
Ask HN: What impact would the repeal of net neutrality have? - aliakhtar
Especially on developers, startups, and the tech ecosystem.<p>E.g, will the repeal of NN only affect large media companies like Netflix &#x2F; Youtube, or will it impact the web at large, and limit the distribution of smaller, non-media related startups?
======
otalp
The argument is that it would allow an ISP to provide you packages with only
your favourite sites at top speeds(a Facebook/Netflix/YouTube package with ISP
services bundled in) at a lower cost than the "full internet" at high speeds.
This would mean that it would be virtually impossible for a startup to disrupt
google/facebook/youtube if most of the population don't have access to the
full internet at equal speeds.

It would be the death knell for internet innovation if ISPs stop providing
customers with equal access to the entire internet. How can you create a
startup competing with YouTube, if most people have a package that gives
YouTube faster internet speeds?

You might also have deals where say, Disney has an agreement with Comcast to
give it's streaming service(or Comcasts own streaming service) the highest
speeds at low costs while not giving Netflix(or other streamings sites) the
same priority. That would mean over time the largest corporation wins,
competition is dead and progress is severely hampered.

~~~
aliakhtar
> How can you create a startup competing with YouTube, if most people have a
> package that gives YouTube faster internet speeds?

In this scenario, is it only competitors of Facebook/Youtube/Netflix that
would be slowed down, or would all websites / blogs / other startup sites also
slow down?

~~~
pmontra
If they go after Facebook/Youtube/Netflix (Google, etc) and ask them to pay
money, they have to slow down everybody else or what are they asking those
money for?

They'll also ask money from retail customers. You want Google fast? Buy the
Search monthly package on top of the standard internet subscription. Etc.

~~~
rahimnathwani
"they have to slow down everybody else"

No they don't. They could achieve much the same impact by slowing down only
traffic that appears to be video or audio, e.g. by allowing everything through
at full speed, until a customer has transferred more than, say 10MB, from a
particular IP address over a one hour period.

This wouldn't impact blogs or most corporate brochure sites, but would still
have negative effects for many startups.

------
michaelbrave
Short answer: look at Portugal but worse.

In most countries, it wouldn't matter too much as the market forces could in
effect nearly cause them to self-regulate.

That said the current state of the internet in the USA is a different story.
Regions are locked in with legislation making micro monopolies, This is
especially true with apartment complexes. There are laws that prevent
competition. local governments have won and lost elections based around the
issue of allowing for more competition with the current ISP's. Meanwhile, some
of the smallest towns feel almost forced into needing to create their own, as
they aren't receiving proper coverage from the larger companies, not in cell
towers or landlines.

There have already been examples of sites being throttled to be nearly
useless, and some sites blocked, other sites are intentionally sped up to be
misleading(speedtest.net vs fast.com - they don't match up because speedtest
is usually boosted to mislead how fast your internet is).

Cell providers have done things like block payment apps, instead only
supporting a proprietary payment app which I believe is a great example of how
competition can and would be stifled.

I believe I heard that for a time the ISP's slowed down Netflix until Netflix
paid them off.

So to conclude, it would be the slow erosion of freedom of speech, a swift
decline in innovation, prices for services like Netflix would rise, and if we
are lucky they would only nickel and dime us more (think microtransactions)
instead of blocking out entire chunks of the internet. The USA would lose its
dominance technologically, investment in internet companies would slow, the
best minds would hesitate to move here, ones we already have would think about
leaving, Europe and Canada would have a chance to shine.

The only good that would come from it is large ISP's make more money, and
Republicans would feel like they have a win.

~~~
twblalock
> So to conclude, it would be the slow erosion of freedom of speech, a swift
> decline in innovation, prices for services like Netflix would rise, and if
> we are lucky they would only nickel and dime us more (think
> microtransactions) instead of blocking out entire chunks of the internet.
> The USA would lose its dominance technologically, investment in internet
> companies would slow, the best minds would hesitate to move here, ones we
> already have would think about leaving, Europe and Canada would have a
> chance to shine.

Given that the US has never really had net neutrality, why hasn't this
scenario already come to pass?

~~~
michaelbrave
I don't follow your reasoning that it's never existed as the FCC has fined a
lot of companies for neglecting it (VoIP cases).

Most attempts at creating laws were overturned that's true, except most
recently in 2016 the DC circuit court affirmed the open internet rules
[https://www.publicknowledge.org/documents/dc-circuit-open-
in...](https://www.publicknowledge.org/documents/dc-circuit-open-internet-
opinion-2016) which was upheld and as of now that's still on the books.

Why didn't it happen sooner though is a good question, I think competition
factors in as the ISP's were never as consolidated as they are now. When we
used 56k modems there were a lot of ISP's, with DSL less but still a lot, now
with cable and fiber there is only a handful. Part of why it didn't happen
when we used DSL and before was because DSL and before was treated with the
same laws as phone lines, so it functioned rather similar to ISP's being
title2 now. Most of these problems began with the decision in 2002
[http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/n...](http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/nrcb0201.html)
where cable internet was regulated differently after that decision boundaries
started being pushed, net neutrality laws were brought up and then struck down
until finally ISP's were reclassified into title2.

------
Pilfer
> _repeal of net neutrality_

It irks me whenever people say this, because technically net neutrality (As
defined here [1]) has never fully existed in the US. In the US there is no
law, and there never has been a law, mandating net neutrality. The government
can't repeal net neutrality because there's no law to repeal in the first
place. Using 'repeal' is the wrong word here, and really muddles the issue.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality)

~~~
colejohnson66
If it’s not being repealed, then what is it Ajit Pai is trying to do? What’s
the correct term?

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Deregulate, or rescind.

------
Loic
We _nearly_ have that in Germany at the mobile data level. Just this WE, I was
walking in the street and a big offer from Vodafone targeting youths was
special contracts with "Pass", one was unlimited WhatsApp data[0]. They are
not limiting to WhatsApp (Telegram is in it), but I suppose in the future they
can easily make a deal with WhatsApp and offer only unlimited for WhatsApp and
then the new comers are automatically out of the game.

[0]: [https://www.vodafone.de/privat/service/vodafone-
pass.html](https://www.vodafone.de/privat/service/vodafone-pass.html)

~~~
HatchedLake721
WE?

~~~
sleepychu
I think weekend? Esoteric contraction but I guess if OP is a German native
then it saves more typing when compared with Wochenende.

~~~
cyxxon
As another German native this is it, yes. I am not sure I saw it before in
English, but it is a fairly common abbreviation, at least in chats (although I
think my iPhone automatically replaces WE with Wochenende even though I never
set it up to do so).

------
PaulRobinson
I've stated in the past that I think the market will make the choice to go
with ISPs that don't "bundle" sites and NN will win. It was pointed out to me
that in many parts of the World there is no competition, and therefore the
cheaper "bundle" packages will eventually win out.

It will kill the startup, because you'll need the cash to take on the
established players.

It will kill off blogging and independent publishing on the web because most
sites will be inaccessible to most consumers.

In short, it will turn the Internet into a closed wall system controlled by
those with the money, much like network television is.

~~~
alfredallan
So, in order to preserve NN, it is the USA, and not sub Saharan Africa that
really needs a project Loon (not run by google, ideally).

------
Simulacra
At first, likely nothing. Then over time, the corporations that control the
Internet pipelines, like baggage fees, will slowly start to creep in, become
established, and increase. The Overton window will be shifted over time, so
that it all feels natural.

------
chx
A lot of things people talk about would involve the ISP having infrastructure
changes to facilitate more charges which might or might not make fiscal sense
(it is not that easy to prioritize Facebook) . But one thing they can
practically immediately do is hose you on gaming (or VoIP, same). Whether you
pay or not pay for the gaming package your routing can be changed to have more
or less latency to everyone outside of the ISP network simply by putting you
on more outdated sections of backhaul, worse peering links etc. I am truly
afraid they can make this very bad with extremely little effort.

------
CodeWriter23
Let’s say Charter decides to blacklist all Shopify ip addresses from routing
into their network, then tells online merchants if they want to sell to
customers who chose Charter, they have to buy “enhanced” ecommerce hosting
from Charter. And then AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Sprint all do the same.

And of course, Charter only takes product feeds in JSON, AT&T only tab-
delimited, Comcast only XML, Verizon only CSV. It’ll be great for
ChannelAdvisor and curtains for anyone who can’t afford their costly services.

You’ll still need that Shopify account to reach customers on smaller ISPs.

------
maxsavin
This is already happening in the rest of the world. Here's how it works:

In many places, having a data plan is not affordable. It might cost $10 per
month, but it's a lot since most people in the developing world make like $200
per month.

So, companies like Facebook, WhatsApp, etc, offer SIM cards that have free
data for their services. Customers get a free service, and they get the
customer.

The biggest issue I see there is, it helps big companies get bigger, and
there's no real way to for small companies to get in on these kinds of deals.

------
CodeWriter23
Let’s say you pay $0.09/GB for transit for your servers hosted on AWS. How
would you like to pay $0.50/GB on top of that to Comcast for the last 10 Miles
of Transit?

------
blackbagboys
My hope is that the inevitable price-gouging and strangulation of service
quality spurs efforts to turn telecom infrastructure into a public utility

~~~
alfredallan
Why do you think this is a likely outcome? Considering that nothing of the
sort has happened with airlines or network tv.

------
_nalply
In Switzerland Sunrise offers a plan with free traffic for WhatsApp. This
means Deaf people can send each other Signed Language videos without limits by
WhatsApp.

I work for a non profit developing video communication solutions tailored to
the specific needs of the Signed Language communities. For example, audio is
not necessary, perhaps even detrimental because Deaf people don't realise
problems with audio like feedback or embarassing noises during a call. Or
degradation on bad connectivity. This is subtle. Signed Language communication
needs a constant framerate to prevent jerkiness of the expressions. Just
reduce image quality instead! Ugly block artifacts don't impede
understandability.

In other words: ISPs zero rating WhatsApp is blatant discrimination of Signed
Language communities. This also concerns phone relays and other services.

~~~
RyanZAG
Surely it's better for the deaf people to have unlimited free video
communication even if it is worse quality? I understand how it would be really
bad for you trying to sell the superior service, but it should be about the
desires of the deaf people at the end of the day. If they want superior
quality that you can sell them, then they can just pay extra for it. Maybe
free whatsapp is perfectly fine?

------
noahster11
What I don't understand about NN is how it would be enforced. Would
whitelisting services equate to whitelisting ip's? That seems problematic
considering how many companies use AWS or another cloud platform as a cdn or
server. Wouldn't Amazon, Google, Microsoft be for NN as it would directly
affect their cloud services?

~~~
PaulRobinson
DNS is a thing. Keep a list of accepted domains. As DNS resolution occurs
populate a cache of IP addresses that you can then whitelist. Not hard, a
competent developer could build something solid in a week or so using existing
tools.

~~~
lmz
Dnsmasq already supports this. It can add resolved IPs of hostnames matching a
pattern to ipset ("\--ipset" is the option).

------
croon
Think of it this way:

America without net neutrality is like AOL, and the rest of the world will be
what the internet outside of AOL was.

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swarnie_
Hopefully if America insist on shooting itself in the foot Europe and Asia can
pick up some easy startup slack.

------
basicplus2
Everyone will pay more

