Net neutrality update

[Undertoad]

Vimeo can filter too! It's two-way, this Internet. Why doesn't YouTube charge AT&T for its content?

[Happy Monkey]

Vimeo can filter what? Not sure what you're getting at. Vimeo could demand that AT&T pay Vimeo in order to provide AT&T customers with Vimeo content? And if AT&T laughs at them and says "no, you pay us?"

[Undertoad]

Yeah. I mean, I will filter all of AT&T's net blocks in about a half a day if they are trying to extort me. I don't think AT&T wins anything out of this proposition.

T-Mobile

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Yeah. I mean, I will filter all of AT&T's net blocks in about a half a day if they are trying to extort me. I don't think AT&T wins anything out of this proposition.

Your initial example was that Youtube would not want to risk half their customers by blocking AT&T.


If you were an up and coming streaming content provider, and you reached the size where AT&T decided they wanted a cut, would you risk half your customers by refusing and/or preemptively blocking them? Even if their demand was only half of the money you would lose by doing so?



I would hope so, and I would hope that enough companies would join you, but I have little confidence that a privately held company would do so, and even less confidence that a publicly held one would. With net neutrality, they wouldn't have to make that decision.

[Happy Monkey]

Also: Please note that the exclusivity deals are an issue but are NOT the net neutrality issue. It's annoying that you have to subscribe to a million streaming services to get all the shows, but that's separate. Net neutrality proponents are not demanding that "Jessica Jones" be available on HULU.



Net neutrality is about ISPs charging content providers for access to the ISP's customers, even though the content providers are already paying their ISPs.


edited to add: The concept of exclusivity deals can get intertwined with net neutrality when the ISP also owns a content provider, and gives it preferential treatment.

[Flint]

So all those guys with business degrees will be so busy trying to out-maneuver each other, that they'll never be able to figure out how to extract more money from consumers, and/or build a business model that favors large-scale content providers and disregards guys with a web server in their basement?

And while we're busy debating this, they won't be quietly censoring political speech just like they were already doing before net neutrality?

[Undertoad]

Pretty much how it is now

[Flint]

If you decided to take the doors off of a prison, would the inmates walk out, or stay inside? Regulations are a thing that stops business from doing what you *know* its gonna do. Maybe not in two months..

[Undertoad]

I'm in favor of regulating what we know will happen... and against regulating what we "just know" will happen. We are not smart enough for that game.

This sort of for-pay access to ISP customers never happened *before* net neutrality was introduced. If you liked the Internet in 2015? I mean Comcast was throttling p2p for a while, that was a rough patch, but we got through it.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

This sort of for-pay access to ISP customers never happened *before* net neutrality was introduced.

Zero-rating preferred content providers did, though.

[Griff]

In rural America this does not matter one bit because...

Internet speed test
015102050100+
0.30
Megabits per second
Testing upload...

0.44

Mbps download

0.30

Mbps upload
Latency: 185 ms
Server: New York, NY

Your Internet speed is very slow

Your Internet download speed is very slow. Web browsing should work, but videos could load slowly.

[Flint]

True: we are not smart enough to regulate capitalism. We should be, we could be, but we're not. I think this issue is just a litmus test of how you feel about capitalism, market forces, and the role of government.

Aside from the suppression of political speech aspect, which nobody really seems to care about as much.



ETA: Personally I think a capitalist system has legitimate motivation to suppress political speech, also.

[Undertoad]

Let us see how it all plays out. I expect there will be violations of some sort. Innovations too. We can catalogue them here.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Let us see how it all plays out.

George Jr created tax cuts in 2001. When did it do damage? Well after 2005. Damage, created by recently destroying net neutrality, will take years to be quantified by economics. But we know this. The first destruction of net neutrality almost 20 years ago means the many internet providers were eliminated; most only have two. A duopoly. No way around that reality. Now that duopoly, that already has excessive profits, can start collecting money from even more sectors of the economy.

The destruction of net neutrality means no more innovative internet companies. Duopolies can keep increasing charges.

Show me anyone who can have 100 Mbits for $20 per month. Not in America where attacks on net neutrality over a decade ago have resulted in America no longer in the top five nations for internet access. We already see damage due to damage to net neutrality well over a decade ago. It will only get worse since those rule changes only entrench duopolies.

[Undertoad]

Market forces happen instantly.

It's two months since the rules were dropped - how long we gotta wait for instantly?