
If net neutrality falls, what happens next? - pastycrinkles
This is one of those things that we&#x27;re just going to have to wait and see about, but I can&#x27;t get the question out of my mind - if the FCC chooses to back the ISPs, what happens next?<p>Is a hacktivist group, deciding that the internet shouldn&#x27;t be turned against it&#x27;s users, going to DDoS the root DNS servers? Is everybody going to just hold their breaths, and continue with business as usual? Will a significant number of developers jump ship?<p>What do you think?
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freakonom
Companies will gradually start selling services piecemeal at what will be
promoted as a "discount", where you buy a tiered package of sites. "Obviously,
you only need Facebook, Google, and Buzzfeed. Why are you paying for that
shitty internet you don't need?"

Public praises the lower bills, talk shows argue incessantly, and nobody
grasps either the tech or the economics: the price of the discount is that
large tech/infra companies no longer have to worry about competition, and can
levy arbitrary entry fees.

Gradually the big companies open up walled app stores that let you run your
internet applications within their parameters, rules, and fees. Since this is
the only way to reach anyone, smaller upstarts/devlopers grudgingly accept the
new way of things, until the whole shenanigan is disrupted by a little guy
meeting an unmet, undervalued need out of left field.

And the cycle repeats.

~~~
joesmo
> Since this is the only way to reach anyone, smaller upstarts/devlopers
> grudgingly accept the new way of things, until the whole shenanigan is
> disrupted by alittle guy meeting an unmet, undervalued need.

If, as a startup, I can't reach any customers anymore, why even take that risk
and start a company? Why, as a VC / angel, would I want to invest in companies
that are more or less destined to lose out (Internet based businesses). I
think it'll have a huge negative impact on businesses, especially new Internet
based businesses and this will lead to less innovation and less startups. It
all depends how severe things get, but since there's really nothing to stop
ISPs from charging businesses and customers whatever they want, I wouldn't be
surprised if the current tech/Internet boom slowly fades away as company after
company finds that it's just not worth trying to compete.

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justinmk
It would be nice if NN advocates focused on improving competition in the ISP
space instead of using this as a reason to give the FCC control over yet
another communication medium. Mesh networks and more ISP choice would
"enforce" net neutrality via consumer signals instead of the "just make it
happen" solution being proposed.

~~~
themartorana
This sounds nice but is illogical. Actually creating alternative competitor
networks are insanely prohibitively expensive, and will likely back up against
a backbone served by one of the few capable ISPs anyway.

Besides that, competition is artificially stifled by government sponsored
monopolies - but competing ISPs like it that way. It makes new markets
difficult but on the up side, makes price collusion easy (and the threat of
competition non-existent).

Like it or not, the fight is on the beaches of the FCC, and we don't get to
move the front lines willy-nilly in this fight.

~~~
loup-vaillant
> Actually creating alternative competitor networks are insanely prohibitively
> expensive,

Luckily, you don't have to. Just nationalise the last mile (and maybe some
more infrastructure like the DSLAMs, I'm not sure), and have ISPs lease it.
And don't offer bulk prices.

That way, barrier to entry drop, there are less advantages to being big, and
the environment is less prone to monopolies.

The idea is simple: let free market and competition run wild where they
actually work, and let the state have the inevitable monopolies.

~~~
themartorana
I love this idea and have even spoken to some pretty fundamentalist
libertarians that see nationalized last-mile fiber as a solution superior to
the government sponsored monopolies we have now (and continued easements and
digging up of people's property any time someone wants to introduce some
competition).

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bowlofpetunias
Americans have swallowed second rate telecommunications services, extortionate
prices and lack of competition for ages and will continue to do so, because
the alternative is evil socialist government regulation.

~~~
adventured
You're wrong on that. The problem with the US telecom industry is really bad
regulation, not lack of regulation.

The US already has so-called evil socialist government regulation, to an
extreme. The US economy, including the telecom sector, is among the most
regulated on earth. Per dollar of GDP, nobody passes more economic regulations
each decade than the US Government.

The US Government has been in control of the telecom infrastructure when it
comes to regulating it, for decades. Their incompetence at setting up a
functional environment is a huge part of the problem. They've been screwing it
up when it comes to ISPs for 20 years.

'Evil socialist government regulation' isn't helping Canada or Australia
either. And exactly like in those instances the problem is really bad
regulation, not lack of regulation.

The US has faster average internet speeds than: France, UK, China, Italy,
Australia, Canada, Brazil, India, Norway, Russia, Taiwan, Germany, Finland,
Israel, Austria, and so on.

In fact, there are no large countries by population above the US in speeds
other than Japan and South Korea (both of which are generally far beyond
everyone else). Most of the fast countries are tiny in population: Ireland,
Netherlands, Sweden, Hong Kong, etc. - and even then, the US isn't drastically
behind them.

~~~
dvanduzer
The problem with US Politics is that nobody cares what words mean. Keep your
laws off my body when the telephone is in the bedroom.

------
msoad
Right now most of non-neutral networks exist specially outside of the US in
cellular networks. They allow Spotify or other media streaming services
deliver content to the user without charging user's data plan. Most of the
companies competing in media streaming space, specially those with paid
subscribers are big enough to pay the ISP for the fast lane (Beats, Netflix,
Rdio etc). One exception is the fast lane (or maybe VIP lane in this case) for
Facebook in developing countries. I've seen Facebook let users with no data
plan whatsoever use the service in Türkie. You can see how this makes it hard
for other social networks to catch up.

I don't think US cable companies make a tier system for websites. It doesn't
make sense. All the non-media traffic isn't much that worth the
discrimination. Most of the un-neutrality will be in cellular networks and
media delivery.

~~~
bsimpson
Are you/were you Amish? I've never seen Turkey spelled with "ie", and Google
seems to think that's the Penn. Dutch spelling.

~~~
lucb1e
In Dutch it's Turkije - there's a j in between ("ij" makes a single sound, and
the "e" is another sound). "Turkie" would sound weird in Dutch too and it's
not Dutch spelling, though I guess it looks like it.

~~~
bsimpson
According to Wikipedia, the Pennsylvania Dutch are actually from southern
Germany, and have no connection to Holland or Dutch.

~~~
lucb1e
Oh I didn't get that "Penn." part, that explains.

~~~
bsimpson
Sorry. I was too tired to spell Pennsylvania. =P

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eloisant
We actually have an example of "non neutrality" in France. One of the major
ISP (Free) is throttling Youtube because it considers Google should pay them
for the traffic to their users.

Consequently, Youtube is pretty slow on this ISP.

~~~
brandonmenc
Really?

> France's telecoms watchdog has cleared one of the country's largest ISPs of
> throttling YouTube.

[http://www.zdnet.com/isp-free-cleared-of-throttling-
youtube-...](http://www.zdnet.com/isp-free-cleared-of-throttling-youtube-in-
france-7000018367/)

~~~
zobzu
yes really. i have free (the ISP). youtube barely streams 240p (with hiccups)
sometimes it doesnt even display the page. same for downloading on google
play. you rarely even get push notifications.

some other sites are slow as well albeit its not as bad as google sites, such
as facebook and apple (incl. app store, software updates etc.)

Its been gradually worse and worse over the years, and now im switching away
from that ISP in a month. its unbearable.

~~~
addandsubtract
Does this include Googles CDN servers? Fonts, JS files, etc.?

~~~
zobzu
yes, anything that goes through their peering which is what they throttle. and
the cdn servers go through the peering for some reason.

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MyDogHasFleas
Let's parse the premise.

"If net neutrality fails"

\-- "net neutrality" \-- you probably mean the currently popular version of
this, which is "don't let ISPs create fast and slow lanes, and charge for the
fast lanes." Or, even less precisely, "Don't let ISPs slow down the Internet."

The problem with this is, the FCC is actually not proposing to let ISPs create
"slow lanes". It is proposing to allow ISPs to charge fees for better quality
of service, not to degrade the service that's already provided. In fact the
proposals quite specifically forbid this.

\-- "if ... fails"

The problem with this is, net neutrality is not in effect now. And has not
been at all in history, except for a brief period before the courts shot it
down (because the FCC was overstepping its authority). And, nothing like the
"fast/slow lanes" version of the predicted net-neutrality-copalypse has
happened.

So to say "what if net neutrality fails" has it exactly backwards. We already
know what the no-net-neutrality world looks like, we are in it now. The real
question is, what if it succeeds? What will happen then?

~~~
maxsilver
> The FCC is actually not proposing to let ISPs create "slow lanes". It is
> proposing to allow ISPs to charge fees for better quality of service, not to
> degrade the service that's already provided. In fact the proposals quite
> specifically forbid this.

That is a meaningless distinction.

There is absolutely no difference between "creating a slow lane" and "charging
for better quality of service, not to degrade the service already provided".
Therefore, it doesn't matter if the FCC "specifically forbids this."

If "fast lanes" are allowed at all, _all_ lanes will be "slow lanes" by
default. It doesn't matter if the FCC "forbids" slow lanes, since every lane
is a slow lane already, so _technically_ the FCC's rule wasn't broken.

This is how it works today. Every lane is a slow lane on Comcast, by default,
unless you pay them for a "fast lane".

> "Fast/slow lanes hasn't happened yet"

Yes, it has. Are you in the US? Have you ever attempted to load Netflix or
YouTube on a Comcast or Verizon connection in the past year? There's slow
lanes _everywhere_.

The only difference is the prediction -- we predicted Comcast would make us
pick between slow and fast lanes, like cable packages. (like
[http://aattp.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/01/neutrality.jpg](http://aattp.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/01/neutrality.jpg)). Turns out they instead went to
individual websites and CDN's and made them pick the slow/fast lanes. But it's
the same problem.

There's no coincidence Netflix suddenly works after paying an extortion fee to
Comcast. _Thats_ the number 1 example of the "fast lane" scenario playing out
already. [http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2014/04/after-...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2014/04/after-netflix-pays-comcast-speeds-improve-65/)

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vonklaus
America would be seen as less competitive. There would eventually be a brain
drain in the mid-term as developers either did not emigrate, or did immigrate
out of the country as other markets offer better value. Developers will start
creating programs so that all traffic is masked and can not be differentiated,
things like usenet will proliferate. Hardware entrepreneurs will created
localized meshnets in major cities. Also, people could actually flip out. It
is the dumbest thing to do from a political standpoint. Ancient Rome placated
the people with panem and circus. Poverty is already pretty widespread so many
people live for entertainment. If you knock this out people will wake up a bit
when they have to pay a fuckton of money (that they don't have working minimum
wage) for netflix.

It will likely lead to a massive decline in American supremecy.

~~~
joeclark77
Your theory is that we will be seen as _more competitive_ if we give
government bureaucrats more power to regulate and arbitrarily rule over the
free market?

~~~
vonklaus
No. The question was "If net-neutrality fails...". This is my prediction for a
world with failed neutrality.

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chx
You need to realize packet filtering is not without costs. Nor is negotiating
with most companies. Finally, you can't get blood out of stone. Altogether
meaning -- the ISPs will go after the largest of traffic producers with a
threat of pay or be throttled. Some evidence, beyond what Netflix says for eg.
[https://twitter.com/msonnabaum/status/504073659124703232](https://twitter.com/msonnabaum/status/504073659124703232)
suggests something like this is already happening. But I can't see Verizon
putting up an online shop saying "Buy X TB of VIP traffic for your domain". In
the long run -- perhaps even that will happen. And then? And the you will
pay...

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transfire
At first nothing. Most of the change will be behind the scenes where ISPs will
start charging content provides more and more to deliver their content.
They'll leave the little guys alone, and on the slow lanes, for now. But if
your site gets popular plan to pay the piper! After a while, say 5 to 10 years
the ISPs will lick their lips and start offering competing services. They will
keep these services at arms length so it doesn't look so much like a competing
service, e.g. NBC (which is Comcast). They'll squeeze the various third party
players and buy some of them up in the end.

So the future looks a lot like the past: ABC, CBS and NBC with a smattering of
a few others, e.g. Google.

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hatingcable
Net neutrality is already "failed", thanks to binopolies in service areas such
as Comcast/Verizon and Verizon/At&T. What happens next? You really don't know?
America has the slowest internet speeds, slowest download speeds and is the
most expensive in the world. You can thank the FCC and our corrupt,
corporations-over-people government. What to do? cut off cable service - it is
the only thing that will hurt them, and hurt them we must because reason and
fairness mean nothing to corporations - they are bottomless pits of greed and
will never stop squeezing until we squeeze back.

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biren34
As someone who ran a wireless ISP for 3 years, there is the possibility of new
competition. Wired networks are crazy expensive, but we were able to build a
profitable infrastructure by renting rooftop space on tall buildings and doing
directv style installations. Consumers weren't willing to pay much, so we
ended up focusing on business customers. If enough people are willing to pay
for neutral pipes, it might reinvigorate competition in the space--at least in
dense urban areas. Our big fear at the time was fiber rollouts. Neutral nets
would be a competitive advantage against big players we didn't have back then.

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brandonmenc
Nothing.

Quality of service will remain, at worst, as it currently is, and no one will
notice a difference.

Netflix et al. will continue to host cache devices with ISPs, torrents will
still work, video chat will still work, and chances are no startup will ever
be forced to pay ISPs to deliver their packets.

No one will ever be presented with the option to purchase a "Social
Media/Streaming/whatever Internet Package," but maybe they'll be offered the
option to upgrade to a more explicit SLA with bandwidth/latency guarantees.

Maybe some kids will DDoS an ISP or two, but the effect will be nil.

That's my prediction.

~~~
spindritf
_Nothing._

Exactly. Where there's competition, ISPs won't be able to keep their market
share with a restricted service. And in areas without competition, they will
gouge you one way or another regardless.

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evan_kastl
We create collective ISP's. WISPs are more and more viable and advances in RF
technology will make backbone cheaper and more distributed.

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AznHisoka
What happens next: Sea levels rise to enormous levels, anarchy, and human
beings become extinct.

Don't sweat the small stuff.

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Qantourisc
I think it will need to get rather bad, before people will act. Before that
any tools made would be used.

~~~
byuu
I'm somewhat interested in the tools, to see how the internet would route
around the problem.

One idea would be to make a browser that can 'leech' off sites that paid for
fast lanes. Say, you store your data onto Google Drive, Facebook, etc and the
browser will load the actual content off of these services and present it as
if it were its own unique web site, stripping off all of the host site's
branding. I won't say that's necessarily ethical, but it does feel like an
inevitable consequence if things ever got _really_ bad.

You'd probably gain web hosts that advertise having peering deals for all of
their hosted sites, so you just pay more money to host on them and your users
"magically" get faster service.

VPNs would likely play in a lot. I'm not sure how businesses would tolerate
their required secure connections being throttled in the extreme.

I wonder if a VPN service provider could pay for a fast connection to your
ISP, giving you a link around it? Perhaps instead of Netflix at 100% speed,
$tinywebsite at 20% speed, this could give you 70% speed across the board by
connecting you with a neutral backbone.

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coldcode
You won't ever find out because no information will come to you not intended
by someone else.

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dvanduzer
Is this a question about Internet Neutrality or internet neutrality?

e.g. ISPs like CBS or AOL?

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sspies
Could it be a business case to open up the routing system to users?

