
Net Neutrality II (2014) - villahousut
http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/net-neutrality-ii
======
njarboe
Old study and bad title.

Article published May 6th, 2014.

The majority actually don't agree with the question of: "Considering both
distributional effects and changes in efficiency, it is a good idea to let
companies that send video or other content to consumers pay more to Internet
service providers for the right to send that traffic using faster or higher
quality service."

The majority are found in the combined groups of Uncertain, Disagree, or
Strongly Disagree.

Edit: Reading over the economists' comments it is obvious that many who
support the question(are against net neutrality) have no idea how the internet
works or the monopoly/duopoly position of most ISPs.

~~~
intended
There is no strongly disagree, Do note.

Also I don’t think there has been any significant change in the underlying
economics of it all, so the positions are still relevant.

------
tom_mellior
The question is explicitly about paying more for "faster or higher quality
service". Yet at least two of these economists (who voted "agree") seem to
misunderstand the issue: Altonji writes "High bandwidth traffic imposes
externalities on other users", which is true, but it's an argument in favor of
charging per _amount_ of data, not based on _speed_ promised. Same for
Thaler's "Seems like those who cause congestion should pay more" (to be fair,
he put confidence 1). So... not impressed by these arguments.

Also, Duffie: "Works for soap, wine, and haircuts; why not Internet?". If
that's the level of argument needed to become Distinguished Professor at
Stanford, I'm clearly in the wrong field.

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dhess
The original submission title ("Majority of economists against net
neutrality") is at best a distortion of the cited survey's results. Even
without considering the confidence-weighted outcome, 44% of those polled
"agree" or "strongly agree" that allowing content companies to pay more to
ISPs for prioritized traffic is a good idea, while 56% are either "uncertain,"
"disagree," or have no opinion. (The confidence-weighted outcome is only 1%
different.)

Also, this survey appears to have been done in 2014.

------
intended
From what I can see - it’s because they push market competition away as a
separate issue, and also reduce the matter to a question of only American
telecom.

Also - Normal people also don’t assume That firms are rational in any way
other than bottom line maximization, and accept that there is regulatory
capture.

I don’t know if this has been addressed in their supporting papers though.

Within their narrow definition they are not wrong. Recognizing it and engaging
it makes for better arguments, and if necessary a change in positon.

------
mtgx
Majority of economists also prefer a fully private healthcare market over
single-payer government-paid healthcare. How is that working out for the U.S.
right now?

The two situations are kind of similar because in both cases the economists
prefer "market efficiency" (so they say) over the poor (in this case startup
companies) being able to afford the services that the rich (in this case big
companies) can afford.

All that matters to them is "efficiency" in the sense that the rich can get to
pay say $1,000,000 per year and get a super-efficient service back for their
money, while the poor could only afford to pay $1,000 a year but also get
"great value for their money" (just nowhere near what those people who pay
$1,000,000 get).

In their minds this is great, because "efficiency" is the same. The only
difference is that the rich would be able to get the best cures for say
cancer, while the poor will die, because $1,000 can't buy them the cures.

~~~
krrrh
> Majority of economists also prefer a fully private healthcare market over
> single-payer government-paid healthcare. How is that working out for the
> U.S. right now?

It’s tough to say; there hasn’t been anything close to a fully private
healthcare system for decades, at least since employer-provided healthcare
became a tax-free benefit. For some rather large populations such as the poor
(Medicaid), the elderly (Medicare), and veterans (VA) systems exist that are
comparable to what we call single-payer in other countries.

Without a reference I don’t believe you that most economists prefer a _fully_
private healthcare system, but few think the current system is very well-
designed or functioning.

------
grx
While I'm not sure how meaningful this website is.. my guess is that a lot of
people outside of the tech scene do not understand just how massive the change
of net neutrality policies will be for everyone.

To think that more than a handful companies will make $$$ from abolishing NN
is delusional. The monopolies will just cut you out from the market and you're
on the other side of the fence - with no money but a lot of angry pro-NN folks
around you.

~~~
insickness
There is nothing 'massive' about a rule that was implemented in 2015 and
caused little change at the time it was implemented. In the previous 15 years
without neutrality rules, there were a few instances of ISPs acting badly, but
those were fairly quickly resolved. Source: [https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-
neutrality-anti-title-ii/](https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-
title-ii/)

------
soVeryTired
Bunch of muppets with advanced expertise in what amounts to convex
optimisation theory. What exactly qualifies them to weigh in on how the
internet should be run?

~~~
nothrabannosir
This is a very alienating position. If I were ever to find myself part of a
group, talked about as you did, it would be very tempting to just write off
the entire “other group” and their opinion, based purely on that statement.

If you have a good argument to make, why resort to an ad hominem?

For better or for worse, this is a democracy and their point of view matters.
Let’s try winning them over to ours.

~~~
soVeryTired
On one hand, I agree with what you're saying. On the other, I don't think I'm
going to apologise for venting my frustrations. Take a look at the range of
topics this 'panel of experts' are polled on [1]:

Health insurance

Standardised testing

Sports stadiums

Robots and artificial intelligence

California's Drought

These people are _not_ experts on these topics. They're basically
mathematicians. Most of them likely made their name proving facts about their
mathematical models. Remember that these are models that have a lousy track
record describing the real world. And yet it sounds incredibly persuasive to
run a headline stating "Economistis united on proposition X".

Here's a suggestion. Let's have a panel of experts, but we'll include _one_
economist. We'll also include a social scientist, an engineer, a banker, a
lawyer, a government policy wonk, and a social worker. The media can poll
them, and might actually get a plurality of views.

[1] [http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-
panel](http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel)

------
MrQuincle
Interesting, vertical price squeeze is mentioned a few times.

Comcast or others becoming a content provider. If one of them buys Netflix,
other content providers will have difficulty to compete if they have to pay a
lot for the high-speed lane.

Should an efficient market have regulations against vertical integration?

------
alexasmyths
Bad question.

The question asked was around 'Quality of Service' \- this is not 'Net
Neutrality'.

Providers probably should be allowed to sell differing levels of quality of
service, but they should not be able to discriminate between content or
customers.

------
averagewall
Instead of demanding net neutrality, why don't Americans want rule changes
that would enable competition among ISPs? Wouldn't that solve many more
problems - like low speeds and high prices as well?

~~~
tannerwj
Exactly. Why do they all want more regulation to solve the problem that over
regulation caused in the first place? Seems like a cyclical solution to me

------
esqrama
A good economics analysis of NN
[http://streetwiseprofessor.com/?p=10750](http://streetwiseprofessor.com/?p=10750)

~~~
intended
The good author would perhaps be more open to discussing this point

> Meaning that it is unlikely that market power problems are so acute in this
> market as to justify regulations unheard of in other markets where price
> discrimination is widely practiced.

If the question were flipped.

Perhaps it not that NN is a unique regulation, and perhaps it is that many
other industries also require net neutrality style provisions.

(I doubt there are many truly comparable industries. And all economic defenses
underplay the last mile issue or say that WiFi/mobile is good enough.)

Can someone correct me - has there been underinvestment in American telecom
infrastructure?

------
saas_co_de
Economists think that you should let markets set prices. shocking.

What is strange is all these free market people in tech who only like free
markets that don't apply to them.

~~~
alexasmyths
No, absolutely not.

In the ultimate 'free market' \- your healthcare would be priced based on your
earnings, and it would be ~90% of your after tax take home pay. Why? Because
you'll pay.

There's good reason we generally don't allow price discrimination, or things
like collusion, it's not rocket science.

If the Telcos could price discriminate willy nilly over the information that
goes through their pipes - then 100% of the profits of the company you work
for will disappear into their bank accounts.

Imagine if some private entity owned all of the roads - and the toll was based
on your income?

You can't talk about 'free markets' in such a cavalier manner.

FYI - there is one issue with 'Quality of Service' \- which completely
confuses the question above. Telcos must be able to discriminate based on this
- i.e. lower latency, higher bandwidth = more cost. But they should be banned
from looking at the contents of the traffic, or billing based on
source/destination.

~~~
averagewall
> it would be ~90% of your after tax take home pay. Why? Because you'll pay.

What's to stop a competitor offering it for 89%? And so on until the market
finds its fair price.

~~~
alexasmyths
Because there is an oligarchy in broadband and in many other industries and
massive barriers to entry as well.

In broadband, it would be completely stupid for carriers to compete on price
because ultimately - they are competing with themselves. You reduce prices one
day - the next you have to go lower - and so on.

It's better if they keep prices high and compete on other things.

It's easy to have implicit collusion if they are only 2 or 3 players.

Often, due to access rights there might not really be any competition in
specific areas.

I worked at a small telecom switch company. We made a lot of gear that didn't
make any sense just to get around regulations.

Example: we made a very expensive voice and dsl and t1 switch on a board. It
was crazy expensive, didn't make sense. But the carrier wanted it, because if
they had individual DSL cards (or something like that) - they'd have to allow
CLEC (local exchange carriers) to compete. So they paid 2x for their
networking gear to avoid competition.

The big money is in monopolies, oligarchies, and keeping competition away
through legislation, barriers to entry etc..

------
petepete
This just shows that you can't measure freedom of choice in dollars. Depending
on who you ask, slavery was pretty good for the economy too.

------
coldtea
Majority of economist suck the tit of big corporations and big interests (the
ones who ensure they're employed), news at 11.

