem eating away at our democracy: the people with money get
disproportionate representation.

#2: This is a slippery slope that prevents the market from adjusting to
provide a cheaper/lower-quality service. If people cannot pay $5/m for
internet access, the answer isn't to give them access to a monopolized walled
garden that extracts value from their mere presence - the answer is to offer a
lower level of service for $1/m.

#1: Same as above. The ISP and hospital are absolutely free to pay for higher
qualities of service. This isn't new - 10 years ago I could buy business-level
DSL with stable latency.

I think you're confusing tiered access to the internet versus tiered access to
specific websites.

Assuming you have 10mbit internet access for $N/month:

* Paying +$20/m for 100mbit internet: OK

* Paying +$20/m for 100mbit access to "Top 100 websites": Not OK

* Receiving 10mbit access to Youtube and 1mbit access to Vimeo: Not OK (neither is receiving 100mbit youtube/10mbit vimeo)

~~~
794CD01
What's the point of having more money if you can't spend it on better goods
and services? We don't have car neutrality laws to prevent rich people from
paying more for Ferraris.

~~~
int_handler
That's not a valid comparison. Different websites can and already charge
different amounts of money for their services. However, we do not have Premium
Luxury Highways where rich people can drive their Ferraris at 100 MPH while
regular plebs sit in traffic all day.

~~~
794CD01
Toll highways and carpool lanes basically are what you describe. Yes, people
hire strangers to sit in their car to use the carpool lane.

~~~
losteric
Toll highways are the exception, not the norm.

They are also a little different because they are part of the network - your
isp deals with peering with other ISPs, and some ISPs do charge more... That
price is reflected in what the consumer and end host pay for service.

------
drucik
I don't get why I see arguments like 'Oh, why would it matter, its not neutral
anyway' or 'it won't change anything' and no one tries to explain why allowing
an end of net neutrality would be bad. I would say the reason why net
neutrality is important is the following:

'On paper' the end of net neutrality will mean that big companies like google
or facebook (which, according to the website, do not support net neutrality
[why would they, right?]) will pay the ISPs for priority connection to their
service, and ISPs will be able to create 2 payment plans for their customers -
throttled network and high-speed, super unthrottled network for some premium
money. And some people are fine with that - 'it's their service' or 'i only
use email so i don't care' or other things like that.

But we are living in a capitalism world and things aren't that nice. If it is
not illegal to slow down connections 'just because', I bet in some (probably
short) time companies will start abusing it to protect their markets and their
profits. I'd expect under the table payments, so the company F or B will be
favored by a given ISP, and you can forget about startups trying to shake up
the giants.

~~~
treebeard901
Something that is not mentioned often is the combined effect of losing net
neutrality and the recent decision to let the ISPs sell your advertising data.

It's a two pronged attack on the internet. The ISPs data collection is going
to be more valuable than Facebook or Google simply because they have
everything and most importantly the ISPs can verify physical identities.

So internet ad revenue is being attacked from one angle and then they are
extorting money for packet delivery on the other.

~~~
mtgx
Another reason for all web developers to encrypt their websites.

~~~
losteric
That helps, but not entirely. The metadata of which sites you're visiting is
still valuable advertising information - especially when browsing through a
phone (geolocation).

------
d3sandoval
If your internet browser were a hearing aid, the information coming in would
be sound - whether that's your husband or wife asking you to do the dishes, a
ring at your doorbell, or even an advertisement on the radio.

now imagine if that hearing aid wasn't neutral in how it handled sound.
imagine if, when the advertisement played on the radio, it would be louder
than all other sounds around. at that time, you might miss an important call,
maybe your wife just said "I love you", or perhaps there's a fire in the other
room that you are now not aware of, because clorox wipes demanded your full
attention.

without net neutrality, we lose the ability to chose our own inputs. our
provider, our hearing aid, gets to choose for us. this could mean slower video
downloads for some, if they're using a competitor's streaming service for
instance, but it could also mean the loss of vital information that the
provider is not aware even exists.

By rejecting Title II recommendations, the FCC will introduce a whole new set
of prioritization problems, where consumers no longer have the ability to
decide which information is most important to them. and, if the provider goes
so far as to block access to some information entirely, which it very well
could without Title II protections, consumers would be at risk of missing
vital information - like a fire in the house or their husband saying "I love
you"

~~~
shawn-butler
Poor analogy.

Hearing aids do discriminate and are quite programmable to be adjusted to the
needs of the user usually by an audiologist who works with the patient to
understand what sounds they want to hear (and it changes over time)

~~~
nthcolumn
That may be but I thought it was an excellent analogy. I don't think he is
really concerned with imparting information about how hearing aids actually
work, it is just a device.

~~~
shawn-butler
Then you don't really understand how analogies work. And he isn't imparting
any useful information just talking points.

[https://literarydevices.net/analogy/](https://literarydevices.net/analogy/)

~~~
pc86
Wow there's very little need to be an asshole.

------
pedrocr
I fully support the net neutrality argument, it seems like a no brainer to me.
However I find it interesting that companies like Netflix and Amazon who
heavily differentiate in which devices you can have which video quality[1]
will then argue that ISPs shouldn't be able to differentiate which services
should have which transport quality.

The situation seems completely analogous to me. I'm paying my ISP for a
connection and it thinks it should be able to restrict which services I use on
top of it. I'm paying a content provider for some shows/movies and it thinks
it should be able to restrict which device I use to view them.

The argument for regulation also seems the same. ISPs don't have effective
competition because physical infrastructure is a natural monopoly. Content
providers also don't have effective competition because content access is also
a natural monopoly because of network effects (right now there are 2-3
relevant players _worldwide_ ).

[1] Both of them heavily restrict which devices can access 4K content. Both of
them make it very hard to have HD from non-standard devices. Netflix even
makes it hard to get 1080p on anything that isn't the absolute mainstream
(impossible on Linux for example).

~~~
colde
I think there is a huge difference here. First of all, the restriction on 4K
has a lot more to do with technical limitations than anything else. Very few
devices can actually handle 4K. While your laptops screen might be able to
handle it, your browser might not be able to decode h.265 at all, and might
not be fast enough to decode h.264 at 4K resolutions.

As someone who works on a video streaming service for similar type of content.
I see this policy as a help to consumers more than restrictions, simply
because they ensure they only allow 4K where they are fairly certain it works.

Secondly, if Netflix doesn't provide you the service you need, you can switch
to Amazon, or Hulu or any of a number of providers. If your ISP doesn't
provide you a service without restrictions, plenty of people have no recourse.
It isn't unusual for natural monopoly industries to be more heavily regulated.

~~~
pedrocr
>I think there is a huge difference here. First of all, the restriction on 4K
has a lot more to do with technical limitations than anything else. Very few
devices can actually handle 4K. While your laptops screen might be able to
handle it, your browser might not be able to decode h.265 at all, and might
not be fast enough to decode h.264 at 4K resolutions.

The exact same setup (Chrome on this Linux laptop) works just fine with 4K
youtube streams. Yet both Netflix and Amazon have restrictions for 4K where it
basically only works with closed set-top box type devices. There's no
reasonable technical motivation for the restriction.

>Secondly, if Netflix doesn't provide you the service you need, you can switch
to Amazon, or Hulu or any of a number of providers.

There isn't "any number of providers". For relevant content my two options
right now are Netflix and Prime Video, there is no third.

>If your ISP doesn't provide you a service without restrictions, plenty of
people have no recourse. It isn't unusual for natural monopoly industries to
be more heavily regulated.

While I only have 2 choices, and those are the same two worldwide, I easily
have 3 good ISP choices and those are local to each market, so worldwide there
are hundreds or thousands. That's exactly my point. Worldwide the neutrality
in content access is probably more important as it is a _much_ more
consolidated industry.

~~~
twunde
Can I ask where you live that you have 3! good ISP choices?

~~~
pedrocr
I'm in Portugal but it's probably common throughout Europe. In urban areas
having at least 2 and often 3 providers that can give you a reasonably priced
50 or 100Mb/s connection is common these days. Rural areas are harder but it's
actually improving a bit. I've recently been upgraded from a flakey 8Mb/s ADSL
with <1Mb/s upload to 100Mb/s symmetrical over fiber in an agricultural area
where previously there wasn't much competition between ISPs. I think the
combination of LTE offerings and cheaper fiber technology may have tipped the
scales making a simple fibre installation on existing telephone poles an
attractive proposition for the ISP.

~~~
Vendan
Yeah, in the US, you usually get a "choice" of: cable, dsl or dialup. Dsl
can't usually do better then 5/1 (anywhere I've lived, at least). And the
cable companies pretty much have split the country between themselves. Only 1
truly high speed isp is not a choice!

~~~
krallja
Where have you lived? I've had AT&T U-Verse (DSL) in Indianapolis, Chicago,
and Greensboro, with speeds of 18/1.5 and 40/6.

------
marcoperaza
John Oliver, College Humor, and some comedian are featured heavily. You're
going to need to do more than give liberal millennials something to feel smug
about, if you actually want to win this political battle.

I don't know where I stand on net neutrality, but this is certainly not going
to convince me.

~~~
wvenable
This single image is really all you need:

[http://www.wordstream.com/images/what-is-net-neutrality-
isp-...](http://www.wordstream.com/images/what-is-net-neutrality-isp-package-
diagram.jpg)

~~~
ericras
That image has existed for years now. But even without government Net
Neutrality regulation... it hasn't happened!

~~~
laughinghan
We do have Net Neutrality regulation, but it's under threat of repeal. That's
what this article and the gray bar at the top of Hacker News are about.

------
eriknstr
Very recently I bought an iPhone and a subscription that includes 4G service.
With this subscription I have 6 GB of traffic per month anywhere in EU, BUT
any traffic to Spotify is unmetered, and I don't know quite how to feel about
this. On one side it's great having unlimited access to all the music in
Spotify at any time and any place within the whole of EU, but on the other
side I worry that I am helping damage net neutrality.

Now Spotify, like Netflix and YouTube and a lot of other big streaming
services, almost certainly has edge servers placed topologically near to the
cell towers. I think this is probably ok. In order to provide streaming
services to a lot of people you are going to need lots of servers and
bandwidth no matter what, and when you do you might as well work with the ISPs
to reduce the cost of bandwidth as much as possible by placing out servers at
the edges. So IMO Spotify is in a different market entirely from anyone who
hasn't got millions or billions of dollars to spend, and if you have that
money it should be no more difficult for you to place edge servers at the ISPs
than it was for them.

But the unmetered bandwith deal might be harmful to net neutrality, maybe?

~~~
r3bl
Of course it's harmful!

We have a similar thing in our region (Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia). Mobile
operators give you access to a couple of services unmetered, and you spend
your data for other. As long as you can't choose the services you want to be
unmetered, I consider these packages anti-NN.

This works in your specific advantage since you've probably already been using
Spotify previously. If you were an Apple Music / Google Play Music subscriber,
and were forced to switch to Spotify, it wouldn't be ideal for you, would it?

I even took things a bit further. About two dozens of websites from the region
(so, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia) either shut down, or displayed a static message
about the harmfulness of such data packets today. It's kind of a small support
towards Battle for the Net and their action, but our goal was more to spread
awareness and start a story than to ask for a specific action (like sending
comments to the FCC).

It's not as big as Battle for the Net, it's mostly me and the websites I
already had a previous affiliation with (posted articles previously and things
like that), but I had $0 budget, a steady job + other obligations, and was
basically able to spend <2 hours per day convincing websites to shut down for
a day.

All in all, I consider my own project a success.

No point in sharing the link in an English forum, but in case there's someone
from the region interested in it, and in case you really feel helpless outside
of the US, here's an example of what you can do. This is not a local fight,
this is a global fight against the ISP fuckery:
[https://netneutralnost.com/](https://netneutralnost.com/)

~~~
dis-sys
I don't see how providing unmetered Spotify is "forcing" any Apple Music /
Google Play Music subscriber to switch. You can freely choose to ignore the
unmetered services and continue to use whatever other services you choose.

~~~
r3bl
Okay, let me put it this way:

You have three competitors: A, B, and C. They all pretty much accomplish the
same thing. Your ISP cooperates with A to give it a privileged position
(unmetered connection).

If you're a subscriber to B and C, you can't use your service of choice under
the same conditions as those who use the service A. Therefore, you can either
switch to A, or pay more data to use your preferred service (B or C).

As long as you can't choose the service that's going to be unmetered, Spotify
has a privileged position compared to its competitors for the users of that
ISP.

~~~
dis-sys
No, I disagree.

For your mentioned services B and C for which you are subscriber, you have
been paying for the data usage, you are free to use them in the future with
the exact same conditions/charges. If A enters some agreements with the
ISP/carrier you choose to give you unmetered access, you are not put into any
disadvantaged position, because you are not paying extra, you only get an
option to use A's free traffic or pay the current same amount for services
from B and C.

It should also be pointed out that services A, B and C you described above are
not "pretty much accomplish the same thing", A managed to reach this agreement
to foot a part of your traffic bill, B and C refused to somehow pay your
carrier to match the same level of service currently offered by A. There is a
huge difference here.

~~~
lucozade
I agree with you. From my POV this isn't a net neutrality issue. This is a
promotional offer.

It would be a net neutrality issue if the ISP blocked B and C as services so
you were forced to only use A if you wanted music streaming. Or similarly, if
music streaming services were penalised for bandwidth to the point of being
unusable.

For me, net neutrality isn't about not making one service better. I have no
particular issue with that. It's about not making services unusable.

~~~
zepolen
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog)
\- that's you mate.

------
_nedR
Where were the protests, blackouts, outrage and calls for action from these
companies (Google, Amazon, Netflix) when the Internet privacy bill was being
repealed? I'll tell you where they were - In line outside Comcast and Verizon,
eagerly waiting to buy our browsing histories.

We had their back the last time net neutrality issue came around (lets be
honest, their business depends on a neutral net). But they didn't do the same
for us. Screw them.

~~~
zer0tonin
Google probably knows even more about our browsing history than ISPs.

~~~
aembleton
Yep, they've got my desktop, work machine and mobile phone browsing history.
My ISP has just got my desktop, and my mobile phone when I'm at home.

------
franciscop
As a foreigner who deeply cares about the web, what can I do to help? For good
or for bad, USA decisions on the Internet spread widely around the world.
"Benign" example: the mess before UTF8, malign example: DRM and copyright
fight.

Note: Besides spreading the word; I do not know so many Americans

~~~
dsr_
Act locally. Do you live in Spain? Talk to your legislators about passing
strong net neutrality laws like the Netherlands. You have weak net neutrality
from the EU, but you can do better.

~~~
franciscop
Sorry I chuckled a bit when thinking about Spanish government listening at all
and then acting on some pro-people policy. The Spanish government have
relatives in the bigger corporations, it's called "puertas giratoria"
(revolving doors), just look at the lists:
[https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerta_giratoria_(pol%C3%ADtic...](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerta_giratoria_\(pol%C3%ADtica\))
. Current government has strong ties with the biggest ISP in Spain
(Telefónica/Movistar).

Luckily we have something different going on; it's legal to share 3rd party
content among people, so Copyright for individuals basically doesn't apply and
torrenting is pretty much legal (though you might be taken to court anyway).
But Net Neutrality as it depends on the ISP just _does not make sense_ , it's
not a matter of whether it's possible or not. Also, people have much more
urgent things to fight for; if someone wants to do something about the
Internet in Spain the fight is right now around copyright (we're trying not to
lose this due to US influence).

~~~
dsr_
Then by all means, fight for what is most urgent in your country.

------
superasn
This is great. I think the letter textarea should also be empty.

Instead there can be a small wizard with questions like "why is net neutrality
important to you", etc with a guideline on what to write.

This way each letter will be a differently expressed opinion instead of every
person sending the same thing and may create more impact.

~~~
thebaer
The EFF has a nice site set up exactly that way:
[https://dearfcc.org](https://dearfcc.org)

------
agentgt
I have often thought the government should provide an alternative option for
critical service just like they do with the mail and now health insurance
(ignoring current politics).

That is I think the net neutrality issue could be mitigated or non issue if
there were say a US ISP that operates anywhere where there is a telephones
poles and public towers analogous to the United States Postal service (USPS).

Just like the roads (postal service) the government pseudo owns the telephone
poles and airways (FTC) so they should be able to force their way in.

I realize this is not as free market as people would like but I would like to
see the USPS experiment attempted some more particularly in highly leverage-
able industries.

~~~
pedrocr
The problem with that is that the alternative will be a minimal solution, so
your choices will be crappy state service or non-neutral ISP service that's
good enough for you not to care but still sub-optimal. Here's what I believe
is a better regulatory solution that makes the free market work properly
without needing the state to build inneficiency by duplicating services that
the private sector is willing to supply:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7644339](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7644339)

~~~
tw04
>so your choices will be crappy state service

Says who? There are co-ops all across the country that run fiber to the home
and provide a far superior service than 99% of the ISPs out there today.

At the end of the day, the only _REAL_ solution is for government to own the
last mile. Run single-mode fiber to every household in the US, run that back
to a centralized pop and allow ISPs to attach to that pop to provide service.
The cost of last-mile is no longer a barrier to entry for new ISPs, people
will end up with more choice and better service, and we can stop having
ridiculous fights over access to utility poles that never should've had more
than one line strung in the first place.

Given that the government could run fiber when building new paved roads and it
wouldn't even be a rounding error... it seem ludicrous to me we aren't already
doing this.

~~~
pedrocr
Your suggestions solves a different problem, the lack of competition giving
you crappy (but potentially still net neutral) internet service. It only
solves the neutrality problem if enough people care to switch providers
because of it. Considering the general apathy towards that problem I wouldn't
bet on it. See my proposal for a market solution for that. Personally I think
we should do both to solve both problems.

------
melq
The form on this page requires you to submit your personal information for use
by third parties. I refreshed the page 3 times and saw 3 different notices:

"Fight for the Future willcontact you about future campaigns." "Demand
Progress willcontact you about future campaigns." "FreePress willcontact you
about future campaigns."

No opt out, no thank you.

~~~
tibetsprague
You can actually opt out through the widget which will pop up if you go here:
[https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/](https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/)

------
webXL
It saddens me to see HN jump on the bandwagon of an anti-free-market campaign
such as this. Words such as "battle" and "fight" have no place when coming up
with solutions to problems in a market economy. I know government and its
history of cronyism are a big part of the problem, but to think that more
regulation will make everything better is woefully misguided. How did it come
to pass that there's so little trust and understanding in the system of
voluntary, peaceful, free trade that has produced virtually all of the wealth
we see around us? Sure there are tons of problems, but I'm sure you'll agree
that they pale in comparison to those of state-run economies.

The mistrust of large corporations is definitely warranted. McDonald's doesn't
give a rat's ass about your health as long as you're healthy _and happy_
enough keep coming back. And the reason why people come back is because
McDonald's _knows_ they have options; enough so that we all have it pretty
good dietary-wise. Consumers and suppliers don't need to organize protests and
boycotts of fast-food chains. Likewise, I don't think the major ISPs give a
rat's ass about our choice/speed of content, so long as we're _happy enough_
to not jump to another provider. As with food vendors, more choice, not more
regulation, is the answer. The market should determine what it wants; not
bureaucrats under the influence of large corporations.

~~~
caseydurfee
Having regulations doesn't turn this country into a "state-run economy". Is
America currently a state-run economy because of the existence of the FDA, the
USDA, etc? What are these countries you believe have no regulations, and have
"produced virtually all the wealth we see around us"?

"so little trust and understanding"

Assuming smugly that people who disagree with you don't understand how
capitalism works is childish and totally out of line.

In general, please try to make your point in a way that doesn't assume people
who disagree with you are ignorant or stupid. Nobody here is saying that
regulation makes everything better. It's a strawman.

------
exabrial
Hey guys,

The Trump administration expressed interest in having the FTC regulate ISPs.
Does it really matter who enforces net neutrality as long as we have it?

It's not secret that ISPs have local monopolies, and that's an area of
expertise the FTC has successfully regulated in the past (look at how the Gas
station economy works).

It's really time to move past the 2016 election and put petty political
arguments aside. We're failing because we're divided. I beg everyone to please
stop being smug, and push collaboration with the powers that be rather than
confrontation.

~~~
anigbrowl
Concerns that seem petty to you seem of existential importance to others.
Surely you have noticed that there's a trust deficit in the political economy
of late. Also, I don't agree with your implicit point that political activity
should be limited to participation in elections, especially given the way a
good part of the population is structurally barred from doing so.

------
kuon
I'm fully in favor of net neutrality, but I am not against premium plans for
some content.

For example let's say I have a 50/20Mb internet. I should be able to browse
the entire internet at that speed. But, if I want to pay extra to have like
100Mb with QoS only from netflix, I am not against this kind of service.

~~~
Paul-ish
Whats to prevent ISPs from starving out the whole internet package to force
people into buying additions?

~~~
cheald
What's the prevent ISPs from reducing their bandwidth offerings across the
board to force people into buying more?

My local ISP could triple their prices or slash their bandwidth offerings and
I'd have no choice but to pay it or not have internet. They could - very
neutrally - extract very large amounts of money from me because of how
valuable internet access is to me. That isn't a neutrality issue, that's a
lack-of-alternatives issue, and before Title II is mentioned, the FCC
reclassification _explicitly_ specifies that the rate regulation clauses of
Title II are subject to forbearance (ie, not applicable).

------
bluesign
Why not make barrier of entry easy for other/new ISPs by forcing them to share
infrastructure for a fee, and then allow them to tier/price as much as they
want?

~~~
tertius
Public ownership is where this ends up at.

~~~
bluesign
Actually with good regulations, there is not much need for public ownership
(although it is the ideal in theory)

~~~
tertius
Public ownership leads to slow or no innovation. Please let this not happen
with data infrastructure.

I would argue that Congress needs to act, FCC shouldn't be in this.

------
redm
I see everyone framing this conversation around Comcast charging customers to
access websites. I feel that's just a talking point, not the real meat of the
issue.

Regarding Backbones:

If I recall correctly, this originally came about over a peering dispute
between Level 3's network and Netflix. The internet backbones work on
settlement-free or paid to peer. When there is an imbalance, the party with
the imbalance pays. When there is the balance, no one pays. This system has
worked well for a very long time.

Regarding Personal Internet Access:

Consumer Internet connections are overbooked, meaning you may have the 100Mb
link to the ISP but the ISP doesn't have the capacity for all users to use
100Mb at the same time. In short, they aren't designed for all users to be
using high capacity at the same time. These networks expect users using bursts
of capacity. This is why tech like BitTorrent has been an issue too.

There is a fundamental shift occurring where users are consuming far more
network capacity per user because of technology like Netflix. I know I'm
streaming 4k Netflix :D

------
elbrodeur
Hey everyone! My name is Aaron and I'm on the team that helped put together
some of the digital tools that are making this day of action possible. If you
find any issues please let us know here or here:
[https://github.com/fightforthefuture/battleforthenet](https://github.com/fightforthefuture/battleforthenet)

------
Pigo
It's very disheartening that this is a battle that doesn't seem to end. They
are just going to keep bringing proposals in hopes that one time there won't
be enough noise to scare politicians, or worse the politicians are already in
pocket just waiting for the opposition level to be at a minimum. The
inevitability vibe is growing.

------
sexydefinesher
*the American internet

Meanwhile the EU already has laws for Net Neutrality (though zero-rating is
still allowed).

------
polskibus
That's a great illustration of what happens when you let the market be owned
by only several entities. Long time ago, there were more, with time
centralization happened and now you have to bow to the survivors.

Similar situation but at an earlier stage can be observed on the Cloud horizon
- see Google, AMZN, MS, and maybe FB. They own so much traffic, mindshare and
sales power, in theory they are not monopolies, but together their policies
and trends they generate shape the internet world.

I'm not saying this current situation with Verizon et al is OK, just saying
that if you intend to fix it, consider addressing the next centralization that
is still happening.

------
mnm1
Are Google, FB, Amazon, and others actually supporting this and if so, how? I
don't see anything on their sites about this. As far as I'm concerned, they're
not doing anything to support this. And of course, why would they?

~~~
tibetsprague
Amazon does have a Net Neutrality info box on their home page, but not super
prominent. Google and Facebook say they are supporting but I haven't seen much
from them.

~~~
mnm1
Really? I don't see it. Neither 'net' nor 'neutrality' are words on their home
page. There isn't a graphic about it. There is nothing about it. (I'm looking
at the logged out page.)

------
_eht
All I can find are arguments for neutrality, it seems like a very vocal crowd
full of businesses who currently make a lot of money from people on the
internet (reddit, Facebook, et al).

Anyone want to share resources or their pro priority internet stance?

~~~
newloop
I can't really say I'm against net neutrality, but like many Internet issues I
think the debate is sloppy and full of assumptions. I think there are at least
a few arguments against net neutrality.

1\. The Internet isn't neutral to being with. To get connected to the Internet
an ISP, especially a smaller one, will have to buy transit. But can also make
peering agreements with other, often local, ISPs and large services like
Google or Facebook. In reality, depending how things are connected, your
connection speed will vary regardless based on business decisions. Net
neutrality leaves those decisions up to, other, big players like large (tier
1) ISPs, cloud providers and big services instead of consumer ISPs.

2\. The real problem isn't net neutrality, but competition between consumer
ISPs. Net neutrality restricts the business model for ISPs even when there
competition. Many consumers might actually just want news, social media,
software updates, some streaming services and limited access to the open
Internet. Yet, they are forced to pay for the rest of the traffic and
infrastructure.

3\. I used be a nice idea that the Internet was open and that most nodes where
equal, but that isn't really the case anymore. There's a number big players
with huge influence over Internet technology that makes a lot of money. While
consumers pay just to access the Internet, don't get static ip addresses and
limited upstream traffic. Internet protocols have not kept up with reality and
hosting your own services are challenging with the prevalence of ddos, spam,
ransomware, exploits etc. You can argue that the big services that makes a lot
of money should today be, or at least have the possibility to be, paying more.
Especially since they enjoy economy of scale.

~~~
Magnets
>Many consumers might actually just want news, social media, software updates,
some streaming services and limited access to the open Internet. Yet, they are
forced to pay for the rest of the traffic and infrastructure.

But it's a level playing field because all ISPs face the same problem.

~~~
newloop
While I wouldn't necessarily say that it's a level playing field (as large
networks have huge advantages), this particular issue is more about consumer
choice. That you can't, essentially, buy a laptop without Windows isn't a
problem for laptop manufacturers, but it is for consumers.

------
pycal
There's truth found in Ajit's comment, that Americans' internet infrastructure
just isn't as good as other countries. Is that because of the regulatory
climate? The ISPs receive a lease on the public spectrum; are they expected to
meet a minimum service level of quality?

According to this source, the US rates low in many categories of internet
access i.e. % of people over 4mbit, and average bandwidth:

[https://www.fastmetrics.com/internet-connection-speed-by-
cou...](https://www.fastmetrics.com/internet-connection-speed-by-country.php)

~~~
yellowapple
There are two possible explanations of which I can think:

\- The United States is a large country in terms of geographic area, which
makes it harder to deploy and maintain high-speed networks unless you're
already sitting on top of a major fiber backbone (and even then).

\- The ISPs have no reason to improve things, since their local near-monopoly
statuses means that customers have no choice but to pay for slow speeds. This
is especially severe in rural areas. There are options like satellite and
cellular, but both are heavily affected by local geography, and the former has
pretty significant latency issues (making it less-than-ideal for, say, VoIP)
while also being pretty expensive (satellites ain't cheap).

------
callinyouin
I hope I'm not alone in saying that if we lose net neutrality I'll be looking
to help organize and set up a locally owned/operated ISP in my area.

------
sergiotapia
"Net neutrality" sounds good but it's just more and more laws to regulate and
censor the internet via the FCC.

~~~
peterhadlaw
It's also much easier to switch ISPs than governments

------
leesalminen
I'm currently unable to submit the form on
[https://www.battleforthenet.com/](https://www.battleforthenet.com/).

[https://queue.fightforthefuture.org/action](https://queue.fightforthefuture.org/action)
is returning HTTP 500.

~~~
tibetsprague
Hey I'm one of the developers, we've been working hard to keep it up but have
had a few short outages due to crazy volume. It's working now!

~~~
leesalminen
Thanks! I was able to submit.

------
AndyMcConachie
Just to be clear, this has nothing to do with the Internet, and everything to
do with the USA. Most Internet users can't be affected by stupid actions of
the FCC.

I guess I'm just a little annoyed that Americans think their Internet
experience somehow represents 'the' Internet experience.

~~~
thirdsun
In my opinion it's rather naive to think that the development in the US won't
have any effect on the internet for global users.

The user "bicubic" expressed it very well in another comment [1] in this
discussion, so let me just repeat that:

> American internet has a very strong and direct impact on 'international'
> internet. Aside from the fact that a large fraction of international traffic
> passes through American switches or servers, America is a policy leader to
> many other nations - both passively and actively. Passively by signalling to
> telcos in other nations that they could probably attempt the same thing, and
> actively by forcing some of these provisions as part and parcel of trade
> agreements. You just can't pretend that the impact these decisions will be
> isolated to the US.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14751274](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14751274)

~~~
rocky1138
As John Gilmore said "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes
around it." If America decides to fuck up their portion of the Internet, we
will move those important services off-shore and build links around it. It
won't be broken for long.

~~~
AndyMcConachie
Correct. This NN argument is essentially about whether or not the future US
economy wants to shoot itself in the head or not.

------
mbonzo
Ah, seems like this battle is just a part of the bigger war that is the ugly
side of capitalism. The top companies that Millennials are raving about are
threatening old companies, and as a result those old companies are making a
pact to bring their rivals down.

Examples include Airbnb; the business is now being banned by cities like New
York city, New Orleans, Santa Monica and countless others. Another is Uber;
it's banned in Texas, Alaska, Oregon (except Portland), and more. Now it's our
beloved, favorite websites that are being targeted by Internet Providers.

Who do you think will win this war?

------
steve_taylor
This website gives me the impression that this is the latest cause that the
left has repurposed as something they can beat us over the head with. The
video thumbnails look like a gallery of the who's who of the left. This is
disappointing, because this is an issue for all of us. People are sick and
tired of the left beating them over the head with various causes and tend to
rebel against them regardless of their merit. We shouldn't lose our internet
freedoms over a petty culture war that has nothing to do with this.

------
scott_s
I feel like this site is missing context - what recent events have caused all
of these organizations to protest? I found this NY Times article gave me a
better idea of this context: "F.C.C. Chairman Pushes Sweeping Changes to Net
Neutrality Rules", [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/technology/net-
neutrality...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/technology/net-
neutrality.html)

------
untangle
I wouldn't care so much about net neutrality if there was open access to the
last-mile conduit for broadband to my house. But there isn't. Comcast owns the
coax and there is no fiber here (even though I live in the heart of Silicon
Valley).

Comcast is conflicted on topics from content to voice service. So neutering
net neutrality is tantamount to deregulating a monopoly. That doesn't sound
smart to me.

------
forgottenpass
Let me see if I have this right. The complaint against ISPs goes like this:

They established themselves as dominant middlemen and want to leverage that
position to enable new revenue streams by putting their nose where it doesn't
belong.

I'd have much more sympathy for belly-aching tech companies if they weren't
all doing (or trying to do) the same goddamn thing.

------
joekrill
Is this form broken for anyone else? I'm getting CORS errors when it tries to
submit to
[https://queue.fightforthefuture.org/action](https://queue.fightforthefuture.org/action).
That seems like a pretty big blunder, so I'm guessing maybe the site is just
under heavy load?

~~~
jmknoll
Yeah, broken for me as well. Start of the workday on the East Coast and a lot
of people submitting forms? I hope that's the case at least.

~~~
tibetsprague
One of the developers here, sorry about that, it should be fixed now! The good
news is we are getting swamped :)

------
web007
I can't help but feel like the site would be more effective if they removed
[https://www.battleforthenet.com/how-we-
won/](https://www.battleforthenet.com/how-we-won/) \- "we" didn't win, we just
got a short reprieve from losing.

------
coryfklein
Is anybody else fatigued of this "battle"? I have historically spent time and
effort supporting net neutrality, but it seems to rear its head again every 6
months.

It only seems inevitable now that these big-budget companies with great
incentive will get their way.

------
ShirsenduK
In my hometown, Darjeeling (India), Internet has been blocked since June 17,
2017 by the government to censor the citizens of the area. Media doesn't cover
us well as its a small town. How do we Battle for the Internet? How can we
drum up support?

~~~
anigbrowl
An article detailing the issue would be very interesting. I found this one but
don't know the issue as well as I'd like. If you wanted to suggest some better
ones via gmail, I would be happy to try to raise awareness though my own
social media network, as this is the sort of thing that would be of interest
to many of my friends.

It sounds as if you're from Darjeeling rather than based there now (since you
obviously have internet access). I wonder what obstacles besides the obvious
ones of poverty would prevent the creation of informal peer-based networking.
It seems clear to me that networking needs to be fractal in order to function
as an instrument of general liberation/empowerment, vs high-volume hierarchies
that can be switched off as in your example.

Please do follow up with me on this. I can't devote a _lot_ of time to it but
you raise a critically important question that I want to include in my
political calculus going forward.

~~~
ShirsenduK
Here is an article from couple of days back.
[https://scroll.in/latest/843200/home-minister-rajnath-
singh-...](https://scroll.in/latest/843200/home-minister-rajnath-singh-
assures-sikkim-that-darjeeling-protests-will-not-affect-their-security) \-
Near the end there is a section about Darjeeling.

I live in Darjeeling but at the foothills where the Internet hasn't been
blocked. I have friends who have been suffering.

Banks can't function without internet.

Doctors cannot look up medicines without the internet.

Its a mess.

People are not tech savvy enough to use FireChat.

We have free voice calls on mobile(3G/4G). Where does one start to build a
data on voice app?

Thank you for the support! Please spread the word :)

~~~
anigbrowl
Thanks for your prompt feedback, I will share this information and I hope it
contributes something to to your situation. I'm Irish and have always had a
lot of respect for the Gorkha people because their historical situation is
easy to identify with. I definitely encourage you to write up a short article
of your own on this since you have first-hand experience, perhaps for
submission tomorrow or friday (around this same time of day or a little
earlier for best exposure).

This seems like a textbook case of a problem that should be easily soluble by
technical means but which is blocked by other factors. It's strange and
unfortunate that Firechat doesn't work on desktop (allowing easy spread by USB
keys), and also (AFAIK) that it's not practical to pper up to install it.

I have no idea about how to build a data-on-voice app (which would have the
same bootstrapping problems as firechat), but if you have a printer and want
to do some organizing you could establish phone trees with some friends, and
then get people to travel by bus to your neighborhood, install firechat, and
begin (slowly) lighting up the dark zone, maybe?

[http://www.intermountainpro.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/01/P...](http://www.intermountainpro.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/01/Phonetree-IP.pdf)

Please do submit an article on this. I think it's an important example of a
collective action problem of the sort that people int he west have partly
forgotten how to deal with.

------
gricardo99
Perhaps the battle is already being lost.

Anyone else getting this error trying to send a letter from the site?

"! There was an error submitting the form, please try again"

[http://imgur.com/a/V60gh](http://imgur.com/a/V60gh)

------
Flemlord
reddit (US Alexa rank = 4) is showing a popup to all users that sends them to
www.battleforthenet.com. It is about time a major player started leveraging
their platform. Why aren't Google, HN, etc. doing this too?

~~~
and0
Funny you should say, HN just updated for it.

------
mvanveen
Please also check out and share the video recording flow we've built at
[https://video.battleforthenet.com](https://video.battleforthenet.com)

------
acjohnson55
I assume this is why the title bar has changed? Curious, since there doesn't
seem to be a definitive statement about that.

------
stephenitis
Not surprising... Yahoo.com which was bought by Verizon has no mention of net
neutrality.

HEADLINE: Kim Kardashian Goes Braless in Tank Top With Gym Shorts and Heels:
See the Unusual Look!

Trending Now 1\. Chris Hemsworth 2. Wiz Khalifa 3. John McCain 4. Joanna Krupa
5. Sean Hannity 6. Universal Studios 7. McGregor suit 8. Maps 9. Loan Depot
10. Justin Bourne

Imagine if this was the fastest homepage for millions of Verizon customers.
_head explodes_

edit. They are at least highlighting the FBI Director hearing on the homepage.
shrug.

------
elorant
Is there anything we who don't live in US can do for you guys? I mean beyond
spreading the word.

------
dec0dedab0de
I wish ARIN, and IANA would just blacklist any companies that actively work
against net neutrality.

------
aabbcc1241
so much unhappy talks about the internet recently, I wonder why there isn't
startup doing network service on top of NDN and IPFS for a better network

------
tboyd47
Tried submitting the form without a phone number, got an error.

------
wjdp
Is there anything those outside the US can do?

------
sharemywin
I'm all about the net neutrality.

But while we're at it how about some hardware neutrality.

And some data portability and control over who sees my information.

And maybe an API neutrality.

And how about letting the municipalities offer free wifi.

------
OJFord
Slightly tangentially, it seems that today the only way to get to get to the
front page, other than the 'back' button if applicable, is to edit the URL?

------
dep_b
Interestingly all this kind of stuff seems to happen in the 1984th year since
Jesus died.

------
shortnamed
love the blatant americentrism in the site:

"This is a battle for the Internet's future." \- just American internet's
future

"Team Cable want to control & tax the Internet" \- they will be able to
control the global system in which the US is just a part of?

"If we lose net neutrality, the Internet will never be the same" \- American
internet, others will be fine

~~~
PrefixKitten
Do you intend not to use US websites anymore?

~~~
eeZah7Ux
You, and others, are missing the point: the americentrism is in assuming that
the website readers are from US, not about the impact on US trends on the rest
of the world.

~~~
r3bl
Well, I'm outside of the US, and needed to turn on a VPN to just be able to
see the impact of the Battle for the Net action. Most of the websites had some
sort of geographical restrictions on who to show the message to.

------
dis-sys
Last time when I checked, there are 730 million Chinese users who mostly don't
use _any_ US Internet services, their switches and servers are made/operated
in China mostly by Huawei and ZTE. It is also laughable to believe that US
domestic policies are going to affect Chinese decision making.

Policy leader? Not after we Chinese declared independence from the monopoly of
your US "lead" on Internet.

~~~
kbart
"Independence"? It definitely looks more like "isolation".

~~~
dis-sys
Why Americans can't stop its own isolation and start learning how to use
Alipay/WeChat?

~~~
JohnTHaller
There's the fact that anything hosted within China can be altered by the great
firewall of China for nefarious purposes by the Chinese government. Like when
the Chinese government used the great firewall to slip malware into the Baidu
analytics javascript for every visitor outside of China to every website that
used Baidu whether located inside or outside of China to stage a DDoS attack
on github. All because github dared to host open source projects that let
mainland Chinese read the New York Times uncensored. Given documented
activities like this, is it possible to trust anything that passes through the
great firewall of China?

~~~
dis-sys
"is it possible to trust anything that passes through the great firewall of
China?"?

You do realize that your comments above just past through GFW and I am reading
it on the other side of the GFW? To answer your question, no, I don't trust
what you said.

~~~
JohnTHaller
You don't have to 'trust' my comment. China using the great firewall to infect
Baidu javascript to attack github is a well-documented fact. You can even view
the infected Baidu javascript designed to attack GreatFire and cn-nytimes
projects on github archived on github itself here:
[https://github.com/BenMQ/cbjs-baidu-github-
attack](https://github.com/BenMQ/cbjs-baidu-github-attack)

Happily the Chinese government let the Baidu javascript work as intended for
Chinese users, it was only for international users that they converted it into
malware. Bottom line, don't load any javascript file hosted in mainland China.

If the the US government forced all traffic through a single firewall and used
said firewall to infect Google Analytics javascript files on third party
websites to force international users to unwittingly engage in a DDoS against
a Chinese site that was hosting open source code designed to allow US citizens
to get around the 'great US firewall', I'd be advising folks against trusting
Google Analytics and US-hosted javascript the way I advise them against
trusting Baidu analytics and China-hosted javascript now.

------
throwaway2048
strange most of the top level comments are arguing against either net
neutrality, or this campaign.

On a site that is otherwise extremely strongly for net neutrality.

Nothing suspicious about that...

~~~
dang
Please don't insinuate astroturfing or shillage on HN. The overwhelming
majority of the time, people just have opposing views. Meanwhile such
insinuations damage the community.

Readers are far too quick to misinterpret disagreement as sinister bad faith,
presumably because we all think our own view is so obvious that only someone
dishonest could disagree. In reality, it's just that the world has a lot of
things in it.

~~~
throwaway2048
astroturfing about these issues IS real, its naive to stick your head in the
sand about it.

I mean look at stuff like this

[https://www.fiverr.com/gigs/reddit](https://www.fiverr.com/gigs/reddit)

[http://www.hack-pr.com/library/how-we-hacked-reddit-to-
gener...](http://www.hack-pr.com/library/how-we-hacked-reddit-to-
generate-5-million-media-impressions-in-3-days)

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/10/15610744/anti-net-
neutral...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/10/15610744/anti-net-neutrality-
fake-comments-identities)

This is the reality, PR firms are on overdrive on social media sites about
issues that are politically sensitive. Its irresponsible NOT to question the
motives of commenters.

I mean surely as an HN moderator you have seen more than a few shady
situations.

HN is extremely politically influential in the tech sphere, pg has said
himself that its the subject of campaigns like this.

we can not afford to ignore this problem.

~~~
dang
I'm aware of that, having personally spent countless hours combating it, and
dare say I know more about it than most people here. But the situation is much
worse than you describe, because in addition to the real problem of some
people trying to manipulate HN, we have the real problem of people destroying
the community by insinuating astroturfing whenever they see something they
don't like.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20two%20problems%20ast...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20two%20problems%20astroturfing&sort=byDate&prefix=true&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

~~~
throwaway2048
I agree that its poisonous and it destroys discourse. But what else are we
supposed to do? Pretend such things are honest discourse, and be manipulated
by them? Pretending that the widespread existence of paid shilling isn't
reality is at least as toxicly corrosive to honest discourse that moves things
forward.

Both choices suck, but what the hell are we supposed to do exactly? Let these
clowns win?

~~~
dang
Actually the solution is simple: email your concerns about specific cases to
hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into them, but don't make posts to HN
insinuating astroturfing or shillage unless you have evidence, and remember
that someone happening to hold a different view than you doesn't count as
evidence. If we all follow that approach I'm pretty sure the community will be
ok. Believe me, we take great pleasure on behalf of the community in clubbing
actual manipulation when we find it.

The problem with what you're saying above is that you don't have any way to
distinguish "such things" from what merely look like "such things". There are
many more of the latter, and there are plenty of HN users who feel the same
way as you but who see a completely different set of posts as "such things".
If we take the union of all those sets it amounts to most of what gets posted
to HN. Just imagine everybody with such perceptions doing a j'accuse on
everybody else with such perceptions; this would destroy the community much
more quickly than astroturfing ever could. So we all have to be disciplined
about this—vigilant, sure, but also disciplined in how we react to what we
think we see. I like a thing that Rilke said: Doubt, but turn your doubt also
upon itself.

~~~
68c12c16
It is the doubt and suspicion thus generated that are really toxic...as it
takes one a long time and non-trivial effort in order to concretely verify any
evidence of paid shilling -- and before that, for all this long time, we have
to doubt and suspect, which would soon make it quite discouraging to have any
interesting discussion...

We could send emails to hn@ycombinator.com , but the thing is that I don't
know how long it would take for us to get any feedback -- as presumably, this
is largely a manual investigation on the mod's part; and I don't know how many
such emails a mod would receive in a day...and during all this time of waiting
for feedback or a possible action, a regular user engaging in a discussion
might have to bear all the attacks and gaslighting -- and sometimes the
attacker(s) could be quite insidious...

For instance, I used to have another new account, which had very little karma
points...And after making a few comments for the first time, one of which
contained some discussion about the censorship by the Chinese government (
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14742211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14742211)
) -- then two of my other comments (relatively neutral and containing nothing
about Chinese government or so), which I did not think were aggressive or
factually erroneous, soon had been downvoted multiple times. As a result, my
karma points dropped sharply, and my account was soon forbidden by the system
to make any new comment for some time (basically, it had been DoS'ed)...

I still do not know at this time if there was any intentional manipulation
behind that case...

Well, I could have reported the incident, as a possible malicious DoS attack
on my account, to the mod -- but I was also banned by the system at the time
and could not continue with the discussion for a while...Or I could register
another new account...The thing is, it is just getting quite uninteresting and
discouraging for people who want to have some real discussion to stay on...

I have to say that I don't know a better solution, as in such similar
situations, than sending complaints to the mod...but I just feel that perhaps
this solution is still not enough to fix the whole problem...

======================

Edit 1:

I just looked it up and found that _gaslighting_ is indeed an attack vector:

    
    
      a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt 
      in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping 
      to make targets question their own memory, perception, 
      and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, 
      contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize 
      the target and delegitimize the target's belief.
    

(as defined in
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting))

