Net Neutrality Advocates Are Modern-Day Snake Oil Salesmen

IBD ^ | 11/28/2017 | Editor

[FreedomNotSafety]

Regulations: When FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced plans to repeal the Obama administration's heavy-handed "net neutrality" regulations, critics acted as if the world were coming to an end. Actual consumers, however, aren't likely to notice any difference, because the "problem" those rules were supposed to solve has always been wildly exaggerated.

[Da Coyote]

Google, leftists, and other corrupt organizations supported it.
Ergo, not a good thing.

[pgkdan]

If Google’s fer it, I’m agin it!

[cyclotic]

My son has the same policy regarding a whack job loony liberal facebook friend of his. My son said he doesn’t have to pay attention to the news, just read what this other guy writes and take the opposite viewpoint.

I know the kid and he’s absolutely nuts. He also claims to be a Christian but I’m of the firm belief that one cannot be a Christian and a leftist at the same time.

One of the leaders at his church is one of my best friends. I suggested that the boy needs to be invited to a deep conversation about the state of his soul.

[ETL]

Google, leftists, and other corrupt organizations supported it. Ergo, not a good thing.

The Lefty-dominated "news" media here is nearly as bad as the Russian media, historically and to this day...

"RT [Russia Today] was conceived by former media minister Mikhail Lesin,[32] and Russian president Vladimir Putin’s press spokesperson Aleksei Gromov.[33]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)
___________________________________________

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, with Mikhail Lesin
during a meeting in Moscow

________________________________

Nov 2015...

• Millionaire Mikhail Lesin, 57, found dead in $240-a-night in Washington DC last Friday [Nov 6, 2015] and police are investigating

• The pro-Putin 'propaganda channel' he set up, RT [Russia Today] , claimed he 'had been suffering from a prolonged unidentified illness'

• But DC police have made no such finding

  "Nicknamed the 'Bulldozer', Lesin was one of the key props of the Putin presidency, personally masterminding a wide-ranging media crackdown which has left the vast majority of Russian TV stations and newspapers obedient to the Kremlin."

  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315994/Vladimir-Putin-s-media-mastermind-dead-DC-hotel-murdered-FBI-informant-alive-claim-Russians.html#ixzz3rOUopg7Q
  ______________________________________________________________

  "On Friday, November 6 [2015], RIA Novosti reported that Lesin died of a heart attack citing a spokesman for the family as saying: "Today, Mikhail Lesin died ... His death came supposedly from a heart attack."[35][38]

  RT [Russia Today] reported the next day that the cause of death was a heart attack.[31][39][40][41]

  https://web.archive.org/web/20161026095000/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Lesin
  _______________________________________________________

  UPDATE: MAR 2016...

  Mikhail Lesin, Ex-Putin Aide, Died of Blunt Force Trauma in Washington: Autopsy

  by Alastair Jamieson and Alexey Eremenko
  Mar 11 2016

  A former aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin found dead in a Washington hotel room was killed by a blunt force trauma to the head, U.S. authorities said Thursday.

  Mikhail Lesin, 57, was found dead on the floor of his room in Dupont Circle on November 5.[2015]

  Autopsy results show that he died from “blunt-force injuries of the head,” according to a joint statement Thursday from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reported by NBC Washington , but the exact manner of death was undetermined.

  Also contributing to his death were “blunt-force injuries of the neck, torso, upper extremities and lower extremities,” the statement said.

  Russian media originally reported that Lesin, a former government minister, had suffered a heart attack. ...”

  http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/mikhail-lesin-ex-putin-aide-died-blunt-force-trauma-washington-n536456

  ______________________________________________________________

  The mysterious and mounting deaths of Putin's allies turned critics

  (excerpt)

  "...the plot thickened late Thursday with one U.S. official apparently telling

  The New York Times that [Mikhail] Lesin's wounds came from an altercation that happened before he staggered back to his hotel room that night.

  On Friday, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty uncovered another wrinkle, reporting that Lesin had confirmed his attendance at an event in the U.S. capital 48 hours earlier, but he never showed. ..."

  https://web.archive.org/save/http://mashable.com/2016/03/11/mysterious-deaths-of-putin-critics/#bxKNiIpdlsqw

  ______

  Backup link to NY Times article:
  https://web.archive.org/web/20171126103233/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/us/former-putin-aide-found-in-washington-died-from-blows-to-head.html?smid=nytcore-iphone-share&smprod=nytcore-iphone&_r=0

  Backup link to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty article:
  https://web.archive.org/web/20171126104000/https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-lesin-mysterious-death-key-facts/27604577.html

  _________________________________________

  The following article is from December (2014)

  "Mikhail Lesin has stepped down as head of major state-controlled media holding Gazprom-Media, the company said late last week.

  Gazprom-Media, whose holdings include independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, said Lesin's resignation was due to family reasons, Russian media reports said Friday.

  The holding's board of directors will finalize his resignation at an upcoming meeting, Gazprom-Media was cited by Ekho Moskvy as saying. No replacement has been named.

  Earlier, a flurry of reports of Lesin's imminent resignation appeared on Russian news wires, all based on undisclosed sources and giving divergent accounts of the motive.

  Forbes Russia cited sources in the media and government as confirming the resignation, with one of the individuals claiming that the decision was made personally by President Vladimir Putin."

  http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/513690.html
  _________________________________________________________________

  "When he [Mikhail Lesin] quit Gazprom Media in December [2014], a move seen as a shock, he cited ‘family reasons’ although there were unconfirmed claims he had fallen out with other influential figures close to Putin. ..."

  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315994/Vladimir-Putin-s-media-mastermind-dead-DC-hotel-murdered-FBI-informant-alive-claim-Russians.html
  ______________________________________________________

  " [RT (Russia Today) founder, [Mikhail] Lesin was a central figure in the early Putin years, spearheading the Kremlin's effort to silence the country's independent television, the first step in the consolidation of authoritarian rule.

  The first target was NTV, at that time Russia's largest and most popular independent TV channel, whose hard-hitting news broadcasts, talk shows, and satirical programs criticized the government over growing corruption and the war in Chechnya and gave airtime to the opposition.

  In June 2000, a month after Putin's inauguration, NTV's founder and majority shareholder, Vladimir Gusinsky, was arrested and placed in Moscow's infamous Butyrka prison.

  While he was there, the information minister made an offer: Gusinsky could have his freedom if he agreed to transfer his media holdings to Gazprom, the state-owned energy monopoly. ..."

  http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/vladimir-kara-murza/ominous-return-putins-media-enforcer

[napscoordinator]

The President seems to be for it. There is very little I disagree with him over, but this is one of them for sure. This could destroy the internet.

[FreedomNotSafety]

How would removing an Obama regulation that was barely enacted kill the internet? How would regulating the internet like a copper wire telephone company help the internet? Did you bother to read the article?

Do you realize that this move just restores the stars quo of 2 years ago?

[KarlInOhio]

My biggest fears are first the ISP spiking their programming competitors to promote their own programming. (How much buffering and glitches will you put up with on Netflix before you just pay for Spectrum’s pay per view version?). And second selective bandwidth based on the destination site paying for it. I paid for my bandwidth. Me. So it shouldn’t matter to my cable company whether I use it for Netflix, YouTube or just hitting F5 on Free Republic.

[FreedomNotSafety]

This regulation had little or noting to do with preserving your “right” to stream movies.

“The first big regulation to come out of the FCC had nothing to do with net neutrality, but was a costly privacy rule imposed on cable companies. And the first “blatant” net neutrality violation cited by advocates was against T-Mobile (TMUS) for offering … wait for it … unlimited streaming video.”

Prior to NN did you ever have a problem?

[ExTxMarine]

So it shouldn’t matter to my cable company whether I use it for Netflix, YouTube or just hitting F5 on Free Republic.

But since this is a contract between you and your bandwidth provider, then the U.S. Government should NOT and does NOT need to be involved!

Net Neutrality is just like every other Democrat and republican (small "r") regulation: it's an EFFING solution in search of an EFFING problem! And the real problem is that it will become another avenue for the government to control the internet and internet content! The only good Obama-era government regulation is a REPEALED Obama-era government regulation!

[FiddlePig]

The (misnamed) “progressives” seek to regulate everything... NO human activity is to escape their “oversight”... but it’s always for the “greater good” of course... as their motivations for “fairness” and “equality” are so “pure” and “selfless”.

[semimojo]

But since this is a contract between you and your bandwidth provider, then the U.S. Government should NOT and does NOT need to be involved!

This is the heart of the matter and in principle I share your feelings.

The problem is that in many places ISPs have a de facto monopoly.

If I had the choice of 5 broadband providers and could negotiate the contract I want with one of them, fine. The reality is I pretty much have to take what Cox is offering me.

Some government regulation is appropriate in a monopoly situation.

[ExTxMarine]

Some government regulation is appropriate in a monopoly situation.

IF you were having an issue today, yes...I agree, but your whole idea is based on the same thought-process as liberals: every business is bad and they are ALL going to screw you, if given a chance; so let's get the Government involved to ensure the BUSINESS doesn't screw you...what we always fail to remember is that the largest, most corrupt, money laundering entity in America is the United States GOVERNMENT!

Sorry, but I don't want, nor need anymore Government intrusion into my life! I will bet you do have more options than Cox. Do you have a cellphone provider? Have you ever heard of HughesNet? There are multiple providers available to 85+% of ALL Americans! If Americans actually started cutting from the local "monopolies" and using some of those various options the prices would become more competitive. A good example: in northeastern Mississippi, for years, the only provider was local cable and they had very limited coverage. HughesNet became the #1 provider in the area. Then the cable company started widening it's footprint to compete. Then another satellite provider got a foot-hold, now HughesNet has dropped their prices and removed their hard-data limits and reduced their overage rates. But everyone in northeastern Mississippi hated that local cable company because they had a "monopoly" on the area - now that cable company is back to being the #1 provider in the area.

Most Americans think too small and think that they MUST use the local cable or the local phone or whatever. Most of the time this is not true, and, no offense, but I don't want people's shortsightedness yoking me with another Government intrusion!

[socalgop]

Yes. Comcast throttles Netflix. This is the kind of anticompetitive extortion Comcast engages in when they are allowed to: https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to-end-slowdown/

[DBG8489]

Monopolies only exist when force can be used to sustain them. IE - they are approved by government.

There are very few places left in the US where there is only one provider. So few as to not even warrant being part of the NN discussion.

What this is about is the cost of bandwidth. Companies like Netflix and Amazon want everyone to pay the same and have the same access to bandwidth because it helps them and hurts their competition.

It also prevents smaller ISPs from being able to start up by preventing them from either a) restricting the amount of bandwidth available for streaming or b) preventing them from charging higher prices to the *provider* of streaming services for access to their bandwidth.

Note, there is nothing preventing them from charging their *customers* more...which is what they all end up doing because bandwidth is a cost of doing business and someone has to pay it.

So Netflix, Amazon, Spotify and other streaming services all get the same access to bandwidth. And the cost for that bandwidth - rather than being borne by only *their* customers through their subscription fee, is instead borne by *all* of an ISP’s customers - even those who don’t stream.

[semimojo]

IF you were having an issue today, yes...I agree, but your whole idea is based on the same thought-process as liberals: every business is bad and they are ALL going to screw you, if given a chance;

Trust me, the issues are queuing up. Why do you think the ISPs are so excited to get rid of NN?

Comcast hints at plan for paid fast lanes after net neutrality repeal

Do you have a cellphone provider? Have you ever heard of HughesNet?

Yes and yes. On our family farm that's all that's available and if there's any appreciable streaming of Youtube or other videos the cost can be $600/mo or more (vs. unlimited usage for $50 on my Cox connection).

A slow, ridiculously expensive alternative isn't competition. Cell and satellite broadband services exist only because there are places where hard-wired broadband options aren't available.

[ExTxMarine]

And the cost for that bandwidth - rather than being borne by only *their* customers through their subscription fee, is instead borne by *all* of an ISP’s customers - even those who don’t stream.

DING! DING! DING!

We have a winner!!

[ssaftler]

The reality is I pretty much have to take what Cox is offering me.

Are you saying that there is NO alternative to Cox where you live? Maybe they have a monopoly on WIRED Internet service in your location. But there are usually other options.

What about Satellite? Unless you live in an underground bunker with no outside world access, you should be able to get Satellite where you are.

[TheStickman]

Net neutrality is bogus. It was designed as a way for Fedzilla to start controlling the internet so progressives can slowly start doing away with all the economic freedom & prosperity using the internet can bring to a person, a company or a nation.

[semimojo]

Monopolies only exist when force can be used to sustain them. IE - they are approved by government.

I think what you're saying is if you don't want monopolies the government must disapprove - that is, regulate. I agree.

And the cost for that bandwidth - rather than being borne by only *their* customers through their subscription fee, is instead borne by *all* of an ISP’s customers - even those who don’t stream.

That's totally up to the ISP and how they choose to charge their customers.

There's nothing preventing my ISP charging me more for streaming more data. If they did that my fellow ISP customers wouldn't be affected by what I streamed at all.

The problem for the ISPs is that customers reject this approach - they don't like metered connections. As a result the ISPs are looking to extort money from the content providers since they lack the market power to charge customers for what they use.