Posted on 11/28/2017 2:07:58 PM PST by Thalean
"Net neutrality has a nice ring to it. Who doesn’t want an even playing field? But the internet evolved rapidly in a deregulated environment. And most of its trappings—a lack of censorship, equal access, tremendous diversity of viewpoint, an alternative means of accessing media, and deep stores of information—evolved before net neutrality was a legal mandate.
After numerous attempts at congressional action failed to result in new laws, the Federal Communications Commission in 2015 adopted net neutrality rules in under the leadership of Obama appointee Tom Wheeler. Now, under chairman Ajit Pai—a Trump appointee—net neutrality is at risk, as its legal underpinnings have come under greater scrutiny.
But should the end of “net neutrality” worry anyone?"
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
One issue I take with it though is the potential for rate-metering conservative sites (like Free Republic) which will slow them down relative to the "big boys" who can pay for faster access.
Google's latest algorithms gives preference to sites with fast download times, which means that allowing sites to pay for faster times directly from ISP will further entrench established interests. Although, the argument can be made that that's already happening anyways.
How can you admit that this change will help make establishment interests more powerful and conservative sites harder to access, yet still support it?
The short term dispute is an economic one, between ISP’s like Comcast and content providers like Netflix or Google. I don’t really have a dog in that fight.
But in the long term, the more significant aspect of the net neutrality regulations is the precedent they establish. Just like the Supreme Court put forward the principle that they are the arbiter if what is Constitutional in Marbury vs. Madison, the FCC’s net neutrality rule sets the precedent that they have the power to regulate all things Internet. Today it might be regulating what pricing strategies are permitted. Tomorrow it might be which technologies are permitted or even what content is allowed.
The argument would be economic freedom. Of course one man’s freedom can be viewed as another man’s oppression.
“Net neutrality” is code for a Left-wing bureaucracy that decide what should be allowed on the Interwebs and what shouldn’t.
Classic case of static analysis vs dynamic analysis.
Those who want to regulate the internet as a common carrier think that ATT, Comcast, google will dominate.
Elon Musk has a plan totally disrupt the current internet and cell phone business in 3-5 years. Many small players see their opportunity to go big during that disruption.
Dynamic analysis says you ain’t seen nuttin yet.
The net neutrality rules would have frozen the development of internet technology at the 2017 level. If they had done this 20years ago, we’d be stuck with dial-up.
I’ve yet to see anyone on either side discuss the possibility that an ISP that is also a content provider (think Comcast) might want to charge a higher rate on bandwidth from a competitor than they charge all other users. This would be a monopolistic practice and one that hits home to me since Comcast is my only real choice for an ISP in my location. As a “cord cutter” who has dropped cable, I get a lot of content from Amazon and Netflix.
Granted, a company should be able to charge whatever they want for their services, but selectively hampering the competition should be illegal I think.
For analogy, if a local power company was owned by an energy conglomerate, say that Acme Power Company was owned by Acme Energy Corp which also happened to own the Acme gas stations.
If Acme Power charged a competing gas station in town 100 times as much a rate for electricity than it charges the Fast-Food restaurants or other businesses nearby, that would be anti-competitive behavior and that seems like it should be illegal.
Notice that I didn’t say that Acme Power should charge the Acme Gas Stations the same rate as everyone else, if they want to give the power away free to divisions of their own company that’s OK.
Preventing companies from charging “targeted” higher rates or using other coercive policies like selective fees to hamper competition is what I thought net neutrality was about. Will there be any protection against those sorts of monopolistic actions after net neutrality is swept away?
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