
Americans from Both Political Parties Overwhelmingly Support Net Neutrality - joeyespo
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/06/06/new-mozilla-poll-americans-political-parties-overwhelmingly-support-net-neutrality/
======
throwawayjava
The problem with this sort of poll is that rhetoric, for a huge number of
voters, has a much greater impact than facts about issues. Even and especially
if they aren't aware this is the case.

This poll reminds me of those ACA polls which concluded overwhelming support
by focusing on particular aspects of the Act instead of just coming right out
an asking "Obamacare: repeal or keep?" with no preface.

If you truly want to gauge public opinion _as it will matter in election
years_ \-- which is pretty much the only way it matters -- you shouldn't
define net neutrality and you definitely shouldn't ask a sequence of
potentially priming questions. Instead, you should just ask: "Do you support
Net Neutrality?" _and nothing else!_

Of course, the results of this survey are still important. But they might not
be predictive of how the average person _really feels_ when asked, over a
beer, whether we should "keep internet Obamacare" or "let Comcast censor our
speech"

~~~
dsp1234
_" Obamacare: repeal or keep?" with no preface._

Unfortunately, it's not that easy, because if you change Obamacare to the
Affordable Care Act, the answer changes.

[http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/editorial...](http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/editorialfiles/2013/09/26/FI10863c-release%209-25-13.pdf)

Search "11a"

~~~
danjoc
It works on hacker news too:

>Facebook should not be allowed to...

"It is Facebook's business! Don't like it? Go start your own!"

>Comcast should not be allowed to...

"Right on! Stick it to those price gouging monopolists!"

~~~
RickS
Customers have ample alternatives to facebook, and avoidance of that entire
product category is not debilitating. Neither are true of comcast's internet
services.

~~~
metaphorm
what is an alternative to facebook (besides abstention, which I agree is
viable in this product category)? the network effect is overwhelmingly strong.

~~~
derefr
Depends on how you define the product category. What teenagers used Facebook
for 10 years ago, they use Snapchat for today. But what _adults_ used Facebook
for 10 years ago, adults still use Facebook for today.

~~~
Cyph0n
Snapchat didn't exist 10 years ago, so I don't see your point.

~~~
derefr
I was answering the parent's question: if by "alternative to Facebook" you
mean that you want the thing that made teenagers use Facebook in 2007, then
the answer is that Snapchat is a viable Facebook... somehow. (I'm not too
clear on how exactly myself, but it seems to work for them.)

------
19guid
I oppose net neutrality regulation. In principle, I don't think there's
anything wrong with an ISP prioritizing certain kinds of traffic over others,
so long as it does not have an anti-competitive effect.

For example, I don't see how Netflix paying Comcast to zero-rate Netflix
traffic is fundamentally different from Amazon contracting with mail carriers
to subsidize the cost of shipping for Amazon purchases, or even -- to use an
example another commenter made -- an appliance manufacturer contracting with
electrical utilities to subsidize the cost of electricity used by their
appliances. So long as Comcast makes its zero-rating program available to all
content providers -- including their own -- on reasonable and non-
discriminatory terms, I don't think there are any competition issues.

I've heard people argue that zero-rating makes it harder for smaller content
providers to compete, since they won't have the resources to subsidize their
customers' traffic. As I said in another comment, that's just the nature of
business. Being big affords you certain advantages, like economies of scale.
This makes it easier to compete on price. Smaller companies have to compete in
other ways.

In my view, the real problem with the telecom industry in the United States is
a lack of competition [0], a problem caused at least in part by municipal [1]
and state [2] governments. With more competition, net neutrality would be a
non-issue. Consumers would just stop using ISPs that unfairly discriminate
between traffic.

[0] [http://www.nationalreview.com/article/410353/net-
neutrality-...](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/410353/net-neutrality-
already-obsolete-michael-hendrix)

[1] [https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-
ju...](https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-just-cable-
companies-and-blame-local-government-for-dismal-broadband-competition/)

[2] [http://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-
roadblock...](http://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks-
by-state/)

~~~
croon
> For example, I don't see how Netflix paying Comcast to zero-rate Netflix
> traffic is fundamentally different from Amazon contracting with mail
> carriers to subsidize the cost of shipping for Amazon purchases

Two things:

1) Net neutrality is about not slowing down transit of all other packages
(that don't get paid extra for)

2) Your comparison is flawed. Comcast isn't the mail carrier, Comcast is the
(only) road. If Amazon makes a deal with a CDN (if they didn't have their own)
or any other middle-man service on the net, that isn't an issue, nor related
to net neutrality at all.

~~~
paulddraper
(1) Sure. Pay more for mail and it goes faster. Amazon helps gets that
increase in speed subsidized.

(2) Generally incorrect.

~~~
croon
1) First off, the comparison like I said is flawed, but just to play ball:
Other peoples mail doesn't get slowed by you paying for premium shipping.

2) Do you care to expand on that with reasoning or logic?

~~~
paulddraper
(1) They most certainly are slowed down. Mail services have limited bandwidth
(e.g. Christmas), and higher priority package can and do displace low priority
ones.

(2) Usually ISPs don't have a monopoly.

~~~
croon
1) Which is either where the comparison gets accurate to bandwidth without net
neutrality, or breaks as a comparison with net neutrality, because then it's
FIFO regardless of which service/delivery network.

2) When you say usually, do you mean globally or in the US where we're
discussing net neutrality? Because there most certainly usually is a local
monopoly.

~~~
paulddraper
There most certainly is not.

100% of all developed US census blocks have at least two broadband providers.

[https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-344499A1.p...](https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-344499A1.pdf)

~~~
croon
> There most certainly is not.

> 100% of all developed US census blocks have at least two broadband
> providers.

That's false going by your own source. Broadband requires 25Mbps/3Mbps [1]
(even if I personally think even that's low), and 58% percent of _developed_
census blocks lack choice there, of which 21% can't even get it.

The truth remains that if you want broadband, you're in a majority of cases
locked to a local monopoly. This is what net neutrality fixes. Until local
monopolies can be dealt with at least.

[1] [https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/broadband-
progr...](https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/broadband-progress-
reports/2015-broadband-progress-report)

~~~
paulddraper
Hm, looks like the definition of high speed internet changed in 2015. (Since
we need all that bandwidth to download crap ads.)

In any case, most census districts with high-speed internet have multiple
providers.

~~~
croon
> In any case, most census districts with high-speed internet have multiple
> providers.

Nice cherry picking. So screw those other 37% that live under ISP monopolies?

Are you still denying that local monopolies is a real problem?

~~~
ryanwaggoner
They should have updated the speeds considered "broadband" but by definition,
you'll always have a portion of the population lagging behind any standard
that's defined as "what 80% of the population had access to"

~~~
croon
Avoided the question.

------
cubano
Who, when asked, wouldn't support "Net Neutrality?"

It _sounds_ like something everyone should be for.."hey, Net Neutrality hell
yeah and we shouldn't club baby seals either!"

As always, its the policies that really matter...having a catchy must-be-for-
it-for-virtue-signaling moniker hardly explains what going on in the back
rooms where the legislation is being written.

It's like the "Affordable Care Act"...who doesn't want affordable-fucking-
care?

We are all currently learning, however, that this "care" is hardly that and
"affordable" is nowhere in sight.

~~~
int_19h
> It's like the "Affordable Care Act"...who doesn't want affordable-fucking-
> care? We are all currently learning, however, that this "care" is hardly
> that and "affordable" is nowhere in sight

The polls show the opposite of what you're claiming, though. If they ask
people whether they support ACA by name, the result is lower than when they
ask whether they support specific provisions and programs that together add up
to ACA.

~~~
cubano
Probably because "ACA" triggers the words "Obamacare" in most peoples minds,
right?

~~~
int_19h
Probably because ACA/Obamacare has been specifically targeted by political ads
and in the media by name. So many people don't really know what it _does_ ,
but they do know that it's bad for some reason or the other.

------
StillBored
Nothing really new here, much of what the government has been doing for at
least the last 25 years is unpopular with not only a majority of people, but a
majority of both democrats and republicans.

What is s surprising is that, in many ways, the last 4 presidents all ran on a
"change" message and have been unsuccessful at changing many of the things
that both sides agree needs changing.

Why is a deeper discussion, with plenty of blame, but the best way to
summarize it, might just be to call it a bad marriage, where two people can no
longer give the other side the benefit of the doubt in conversation, so
everything being said sounds like personal attacks.

~~~
panic
Many Americans don't understand how their government works -- you can't expect
a president to be able to change things on their own. I agree with former
Supreme Court Justice Souter's criticism here of civic education in this
country:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWcVtWennr0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWcVtWennr0).
Schools and the media ought to focus less on the office of the president and
more on the actual operation of the government, including the behavior of our
representatives in Congress.

~~~
3131s
> _you can 't expect a president to be able to change things on their own._

But you should expect them to at least talk about the really important issues,
and to use their media spotlight to put pressure on whoever is keeping these
sort of bipartisan changes from happening. I don't see any recent American
presidents doing that though.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
I wonder what the results would be if it were phrased:

"Do you think the government should make it illegal for a cell phone company
to allow it's customers to stream unlimited music and movies from Netflix and
Spotify with no data charges?"

"Do you think the government should make it illegal for an Internet service
company to willingly partner with a content provider to provide faster service
for that content?"

~~~
renlo
Good point. When voters are introduced to net neutrality the phrasing of the
definition isn't going to be as clear as "Net neutrality is the principle that
internet service providers providing consumer connection to the Internet
should treat all data on the internet the same, not giving specific advantages
or penalties in access by user, content, website, platform, or application."
It seems more difficult to be against net neutrality when it's defined like
this.

If people only get informed about the net neutrality issue from TV
advertisements made by ISPs then the results will be a lot different.

------
empath75
I'm skeptical that most people have sufficient information upon which to make
a decision. They just like the way it sounds.

Here's the definition they provided:

> “Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers providing
> consumer connection to the Internet should treat all data on the internet
> the same, not giving specific advantages or penalties in access by user,
> content, website, platform, or application.”

Doesn't this seem like it makes any sort of QOS prioritization impossible?
What if an ISP wanted to prioritize all real time traffic (voip, videogames,
streaming video)?

~~~
zanny
> What if an ISP wanted to prioritize all real time traffic (voip, videogames,
> streaming video)?

Then they should increase bandwidth in their backbone or reduce latency for
everyone.

All that prioritizing real time traffic means is the ISP gets to judge what is
important on the wire and what isn't, rather than the consumer. I don't want
my ISP going anywhere near my packets.- or anyone, really - except for whoever
I am sending them to. All they need to know is the destination address and the
fastest way to get it there.

If there were competition in ISPs, you could reasonably argue that ISP's being
given sovereignty over the traffic on their lines would be acceptable. But as
long as Internet service in the US is the domain of very few regional
monopolies, they have too much power over the consumer to be able to mess with
such critical infrastructure for their own gain.

~~~
sushisource
I mean sure, theoretically sounds good, in practice you would _not_ want to
give up the myriad QOS instruments that are already in place. They make your
internet usage feel faster with very little downside.

Absolutely, the Net Neutrality rules need to be in place, but your parent
commentor is right when he says it's not going to be a trivial thing to
define.

~~~
jeeceebees
What kind of QOS adjustments would be made impossible by assuming the above
definition of net neutrality?

Genuinely curious.

~~~
drdaeman
Analyzing the traffic to optimize the service.

\- With p=0.86 this UDP stream looks like a VoIP traffic and the least latency
route would be over this peer.

\- And this TCP connection is to the YouTube video servers. No matter what,
it's better not route through this peer, because for only $deityName knows why
but it doesn't work well and customers complain about random buffering.

\- And that is BitTorrent traffic - better feed that info_hash and so the
locally-running cache would prefetch the data. Okay, that's probably not
possible in the US, lol, but this simple trick significatly lowered upstream
utilization, making network perform better for everyone.

That's how it works in a "good ISP" scenario. There's a "bad ISP" scenario
though. There, NN prevents those:

\- This is Netflix traffic and customer'd better pay for our cable if they
want 4K. Shape this down to 5Mbps. Not like that customer has any choice of
ISPs in their area.

\- That's VoIP and and user's better burn minutes on our telephony services.
Add randomized 1-5% packet drop.

\- That's BitTorrent and we know it's only for pirates. Block the traffic, no
Debian ISOs for you buddy.

So, as far as I get it, NN is unnecessary or even harmful where there's a
significant competition (like, no less than 4-5 different ISPs), and may be
helpful in case of mono- and duopolies.

~~~
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
All of that is a terrible idea, as you still suddenly have idiosynratic
behaviour of some traffic streams, with some VoIP protocols working on some
providers, stuttering on others, what have you ... just an unreliable,
undebuggable mess that makes innovation essentially impossible (because now
you need to upgrade/reconfigure all ISPs' routers to introduce a new VoIP
protocol, say ... which in practice means that you can't).

If you want to do QoS, you have to do it using a standardized mechanism (such
as the qos header in IP) and let the customer control which data streams they
want prioritized.

~~~
drdaeman
Maybe it is, would we've lived in a world of standards being developed,
implemented and followed and users having good understanding about their
computer systems and networking concepts.

Have you ever saw HLS or DASH HTTPS traffic tagged distinctively from bulk
.iso downloads, and all that being distinct from page loads? Does your VoIP
client uses DSCP field? Which level does it set? What ISP is to make if some
"smart" client marks all their traffic as "critical"? And more importantly -
how that's supposed to even work across multiple ASes?

Heuristics is the only way it can be made work in the real world scenarios.

That, or "sorry, we understand that your MMORPG lags terribly since the last
week but we can't even try to help you" ISP support replies.

------
baron816
Our problem is that Net Neutrality just isn't a big enough issue. Even if
almost 100% of the people support it, not enough of them will change their
vote on its account.

American democracy is broken because we're always only given two choices.
You're never allowed to vote for someone who is going to represent everything
you believe in.

Things could be different. If we had a system in which you could vote for
whomever you want (regardless of where they're from) and that person had
voting power in the legislature that was proportional to the share of votes
they got, then the laws we would get would actually reflect the will of the
people.

~~~
mikeash
That seems problematic. The person whose views most closely match my own is
me. If I can vote for literally _anyone_ and it works out the same, then I'd
vote for me, presumably everyone else would vote for themselves, and you'd
have a weird version of direct democracy.

~~~
metaphorm
I don't think it's problematic. The duopoly system forces a large number of
voters into "lesser evil" stances, or at least forces them to narrowly focus
on their one pet issue and vote for candidates based only on that issue.

a system with more choices has more opportunities to find candidates that you
agree with on multiple dimensions of policy, as well as hopefully finding more
candidates that you can respect as human beings.

the post you're responding to is proposing a kind of non-geographically
constrained proportionally allocated representational democracy. so, instead
of voting for just one of the 2 candidates in your congressional district
(which is likely gerrymandered anyway) you can vote for anyone in the country
and that person's voting power in congress is proportional to their popular
vote count. that's not dissimilar to a lot of corporate governance systems
(voting shares of common stock widely distributed).

~~~
mikeash
I'm not sure how this addresses my objection. Sure, more choices means more
opportunities to find candidates who match me perfectly. And if you allow
literally anyone then that candidate is me. So you might as well not elect
candidates at all, just give every citizen a vote in the legislature instead.

~~~
metaphorm
the way it addresses your objection is that the congressional voting power is
proportional to popular vote received.

unstated in the OP, but my supposition (reasonable, I hope), is that there
will still be a limited number of congressional seats so that candidates below
a certain popular vote threshold will have 0 representational power. in that
case it is still in the best interests of voters to vote for someone who is
likely to clear the threshold and not throw their vote away by voting for a
perfect ideological match (i.e. themselves).

this seems fairly elegant to me except that it might lead to a neglect of the
provincial concerns of low population density areas (which was a major concern
of the founders), but on the plus side, those rural voters can at least find
an ideological match even if they don't find someone to represent their
geographic interests.

~~~
mikeash
If there was some minimum threshold, then yes, my objection goes away. But
that wasn't stated.

~~~
baron816
I think there are plenty of possible variations. I've been thinking that
representatives above a certain threshold actually get seats in the
legislature and committee positions, etc. But any one person would have the
freedom to vote on every piece of legislation (if technically possible) if
they wanted.

In all likelihood, a few people would get most of the votes, because they're
competing for attention from a national audience. Therefore, it is possible
that local issues get marginalized, so I think it would be necessary to give
people multiple votes. That way they can split their vote and choose both
national candidates and local candidates.

We can debate all these details when we get to the constitutional convention.

------
glitcher
I don't know much about statistics, but is the sample size of 1000 people
surveyed here significant enough to be drawing conclusions from? It feels
small to me, would anyone with a stronger background in this area care to
comment?

~~~
nnm
1000 is enough for this case.

Depends on how "accurate" you want to measure a ratio. Here the ratio is the
percentage of Americans that support net neutrality.

In this case, sample size is 1000, estimated ratio is 76%, the 95% confidence
interval is 76% +/\- 2.65%, which means if you repeat this survey again, you
have a 95% chance that new estimated ratio is within 76% +/\- 2.65%.

Edit: 99% confidence interval is 76% +/\- 3.48%

~~~
passivepinetree
Well, it depends on where the 1000 people are drawn from as well. Your
assumptions only hold if for both the original survey and the repeat, the pool
of people being surveyed are an accurate sample of all of the United States.

~~~
nnm
Good point. On the other hand, the confidence interval I provided is correct
as long as the original survey and the repeat are sampled in the same way
(regardless whether it is un-biased sampling or not)

------
likelynew
I am from India and I am closely aware of the wave that started with comedy
groups in youtube of youtube and ended up defeating facebook's internet.org. I
am little ambivalent about internet.org, but ended up converting 2 people to
support internet.org. The common complaint here is this will make unpaid sites
slow. This is partially borrowed by netflix event. They use "net neutrality"
term, which most of the people have no idea what it means, and they get their
entire idea from watching videos which shows faster and slower pipe. On asking
them, for whom internet.org specifically is bad, they just don't have anything
to say. I have to make them understand that this fight is not about a thing
that will make their internet slow. The whole point of a million mails sent is
not great care for the internet, but a feel good protest. They would have a
much greater effect if they protested for better speeds for local websites,
which kind of sucks more in India than one would expect. People are not very
sad for seconds of delay, but are more concerned that some company will use
faster lane to reduce delay by 10ms-20ms, which is of no use for company in a
country which can tolerate very slow sites.

Anyways, my point here is this term sound more of a fundamental characteristic
of internet that we are loosing, than it is. The commonly envisioned future
that we have to pay by services is not happening. Until that, we have far more
important thing to protest against. I personally think better privacy and less
data processing by machines is what we should protest for more often.

------
Shivetya
I support it, but only partially and with caveats.

If we are going to regulate service providers then why not limit what content
providers can do as well? Why should they get a completely free ride?

Here is that NN results in. Permanent protection from competition for internet
providers as long as they agree to not be too profitable. In return for having
their rates called into question and rate increases reviewed they are
protected from having anyone being able to undercut them because those same
would be subject to the same rates and rules.

Which means, what you got now is what you will have for a long time. NN does
not guarantee, in fact it slows, the chance for higher speeds because there
won't be competition to deliver such to you.

So those are my caveats. I would like to see additional pricing for content
providers limited but not at the point they can free ride the net. We are just
adding dollars to the content people's wallets and for what? So we can feel
good about sticking it to Comcast (which I don't use).

This didn't work for railroads or long distance, it took us a century for the
former and nearly half for the latter to fix

~~~
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
Hu? How does NN limit rates, or competition, and how do content providers
"free ride the net"?!?

------
geodel
I think similar surveys like cheaper healthcare, healthier food, lesser
college tuitions, better salaries and lower rents will also get similar
support from both parties. Everyone like good stuff for them and bad effects
can be pushed to other people/state/country and so on.

------
diogenescynic
Politicians don't care what their constituents want. Americans overwhelmingly
support basic gun-control laws, access to legal abortion, single-payer
healthcare, and lots of other issues. Politicians only care about what their
lobbyists and financial donors tell them to care about. That's the sad truth.
We created this perverse system, so we can reform it when we choose. The only
way to reverse this is to make elections publicly funded and reform campaign
finance.

~~~
kristopolous
It's about the _manufactured perception_ and not the material reality.

Who manufactures this perception? Anyone who knows how to tell a good story...

------
tehwebguy
Yeah, we want these government sponsored & subsidized monopolies to stay the
hell out of our packets.

Ajit Pai knows this, he just doesn't care.

------
pvnick
The results are contradictory and highlight technical illiteracy of the
respondents.

Another conclusion: Americans trust ISPs to protect access to the internet
more than they do any branch of government.

These issues are complicated and susceptible to populist whims. It's a good
thing America is not a direct democracy.

------
gm-conspiracy
In America, only two political parties?

~~~
Yen
(I'm not sure if your comment was genuinely asking about the number of
political parties in the U.S., or sarcastically remarking on the fact that
there's only effectively two parties)

While there are technically more than two political parties, the vast majority
of Americans support one of the two major parties - the GOP (a.k.a.
Republicans), and the Democrats. Between them, these parties more-or-less
represent most of the range of political discussion and ideology in the U.S.
The next-largest party is generally considered to be the Libertarians.

Thus, while the statement "Americans from both political parties" may contain
a technical inaccuracy, as there are technically more than two parties, it's a
useful shorthand for "Typical Americans, regardless of political affiliation"

As for why there's only two major political parties in the U.S., it's likely
the result of most elections being simple plurality (a.k.a. first-past-the-
post). This heavily encourages potential candidates to compromise and coalesce
until there's only two candidates, to avoid the spoiler effect.

------
muninn_
And just to show how disconnected our government is, the Democrats barely
support it, and the Republicans outright do not support it.

Ridiculous. But hey, continue not voting for a third party. That will sure fix
things.

~~~
5ilv3r
I love the "throwing your vote away" argument. Sorry guys, by voting for the
big two, YOU are the one throwing it away. Third party support growth is a
great indicator of the public's desire for real change. So what if you lose?
You're voting to express your opinion, not to win.

~~~
dragonwriter
> So what if you lose? You're voting to express your opinion, not to win.

If I want to "express my opinion", I'll write an essay. Voting—which is by
secret ballot—is poor for expressing opinions. It's to participate in choice
of political leadership or (in the case of initiatives and referenda) concrete
policy.

In that light, winning—that is, getting the best outcome attainable in terms
of leader or policy chosen—is more important than expressing opinion.

Now, ideally, the electoral system would aggregate opinions well such that
there would be nomdofferenve between optimizing for outcome and optimizing for
accurate expression of opinion. But you go into the ballot box with the voting
system you have, not the voting system you wish you had.

~~~
5ilv3r
That's trying to influence people, not express an opinion on policy or
candidates up for consideration. Winning isn't as important is being right, in
my opinion.

------
clashmoore
I recall the GOP publishing their support for Net Neutrality in a previous
election cycle platform and then abruptly changing it within a week to the
opposite.

Google is failing me in finding that original platform.

------
horsecaptin
No one is going to lose an election for not supporting net-neutrality.

~~~
malloryerik
Right, but they could lose a lot of campaign funding.

------
jaggi1
They obviously would. It gives them more control over the internet.

------
n8n3k
Satisfied my intellectual curiosity for the day ...

------
malloryerik
I'm surprised that only one person here has mentioned campaign finance as the
true issue here -- and they were downvoted.

As horsecaptin noted on this thread, "No one is going to lose an election for
not supporting net-neutrality."

They do stand to lose serious campaign funding, however. Congressmen and
Senators spend a majority of their time raising funds for their campaigns. If
it weren't so important to them, they wouldn't. House representatives --
incumbents, no less -- need to raise about $20,000 a week to hold onto their
positions, and Senators about $10,000.

In 2014, the top four cable providers spent twice as much on campaign
"donations" than the top five pharmaceutical companies. I'm not sure about
2016 but imagine it was similar.

\--- Some links

How Much Money Big Cable Gave the Politicians Who Oversee the Internet [2014]

[http://gizmodo.com/how-much-money-big-cable-gave-the-
politic...](http://gizmodo.com/how-much-money-big-cable-gave-the-politicians-
who-overs-1657002442)

House Rep. Pushing To Set Back Online Privacy Rakes In Industry Funds

[http://www.vocativ.com/415350/house-rep-pushing-to-set-
back-...](http://www.vocativ.com/415350/house-rep-pushing-to-set-back-online-
privacy-rakes-in-industry-funds/)

The Campaign Cash That Can Kill the Open Internet [2015] All but two of the 31
co-sponsors of a House bill to kill net neutrality received thousands from
telecoms in just the last election.

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-campaign-cash-that-can-
kill...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-campaign-cash-that-can-kill-the-
open-internet)

Half of Anti-Net Neutrality Comments From "Shadowy" Koch Bros. Group

[http://gizmodo.com/half-of-anti-net-neutrality-comments-
came...](http://gizmodo.com/half-of-anti-net-neutrality-comments-came-from-
shadowy-1672248771)

Koch-affiliated astroturfers call Net Neutrality "Marxist" [2014]

[http://boingboing.net/2014/08/26/koch-affiliated-
astroturfer...](http://boingboing.net/2014/08/26/koch-affiliated-
astroturfers-c.html)

Vote correlation: Internet privacy resolution and telecom contributions

[https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/03/vote-correlation-
in...](https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/03/vote-correlation-internet-
privacy-res/)

The 265 members of Congress who sold you out to ISPs, and how much it cost to
buy them

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-
isp...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-web-
browsing-privacy-fire-sale)

Internet Firms Are Far Behind Cable Companies in Political Donations

[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/upshot/internet-firms-
are...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/upshot/internet-firms-are-far-
behind-cable-companies-in-political-donations.html) [2014]

The Humiliating Fundraising Existence of a Member of Congress [2014]

[https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/the-
hum...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/the-humiliating-
fundraising-existence-of-a-member-of-congress/277227/)

Are members of Congress becoming telemarketers?

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-are-members-of-
congre...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-are-members-of-congress-
becoming-telemarketers/)

How much time do politicians spend fundraising?

[https://www.quora.com/How-much-time-do-politicians-spend-
fun...](https://www.quora.com/How-much-time-do-politicians-spend-fundraising)

------
killin_dan
Net neutrality is bad for the market. What people think they want does not
supercede decades of economics.

Regulating ISPs will do irreparable damage to the web, and it could be a
decade or more before the average consumer can afford to be a part of a
meshnet internet.

Y'all just don't understand the level of manipulation happening. Point at the
comcast boogieman (and rightfully so, tbh) as they strip ISPs of their
liberties and force a certain business model on them.

I have been somewhat disappointed with my fellow citizens before, and there's
always been a certain kinship between Americans, but this is just too far.

I guess we will learn econ 101 the hard way.

------
miguelrochefort
I don't understand why anyone would support Net Neutrality.

What's the difference between forcing a TV cable provider to provide all
channels, forcing Netflix to provide all movies, forcing Spotify to provide
all albums, forcing Amazon to sell all products, forcing Fedex to ship
anywhere, forcing libraries to carry all books, forcing AT&T to let me call
anyone (at no additional cost), and forcing Comcast to provide all websites?

What if some ISP build their own protocol, are they subject to Net
Neutrality's regulations? Why?

Why prevent content providers from working with ISPs to better distribute
their content? How is it different than allowing stores to associate with
arbitrary shipping companies?

~~~
scottLobster
First, bandwidth is not scarce in the same way that those other products you
mentioned are. Channels must be produced and licensed, as must music. Products
must be bought/warehoused/shipped. Internet bandwidth is simply a function of
available infrastructure, infrastructure the ISPs have in abundance and are
seeking to artificially limit to gouge customers.

Second, TV channels are not an essential service, nor is music, nor is Amazon.
Internet access most assuredly is in the 21st century.

Third, cable is not the only source of media, Spotify is not the only source
of music, and amazon is not the only source of products. In the US ISPs are
often monopolies.

A better analogy IMO is that letting ISPs discriminate how users utilize their
bandwidth is like letting electrical utilities say that if you buy Whirpool
appliances it won't count against your electric bill, because they have a deal
with Whirlpool. Or perhaps even more accurate, you're forced to buy the
electrical company's appliances, period, or else incur penalties. It decreases
consumer choice and competition, and is actually anti-business and anti-
capitalist despite the rhetoric to the contrary.

~~~
miguelrochefort
I recognize that net neutrality makes sense when the infrastructure is
regulated, funded or subsidized with public money. Perhaps that's true in most
places and that's why so many people believe it's a necessity. I can
understand that.

Let's imagine a different scenario. I put a satellite in orbit and offer
internet access to people. No government subsidies, no monopoly. Should I be
free to discriminate and only offer the websites I want?

~~~
scottLobster
Is your satellite the only source of internet access for a given region? Are
you going to actively lobby and sue to prevent municipalities and other
companies from building their own competing satellites?

If the answer to both of those is no then sure, discriminate away! If people
don't like your offerings they can go elsewhere, or can build their own. But
the big ISPs, at least here in America, would answer "yes" to both and have
long, well-documented histories to that effect.

~~~
miguelrochefort
Is the goal net neutrality or is the goal to get rid of ISP monopolies?

~~~
scottLobster
The goal is net neutrality. However at present the ISP monopolies are abusing
their position to prevent it so that they remain free from regulation and have
captive markets to exploit. Given their legally binding fiduciary duty to
their shareholders and the current lack of competition, we can hardly expect
different behavior from them. Either we need an infusion of competition, or we
force them to "play nice" as justified by their position. At present either
option requires some form of governmental regulation aka net neutrality.

