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Swamps have a lot of standing water which creates a lot of mosquitoes that carry diseases. Draining a swamp reclaims land and prevents kids from dying.
Yeah but in fairness, the other candidate was someone who was also a proven liar, had the Benghazi scandal under her belt, and had the FBI declare publicly that she violated laws related to the handling of classified information.
As South Park put it, it's the choice between "Giant Douche vs Turd Sandwich".
I abstained from voting. I'm still happy with my decision. People actually care about politics again [1]. Maybe next time don't railroad my candidate (Sanders) during the primaries. I will never vote for a neoliberal or corporate Democratic candidate, even if you hold my country hostage.
[1] Alabama has a Democratic state senator for the first time in decades.
Alabama's new Democratic Senator won because the choice was literally "this guy or a pedophile?" That seat'll almost certainly go overwhelmingly red again in 2020. Sessions won the seat in 2014 with 97.3% of the vote.
There's probably a Democratic wave happening nationally, but the Alabama special election is really poor evidence to use for it.
Alabama's race was "Democrat or pedophile" and going into the race, _everybody thought Moore was going to win because a Democrat was considered more unelectable than a pedophile in Alamabama_. It's easy to say "Well the republican candidate was uniquely terrible, and that's why the Democrat won". But if Moore had won, nobody would have been surprised. Plenty of people would have been disappointed, sure, but nobody would have said "Well, I for sure thought Alabama would go for the D over the R in this case".
Yes, there's definitely some unusual factors that went into this race, and the Republican party made a lot of unforced errors that let the race be competitive. But the fact that it was even possible for it to be competitive seems like evidence of a wave to me, especially when you pair it with the recent Democratic wave in Virginia.
> Sessions won the seat in 2014 with 97.3% of the vote
Which sounds impressive, except that he was running unopposed (not just no Democratic opponent but no other candidates filed for the election at all) in both the primary and general election.
The fact that a Republican can run unopposed in a state-wide election of national importance is probably the best evidence it'll turn back to red at the earliest opportunity.
That a Republican incumbent could run opposed for a Senate seat that Democrats had written off based on decades of losses, in a midterm election (which is generally bad for the President's party) under a Democratic president is not a strong sign of how a Democratic incumbent will fare six years later in a Presidential election year.
I remember reading an article about Trump v. Clinton, and how no matter who won, it would reinvigorate the opposition for a generation.
I'm not quite sure if that was true if Clinton had one, we'll never know, but one thing is for certain: The opposition to the current government and policies seems reinvigorated, and the generational aspect of it could be true as well. Perhaps this country really did need an enema.
I think the reinvigorating the opposition thing already happened when Obama was elected. That is how we got the Tea Party and how we got Trump. The Democratic party that Clinton ran under wasn't that different than the party of her husband. The Republican Party of Trump is drastically different than the party of GW Bush.
>Maybe next time don't railroad my candidate (Sanders) during the primaries. I will never vote for a neoliberal or corporate Democratic candidate, even if you hold my country hostage.
This isn't a game where you earn points for purity. You can pat yourself on the back for not voting for "a neoliberal or corporate Democratic candidate" all you want, but the election had consequences, one of which is Trump becoming President. Presumably as a supporter of Sanders you oppose most if not all of the policies Trump is pursuing, yet your refusal to vote against Trump helped enable everything he is doing whether you intended or like that. Real-world consequences happen regardless of how you think or feel about them.
You're putting your own vanity over actual beliefs. If you truly stand for what you claim, you'll fight for it any way you can, even if that's not personally appealing or ideal.
Hillary would have been far worse.. Trump is under every microscope waiting for an impeachable offense.. Hillary would have had full immunity to take bribes as she pleases.
Hillary would have been far worse.. Trump is under every microscope waiting for an impeachable offense.. Hillary would have had full immunity to take bribes as she pleases.
Trump is under a microscope only in the sense that people can point out how corrupt he is acting, but without any power to actually stop that corruption.
And the idea that Hillary wasn't under (and wouldn't continue to be under) a microscope it absolutely ridiculous.
Electing Trump makes Americans look like fools, but Congress is where the action happens (ACA repeals, despicable tax bills, etc). Repealing the clean power plan? Natural gas and renewables are crushing coal and nuclear, and nothing is going to stop that. Rolling back net neutrality? Citizens get involved in local municipal broadband deployments (as it should be!) where governance is controlled by the local electorate.
I'm putting principles (edit: autocorrect fixed) first. I don't fault you if you don't, but what I "stand for" (people taking an active interest in the political landscape) is still going to come to pass, even faster than previously with Trump having been elected (while notably, he has very little control over actual policy). Congress will see more tilting towards progressives under a Trump administration than it ever would have under Clinton.
>Congress is where the action happens (ACA repeals, despicable tax bills, etc). Repealing the clean power plan?
Congress drafts legislation, true, but it would be much harder for Republican legislation to pass if they didn't also control the White House. You'll recall that legislation needs to be approved by the President to become law, and at the very least a President Clinton would not be assisting a Republican Congress and Senate in passing all these things you oppose.
>I'm putting principals first.
They do work hard to lead their schools and deserve admiration for that, but we should probably be discussing principles.
> I don't fault you if you don't, but what I "stand for" is still going to come to pass
Maybe, but faux-religious certainty of future victory ignores the very real suffering that comes between now and the glorious future. People losing access to food or healthcare today thanks to Republican policies, for example. That could have been avoided with a different electoral outcome, and telling someone who can no longer afford to eat or get the medication or treatment they need that some day we'll have universal healthcare or UBI or whatever isn't exactly helping.
>Step 1: Set fire to house
>Step 2: "Do we have your attention now?"
>Step 3: Progress
Step 1: Set fire to house
Step 2: You are homeless and have nothing
Step 3: Some day this situation will fix itself, I guess? In the meantime you are starving and living in the street.
> People losing access to food or healthcare today thanks to Republican policies, for example. That could have been avoided with a different electoral outcome, and telling someone who can no longer afford to eat or get the medication or treatment they need that some day we'll have universal healthcare or UBI or whatever isn't exactly helping.
How quickly we forget that Bill Clinton was responsible for dismantling welfare in the 1990s. [1] Hillary would've done better? I don't believe so. Nor does Hillary Clinton think she could get universal healthcare done [2].
> Step 3: Some day this situation will fix itself, I guess? In the meantime you are starving and living in the street.
Step 3 is in progress. Step 2 was beyond our control due to Republican majorities. Excuse our dust while we fix our country.
>How quickly we forget that Bill Clinton was responsible for dismantling welfare in the 1990s.
No one forgot, it's just not relevant to this conversation. The choice was between Hillary Clinton and Trump. Whatever Bill did can be discussed on their merits.
>Nor does Hillary Clinton think she could get universal healthcare done
And she's right by your very own admission: the Republicans currently control Congress. Universal healthcare isn't happening anytime soon. What could have been done is limiting the damage the Republicans could do while working to take back the legislature. You chose to exchange that real chance for idealistic fantasy.
>Step 3 is in progress. Step 2 was beyond our control due to Republican majorities.
But, again, there didn't have to be a Republican President to implement their policies. It was very much within our control. You are, again, ignoring reality.
>Excuse our dust while we fix our country.
We who? The Republican majorities you seem to oppose are now both in power and have a President who works with them. The "dust" is the human misery currently being caused by them while your glorious Golden Age beckons just over the horizon. I'm not happy calling that suffering "dust" or accepting it as the price to pay for some nebulous future, and I don't think "you have to break some eggs to make an omelette" is very principled at all, especially when those affected in the meanwhile are the poorest and most vulnerable, exactly the people you claim to want to help.
No. Give me a candidate worth voting for, and I will vote. The current "pick the lesser of two shitheads" is ridiculous. Both parties in the US are to blame.
The two party system in the US today means that voting for anyone that is not a Democrat or Republican is a complete waste of time.
You could have voted for Evan McMullin, a CIA officer for over 10 years and all around stand up dude. There were plenty of other candidates. If you threw your hands up and did not vote, you're part of the problem. Period.
You're obviously trolling, but if enough people did this, we would in fact be a three (or more) party system, hence breaking the stranglehold the two current parties currently have over us.
However you feel about the system, it's the system that exists. Refusing to make a choice in the system also has consequences, whether you like or want them. This action by the FCC is one of them.
Cute but demonstrably false. If Trump weren't President, this action would not have happened. Your failure to oppose Trump contributed to that.
Vague discussion of "a broken system" obscures the concrete reality and the results of your choices, which is likely why you choose to discuss the matter in this way.
> If Trump weren't President, this action would not have happened.
Source? Because you likely don't have some magical crystal ball, which means you're just 'hoping' that whoever won the election in Sangermaine's alternate universe would have let this ride.
No one in the previous administration had the spine to make Net Neutrality permanent, and you can't hide that no mattery how much gloss you throw at it. Keep dreaming, buddy!
> Source? Because you likely don't have some magical crystal ball
We don't need a crystal ball, we have the statements of the candidates during the election. Trump was, from the beginning, anti-Net Neutrality. As for Clinton:
2015:
>Hillary Clinton is vowing to enforce strong net neutrality rules if she is elected president....
“Closing these loopholes and protecting other standards of free and fair competition — like enforcing strong net neutrality rules and preempting state laws that unfairly protect incumbent businesses — will keep more money in consumers’ wallets, enable startups to challenge the status quo, and allow small businesses to thrive,” she wrote in an op-ed in Quartz.
>Hillary Clinton has indicated support for net neutrality. She gave two thumbs up to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal for strong net neutrality rules, though admitted it was only a “foot in the door.” Clinton has expressed concern that regulations could mean stagnant competition among service providers, saying “we’ve got to do more about how we incentivize competition in broadband.” And she’s committed to fighting broadband monopolies, citing Google Fiber in Kansas City as a perfect example of what she wants to see everywhere in the US.
>Hillary Clinton gave a shout-out to a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission for her rallying call to "raise a ruckus" to save net neutrality, which the Republican-led FCC is poised to dismantle next month.
>"Time to call foul. Time to raise a ruckus. Time to save #NetNeutrality," Jessica Rosenworcel, one of two Democrats on the five-commissioner FCC, tweeted Wednesday.
>In response, Clinton tweeted: "You go girl! This is important; costs will go up, & powerful companies will get more powerful. We can’t let it slip through the cracks"....
>Net neutrality was not a major issue often brought up during the 2016 campaign. However, Clinton, who served as former President Barack Obama's first secretary of state, has shown support for net neutrality in the past. She said she would vote for it back in 2015, calling it a "foot in the door," and characterizing it as a starting point in the broader Internet regulation discussion.
It's simply a statement of fact that the FCC would not be repealing Net Neutrality right now, or ever, under a Clinton administration. You can argue about the nature of Clinton's support for NN, but she has always consistently voiced support for the policy.
You've so committed to your fantasy of both sides being the same that you've become unhinged from reality.
> No one in the previous administration had the spine to make Net Neutrality permanent
The previous administration spent all their political capital passing Obamacare. After that, they lost the house and senate and were stonewalled at every opportunity by Mitch "Let's make him a one term President" McConnell.
Your comment does not demonstrate an accurate recollection of history nor the stances of the candidates.
Clinton would not have repealed Net Neutrality. Keeping Net Neutrality was one of the Democratic platform planks. So right there, we know that this action would not have happened.
Second, the idea that no one in the Obama administration wanted to make Net Neutrality permanent is absolutely idiotic. The only way something like that could be made permanent would be through an Act of Congress. And the opposition party controlled Congress, so you're not getting that to happen.
Honestly, given your deliberate misunderstanding of the issues, it's probably best you don't vote. Let the adults make the decisions.
This thread is about Net Neutrality. The rules being rolled back by the current Republican administration were put in place by the previous Democratic administration.
Not voting is just a vote for whoever wins. You voted through inaction for the candidate that supported removing these protections.
You're totally ignoring the fact that the previous administration had the power to make Net Neutrality permanent... but did not. They took the 'easy' FCC route, just as the current administration is doing right now.
A half-assed effort, at best from your 'good guys'
While I mostly agree, it's not about picking a perfect candidate... It's about moving the bar of acceptance over a little bit at a time. You elect the people that represent your values and, eventually, those values become the norm. I fear that America just doesn't agree with the same values as I do.
I was tempted to not vote seeing as I live in Idaho, I don't even have anyone running for local/state seats I want to vote for (our state district had republicans running unopposed for house/senate) and though I hate the phrase my vote literally meant nothing in the federal elections last year.
I still did it, because I firmly believe it's my duty (and I personally would go so far as to say we should have Australia-style penalties for NOT voting) - though I did get to protest vote both Hillary and Trump since the latter was going to win my state anyway.
I too am from Idaho and voted for a third party candidate because I didn't feel comfortable voting for either Trump or Clinton. I know my vote will likely never change Idaho, but I still vote for who I think is right.
The problem with most voters is that they choose an identity and then vote according to how they think that identity votes. It's why you end up with people who vote Republican even if it is not in their best interests. I try to vote for people that I think have strong moral character and will be willing to do what's right (in my opinion) rather than what's likely to get them elected.
We live in an electoral system. For almost all of the states of the U.S. it's actually factually correct that there's no difference for whom you vote in the Presidential elections. In many locations, it also doesn't matter who you vote for in Congressional ones thanks to gerrymandering drawing boundary lines around you before you even get to the polls.
We can discuss ideologically what the differences are between the parties, but as those of us in CA, NY, NJ, etc. well know - it's purely academic.
[edit:] Folks, it's a winner-take-all capital-E Electoral system in the vast majority of states, and in the vast majority of states, the demographic votes consistently in the same way. Thus very few states swing the entire Presidential election process, meaning that they matter. In California, for example, 3 million Democrats could have stayed in bed all day and not voted at all, and still it would have not touched the end result there.
Not sure how you can still have this "it doesn't matter" view after the 2016 election. If there was any proof at all that the masses had the power to give away their power, it was given November 10, 2016.
Great. So, I live in NY State. Tell me what the people that stayed home 'did wrong' being that it was an overwhelmingly Democratic Electoral win here?
It does matter, but it only matters in small sliver of states, as those states literally can swing elections.
Whether Republicans and Democrats have the same, slightly different, medium different, or wildly divergent views is secondary to the fact that for most Americans, the choice has already been made.
As an example, take Wisconsin - it was a blue state for 8 cycles before swinging to Trump in 2016. Democratic turnout was paltry, in great part because Democrats assumed that Hillary would win without them.
We just had an election in Alabama that proved this view incorrect. Even in seemingly "safe" districts your vote can matter. That's how safe districts become safe.
Howard Dean pursued an explicit "fifty-state strategy" as chairman of the Democratic National Committee in the mid-2000s, putting resources into building a Democratic Party presence even where Democrats had been thought unlikely to win federal positions, in hopes that getting Democrats elected to local and state positions, and increasing awareness of Democrats in previously conceded areas, would result in growing successes in future elections.
The strategy was gradually abandoned after Dean stepped down from the DNC, and I believe that a large part of the Democrats' losses since then is exactly a result of your mindset, since abandoning red states or districts as lost causes only allowed the Republican Party to grow even stronger in areas where it was unchallenged, resulting in lopsided losses for Democrats in even more races and killing any ability to lay the groundwork for future victories.
I can't substantiate or refuse your Deanian Loss Theory here, but I do agree we abandoned swaths of voters (we being Hillary Clinton, I say while suddenly experiencing acid reflux). But where did the machine fail most? The swing states, the states that 'matter' for these elections. As per my parent comment.
>We just had an election in Alabama that proved this view incorrect. Even in seemingly "safe" districts your vote can matter. That's how safe districts become safe.
It's kind of counter-intuitive, but the election of a Democrat in Alabama actually provided a lot of discouraging data about gerrymandering. While a Democrat won the state-wide popular vote, if those votes had been cast in the House districts, Republicans would have won six of the state's seven seats. Gerrymandering doesn't really help as much in a Senate race, but in House races, it's everything.
Same goes for the recent Virginia election. Democrats outvoted Republicans by a wide margin in November, yet they might not even gain control of the house of delegates.
This topic is very much in legal flux right now and will be going before the Supreme Court. I think election results like in Alabama can feature prominently in arguments but even more persuasive are more academic models which can compare degrees of gerrymandering. Anthony Kennedy was looking for just that kind of rigor and now it’s available.
What is unquestionable is that in a very tangible way, Garland would have provided a crucial vote here. He would have been on the court with a Clinton presidency, instead a partisan extremist is. The path to progress is by participating in the current system so that you hold power to make things better. Things would have gotten better directly on this issue with a Clinton presidency. So if you’re not participating because you think that’s the quicker path to progress, I think this issue provides a large point against that logic.
Gandhi said, "Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."
You are technically correct. Almost no election is changed by the result of a single person. However, if everyone who thought this way chose to vote anyway, they could collectively swing every election.
When a policy issue comes up, politicians look at their constituency. An issue may be very important to certain demographics, but if those demos don't vote, they don't care.
One of the single best ways to get your voice heard is to vote. Even if it doesn't have direct impacts, it drastically changes what politicians look at. They won't vote to your every whim just because if it, but they'll try to gain your vote at any opportunity they can. Lots of small decisions add up.
I did not vote, and I see that as a "vote of no-confidence."
At some point, a president will be elected with only like, 10% of the population having actually voted for them, and that'll be a crisis that forces us to overhaul some things.
It really won't. See Brazil. The president was elected with less support than that[0], and they are overhauling nothing. Don't think that things would be different in USA, don't fall to American exceptionalism. I recommend that you take a few minutes and honestly ask yourself what is different in the USA that would cause such a poor election to have a different consequence. A 10% will be taken as a sign of apathy, not of opposition, and as an opportunity to do whatever because people clearly don't care.
I'm not "falling to American exceptionalism" - I just don't think that because something happened once, in another country, in a particular way, means that it'll happen exactly the same way, in every other country, forever.
Pai was appointed by Obama and confirmed by the Senate as a Republican under law limiting the number of members of one party to a bare majority and a long-standing, strong tradition that the President defer to the leadership of the other party in the Senate in appointing members filling the seats which must be filled by members not of the President's party. (Which Trump slow followed when renominating Democratic former commissioner Rosenworcel.) [0]
Blaming Obama for Pai being on the committee, rather than the Republican Party, is like blaming Elizabeth II for acts of the British Government rather than the parliamentary majority party.
OTOH, where no such legal or traditional constraint limited his choices, Trump selected Pai as FCC Chair, so blaming Trump for Pai’s current position and his reasonably direct endorsement of Pai’s long-overt goals for the FCC is appropriate.
Look I understand what you're saying, but it's complicated. Obama chose to respect a tradition and he did so at the cost of allowing anti-NN people into the FCC. He could've found a republican that was pro-NN, but he didn't. You can argue about what tradition dictated, but as the president I think you have to take some responsibility for the choices being made, even if they are hard ones. Obama broke a lot of traditions and he suffered for it, especially in his first term, so I'm not saying this is a simple decision, or one that would've cost a reasonable amount of political capital, but he did have the actual, legal choice, and he did make it. This enabled Trump to select Pai as chair. So without Obama's decision Pai would not be chair either. It's ComplicatedTM.
The entire world is made up of divisive politics. Unless you want this to be a place where nothing of substance is discussed, ever, then you cannot escape it.
The FCC is required to be split with the Executive Office filling in the gap for the Commissioner. 2 R, 2 D, and 1 whichever party wins the Presidency.
Pai was recommended by the Republican party; the FCC has two commissioners for each party, plus the chairman who decides split votes. Obama's chairman was in favor of NN, Trump's was solidly against, and that's all that matters.
You say this as if Hillary would have been so much better.. No, this ones on all the people who continue to stick their head in the sand and try to blame the other team.
> The FCC is required to be split with the Executive Office filling in the gap for the Commissioner. 2 R, 2 D, and 1 whichever party wins the Presidency. (from pythonboi)
2 democrats voted against repealing NN. If we had 3 D's in the FCC, if we had Hillary, you would have seen the opposite result.
Please stop peddling this "there's no difference" narrative. It's clearly untrue in this case. Otherwise, why would the split be on party lines? Republicans voted to repeal NN, not democrats.
Every FCC vote on net neutrality since the 2010 rules has been straight party-line. The Republican majority is a direct result of having a Republican President. It's pretty clear that a Democratic administration would have been different on this issue, whatever other areas there might be where that question would be murkier.
Please don't post political flamebait to HN. Even assuming you're right, posting like this destroys this site. Everyone commenting here needs to take responsibility for not doing that.
Just like it's even more important to guard against sparks when the forest is already dry, it's even more important to take this responsibility when the topic is already politicized.
I'm a little shocked that you removed and commented on this fairly benign comment but apparently don't have time to remove outright bigotry that I've flagged in the past. It feels like the moderation here is very much in the pocket of the alt-right.
Is this one of those things that is just never going to work? It seems like our system can't execute on things that are all-or-nothing. We shoot for the all, water it down with compromise, and then we're surprised when things fail.
This happens in many situations, such as public transit. Build half a subway line so that it goes to nowhere and it fails, thus getting ridiculed as a failure from the start. How are we supposed to accomplish anything big or complex in this system?
> No, nor will the next congress (likely Democratic or leaning that way) be prevented from passing laws that reinstate it at the legislative level.
Merely leaning Democrat isn't enough when the president can veto legislation. (I'm also not so sure it will be leaning Democrat in the first place, but that's secondary.)
Edit: To everyone downvoting: what did I say that was wrong...?
The alternative is government power realizing that limiting internet access under the guise of free markets is a great a censorship and control tool, and getting used to that and never doing anything about it regardless of who is in power.
Would anything stop the next administration from re-instating net neutrality?
Money from the even richer companies that want to prevent it from happening.
Think of the ad campaigns: "Since have been able to charge content providers for their use of our network, we've kept our costs low - that's why you pay only $99.99/month for your ultra fast 10 mbit connection , f net neutrality comes back, your rates will skyrocket"
I understand you're being sarcastic, but pro-NN folks like the OP are claiming that big business will shut down attempts to reinstate NN. That's an incorrect claim; some of the largest, richest, most powerful companies on the planet are pro-NN. It's dishonest to characterize big companies as the driving force behind anti-NN legislation.
It's just a bit strange that there was less protest from the giants this time than in past Net Neutrality battles. It's beginning to seem like a number of these large web companies have become ambivalent to the issue.
Of course Netflix is in favor of net neutrality, I seem to recall when this was first being proposed they were responsible for something like 10% of all network traffic.
Do you really think they'd be opposed to a plan that basically subsidizes their bandwidth?
Same for all the other internet giants, net neutrality pretty much cemented their spot in the status quo.
> Do you really think they'd be opposed to a plan that basically subsidizes their bandwidth?
no it's not subsidizing.
Basically I pay X amount to the ISP to ACTUALLY VIEW NETFLIX.
Basically the ISP gets more out of the deal by having access to netflix, not the other way.
Correct, a place where innovative companies like Netflix were blocked and throttled by ISPs due to conflicts with their legacy business models.
I don't know how anyone could honestly say that taking away an important consumer protection is going to help innovation, outside of innovative new billing practices by ISPs.
This is OT but I don't see the innovation of Netflix. It's TV on the Internet. They were actually a more innovative, or at least weirder, business when they were mailing DVDs around.
It's like Russ Hanneman (Mark Cuban, right?) on Silicon Valley. We can take this thing called the "radio" and put it on this new thing called the "Internet". Not as mind blowing as he believes.
NY AG Schneiderman had a good response to this in the earlier AMA (which I've pasted below).
"As a preliminary matter, it’s important to recognize that net neutrality principles and protections in different forms have actually been around since 2005 and even earlier. So the flourishing of the internet and everything relying on it during that time occurred under the protections. A few years ago, however, the courts struck down one form of net neutrality protections (those that had relied on Title I of the Communications Act), so then in 2015 the FCC put net neutrality protections back in place under Title II instead (they also expanded the earlier protections, e.g., to include protections against abuses related to interconnection, which had not been the subject of net neutrality protections before 2015). Now, in 2017, the FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai is proposing to repeal net neutrality protections altogether (and the courts’ earlier decisions effectively foreclose a return to net neutrality protections under Title I). So that would be entirely new territory for the internet.
Why do we think that’s bad? Well, as I explained in my own public comment in the current proceeding (https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/10717583023587/FINAL%20RIF%20Co...), we’ve seen how companies behave in the absence of net neutrality protections, specifically in the area of interconnection before it was regulated in 2015, and their unregulated conduct harmed consumers. In essence, they made a deliberate business decision to let the quality of internet access degrade, knowing that it hurt consumers, to try to squeeze revenue out of edge providers like Netflix and backbone providers like Cogent and Level 3. Plus, we know that many consumers have few ISPs to choose from, so competition isn’t as effective a check as in other markets. So I believe strong net neutrality regulations are needed to avoid harms to consumers."
Just so we are clear this is what is happening. Removal of regulations that prohibited broadband providers from blocking websites or charging for higher-quality service or certain content.
Did they do that before 2015, there are cases of it, but not really that much. Providers mostly want to slowly introduce it now or at least the option to introduce it. I don't think they want to switch it quickly, but giving them this power is very dreadful.
So saying it will go back to 2015 (basically not really an issue), is looking at things a bit closed minded.
Net neutrality wasn't instituted in 2015. It was made law in 2015. Prior to that, Net Neutrality was the standard since it was classified as an information service. It wasn't until telecom companies started blocking VoIP traffic that it changed.
Net neutrality has never been made law, as the 2015 FCC Open Internet Order is not a law. The FCC cannot write laws. Full net neutrality, as defined here [1], has also never been mandated in the US.
The 2015 Open Internet Order mandated "net neutrality protections", not net neutrality itself.
A lot of questionable stuff happened before 2015 and net neutrality was put in place to prevent more of that in the future. Thinking that it will be eternally 2015 is optimistic.
Most people don't fit into either party's value system. I hardly think boiling it down to R vs D is going to help anyone, we need to inform our populous.
Despite how my above comment appears, I really don't want to turn this into partisan shit-flinging. I am no Democrat, I fall well to the left of where they live, and I disagree about gun rights and a number of other things.
That being said, I think it's pretty clear that more harmful policies proposed in recent times have come predominantly from a single source, and I think it's more important to work in opposition to that harmfulness than to find a group that perfectly represents you. Especially with a first past the post electoral system in which fractiousness dilutes the value of your vote.
Amen, may the ranked ballot reign supreme one day. First past the post always trends towards Bicameralism, and if we could rank our options on the local, state, and national level I think we would see a lot more accurate reflection of our ideals in our representative government. Ranked Ballot Choices means no more wasted votes. Thanks for your comment, these are strange and exciting times. May peace prevail
Yes but any Republican would have taken this action. Pai was appointed because by convention (or possibly requirement) the commission is composed of two Democrats and two Republicans, and is chaired by a commissioner of the President's choosing.
Saying Pai is Obama's fault is disingenuous, because he had to appointment a Republican, and any Republican chair would implement Republican policy.
Saying this is the Republican's fault is just as disingenuous as saying it was Obama's fault. Quite literally this was caused by Obama by the appointing of Ajit, who then was promoted by Trump. Ajit, as we know has been spearingheading this whole thing.
So Republicans don't have any agency? They don't have any accountability for making this part of their platform?
That's pretty rich for being the "party of personal responsibility".
Ajit Pai has the confidence of Republican leadership and was appointed by Obama at McConnell's behest, again because of requirement. I'm sure if Obama could have appointed a political ally he would have.
Ajit Pai certainly is responsible for this, but he is acting on behalf of the GOP and has their full backing. I think it's fair to hold them accountable for that.
Attempting to blame Republicans or Democrats for this collectively is silly. The point is that both are responsible (by differing, unquantifiable amounts), as noted by the fact that Pai was appointed by Obama, a democrat and promoted to a point where he could influence Net Neutrality by Trump.
Please don't turn HN threads into partisan fights. That leads to information heat death, something we're all here to avoid.
This topic is already highly partisan, of course, so it's all the more important not to make it more so. This is very much a collective responsibility.
Yes I tried to mitigate that in my child comment. It is, as you mentioned, a highly partisan matter though and has been beaten to death on this forum and others. I don't know how else to approach the subject when there is such clear malfeasance coming from one side of the debate. Perhaps "not at all" would be the correct choice.
Maybe, or maybe there's a different way to do it if you're patient enough to wait for a new idea. I know how hard that is; I deal with it every day myself.
There's literally nothing partisan about this topic. The technical and academic worlds are virtually unanimous on the support of net neutrality. Even political support for net neutrality is around 83% across both parties. Don't shut down discussion because you personally feel ashamed that your party is complicit in this thing. It's not political.
It's surreal to read comments like this, because it makes one realize how much of what people see in each other is pure imagination.
I don't have a party, and net neutrality is one of the few political issues Hacker News has officially done something for, including quite recently. I don't fault you for not knowing that, because most people see only a tiny slice of what passes through here and no one sees all of it. But the dynamic of jumping to a view of someone as your enemy is a thing we all need to work on.
Here is my prediction: they will begin slowly, but eventually ISP's will be priortizing the traffic of their shitty versions of various internet services (youtube.com, DropCam, etc...)... This will impact small new businesses the worst because large entities will be able to afford to pay... So, we'll just have less new internet startups... Will be quite hard to quantify.
Europe has it's problems, but I don't regret moving to London. Not one bit. The innovation here is real and tangible, by and large unencumbered by this kind of crap.
I really should get the paperwork going for my wife's Italian citizenship, the US national archive sent me an un-certified copy of her grandfathers naturalization papers even though I requested a certified copy and I've been too lazy to try again.
Anyone have advice on tech hotspots in the EU that are willing to put up with English-speaking engineers? I've thought about Finland a couple times, good schools for my daughter, ample hunting and fishing opportunities and from what I can tell pretty good broadband infrastructure.
In no particular order: Berlin, Lisbon, London, Paris (might need a little bit of French), Amsterdam, Dublin.
Each one has different pros/cons depending on whats important to you: type of work, money, work/life balance. All of them are good (and, aside from London soon, easy to move between once you're resident in Europe or here on a long visa).
> In no particular order: Berlin, Lisbon, London, Paris (might need a little bit of French), Amsterdam, Dublin.
Thanks, I'll have to take a look. Still debating whether I'd want to move across the pond from my family, especially with a 5 year old in tow - but I've thought about moving to the EU for roughly 10 years at this point.
> (and, aside from London soon, easy to move between once you're resident in Europe or here on a long visa).
That part's pretty easy for me, my wife inherited Italian citizenship through her bloodline - we just need to get all the paperwork taken care of to get it recognized.
I'm not totally up on this (since I'm English and my wife is French, so Europe is easy for us) but a friend of mine (also English) married an American and I remember it took quite a bit of effort for her to become a dual British citizen and gain full residency. Basically, I'm not 100% sure the fact your wife could gain Italian citizenship will automatically give you full residency/rights too.
I might be talking crap but worth checking out. In any case, it's definitely do-able and you should give it a go! Europe's awesome (and v. kid friendly)
My thoughts are similar to yours, but not due to innovation but rather a functioning, humane welfare state. My wife and I have been eyeing up Sweden or Denmark for years. If family wasn't here, we'd have left already.
Just don't move to those regions. The United States is the third or fourth largest country in the world by land mass. There are properties you can buy which are inside the range of only one terrestrial ISP, or none at all. Don't do it if access to more than one terrestrial ISP is important to you.
Also, I don't know if you're referring specifically to the UK. I happen to have some experience with the ISP situation in Canada, and I can tell you that there are places smack-dab in the middle of the largest city in the country where you only have access to one ISP. There are really only about four, maybe five, functioning terrestrial ISPs in Canada, and in a given city, usually only two operate. I have no idea how sparse it gets out in the sticks, cottage country at least gets LTE. Generally the only terrestrial ISP competition in Canada is between monopolies on roughly either side of the continental divide in telephone DSLs (Bell or Telus, depending on region) and modems on the cable TV infrastructure (Rogers or Shaw, depending on region), a fifth is coming up just in Toronto (Beanfield), time will tell if they can manage to expand the fiber infrastructure enough to grow their business.
Whenever I become angry about something here in the US and look into emigrating (mostly looking at first-world English speaking countries: CAN, UK, NZ, etc.), my research usually turns up compelling evidence that no country with any sort of socialized health care system (which is pretty much anywhere in the developed world) will accept a person with special needs children.
Due to the way contemporary news media works, I think that Democrats (for the time being) have rapidly depreciating political capital after any election. Last time they regulated health care, despite knowing it would cost them many seats in the coming election. To say that 'they had a chance' I think ignores a few important facts about the contemporary US electorate.
Democrats controlled both for a very short amount of time. Al Franken was part of their majority but had his membership delayed by a recount. Ted Kennedy then died and his seat went to a Republican. They never actually had a true supermajority.
If you don't restrict yourself to civil, substantive comments from now on, we will ban you. Any good-faith view you have is possible to express thoughtfully, and that's what you owe to the community here in exchange for the right to post.
Sorry, baser instincts got the better of me. I did not know how to flag; I thought I had not reached the Karma threshold. I appreciate the link with instructions.
yeah....i mean i feel a big part of this is because these people made it without the internet and feel it's not as necessary as people rely on it today.
> Net neutrality is a fiction. Hire Akamai (et al.) to mirror your servers worldwide to speed content to your users.
- David Autor
this is an infuriating argument. distributing your content throughout a network of servers to decrease rtt and increase cache hits is how the internet is supposed to work. giving priority to powerful corporations in an already congested network infrastructure, on the other hand, is anti-consumer and promotes monopolization.
They are also in favour of letting people starve, on environmental externalities to be ignored and to nickel and dime people for short term profit ignoring long term consequences
In a fully capitalist market for broadband, I would indeed feel net enforced neutrality is not quite as necessary and would agree with the pro-market economist comments more. Generally speaking, I would expect that consumers could have a choice between various tiers and qualities of service. I'm fairly sure a "net neutrality" type tier would be one of the options here (there's enough for demand for it.)
The current marketplace is a different story. In many places in America, Internet service is a defacto monopoly. And the current legal landscape is anti-competitive and protects the big players. States can't experiment with their own net neutrality policies [1]; heck, legislation is in place in many states to defacto prevent municipal broadband alternatives [2]. And even with private players like Google Fiber, the "big players" show every willingness to use nuisance lawsuits in attempt to delay that pesky capitalist competition from coming into play. [3]
I did notice that a lot of the comments in that survey of economists brought up both the anti-competitive nature of the current broadband market, as well as the worry about vertical integration (which also is a monopoly concern). So it's not like they aren't aware of some of the strongest reasons (MHO) for needing net neutrality style regulations at the moment.
Exactly. So many people don't get that. Really 'net neutrality' is sort of the wrong battle. I want to be able to write soft real time application on the internet.
You are right, the market economist are basically just misinformed about the structure of the market. Most of them are not actually people that know much about the internet or work in that space specifically.
My attempt at a solution is to equate packets with real live postal services. The postal service is not allowed to open your packets but they are allowed to look at the stamp. This is how the IP protocol was designed to work, and it would work, but that requires a change in how IP do pricing and so on and so on.
No, actually it's not. You can pay for a better connection yourself, but "paid prioritization" essentially slows down other people for the person connecting to you, through no fault or issue of theirs.
This has been asked a few times but never fully answered, can someone explain why this vote in particular is a problem? I understand net neutrality and I am all for it, but there was considerable public doubt before reclassification that this was the proper way to go about it. It also doesn't seem like the internet regulatory state of pre-2015 was a disaster. Would we better off focusing our efforts on increasing competition among ISPs? The major problem in all the pre-2015 net neutrality issues was that people often did not have any other ISP to use if their current ISP introduced a policy that was anti-consumer.
> Would we better off focusing our efforts on increasing competition among ISPs?
The answer is, of course, yes. But people like to think in terms of black and white, ingroup and outgroup, friend and enemy. The public is now thoroughly convinced not only that the reclassification had the intended effects (and it's not clear that's the case), but that reinstating the reclassification is the only way to address the issue. Anyone who says anything against this norm will be hounded until they shut up.
Actually, the public has been convinced that regulation on ISPs is a good thing, and that repealing that regulation without replacing it with anything is a bad thing. And I think that's a pretty fair thing to think.
The way I look at it, the existing regulation only really held things back a bit from getting much worse. For things to get better, there needs to be an impetus.
I talk with a number of Americans (especially on Freenode and over mailinglists) whose only options are satellite (which explains partly why they're still on IRC) or installing their own point to point radio network. All the current rules mean is that their only available ISP has to tell them explicitly that they'll be sabotaging BitTorrent traffic. Leased highway conduit space or leased dark fiber, and a loosening of (other, more administratively significant) regulations would have an outsize impact on the cost of the last miles of radio and/or fiber backhaul, instead of just adding pages to the subscriber agreement.
Except it was a disaster. The only reason the rule got put into place was because Verizon was found to be throttling Netflix. There's no reason to suspect they won't go back to it as soon as they can.
If there was ISP competition then a Verizon customer could switch ISPs if they disagreed with the throttling of Netflix. I would compare it to wireless which never had these net neutrality rules. Is wireless a disaster? It seems like mobile plans are constantly including more data at faster speeds at a cheaper price. Some (all?) of the carriers have various anti-net neutrality policies but consumers at least have the option to pick which set of policies they are willing to agree with.
There's only one ISP (Xfinity) that provides 25+ mbps in my area (Bay Area). If they decided to throttle, it would be very hard for people in this area to not simply live with it...
Based on my limited knowledge of the ISP market, there's significant barrier of entry in each area for a new ISP or even an existing one like AT&T or Wave G.
There is an incredible up front cost for wired infrastructure and even Verizon was unable to turn a profit in the long run. Go pull their earnings reports and look at the performance of their wireline division (phone, internet, tv, etc...). It always lost money except for one year where they turned a million or two profit. That's why they sold it off to frontier who will invest the bare minimum and just run it until it breaks. This cost is what's preventing competition. Providers are betting hard on 5g wireless, it requires much less last mile infrastructure (you don't have to run and maintain connections to people's houses).
That is an argument that screams for municipal ISPs. However half the country has laws that hinder municipal ISPs. This is the exact type of thing I was talking about in my initial post. Why not put the energy that was behind this movement behind allowing and setting up municipal ISPs?
The municipal ISPs I've heard of (from AMA's on Reddit and such) still have to create a peering contract with Comcast/AT&T because those companies own the lines. And granted, RIGHT NOW, it's not that expensive to peer with them. However, it's my understanding the new FCC just relaxed the rules on how much Comcast can charge businesses that need to use their lines???
"The two specific items to be voted on Thursday include a plan to make it easier for broadband providers to charge other businesses higher prices to connect to the main arteries of their networks." - From a pre-vote article. The vote passed. It includes a link to the document.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/technology/ajit%2Dpai%2Df...
Ok, so assuming the monopolies aren't just going to let you steal away their business by creating a municipal ISP that uses their lines... You could try and lay your own lines to get around this. However, that's the exact problem Google ran into. Google required cities pass ordinances that allowed them to move Comcast/AT&T lines on the utility poles so that Google could add their own, but the existing ISPs sued saying that the cities did not have the right and won in court. This means Google had to wait for Comcast techs to come out and move the lines for each and every pole, a process which could take months and the ISPs were dragging out just to make Google's life miserable. This battle over the utility poles is something you can research.
So, assuming we're not better than Google, and that laying new lines will be a regulation nightmare, we're left with the option of renting the existing ISP's lines... of which I already stated I don't think would work either because the same anti-regulation mentality that caused the FCC to deregulate NN has also caused them to deregulate pricing protections for business peering.
I would imagine, and correct me if I'm wrong, but a muni isp that started tomorrow wouldn't have a mountain of legacy copper lines that are quickly deteriorating, and cost a ton of money to maintain and replace. They could start right out of the gate running fiber to the home.
As a Verizon customer, I'd rather live in this magic world where I can switch ISPs than have net neutrality, but there is no meaningful competition in my building that doesn't suck more.
Google tried to roll out becoming an ISP and the costs were too great for the potential revenue they'd make back. You should read the article below, but not only is laying new cables down costly (which isn't helped when AT&T and Comcast use the legal system to stop Google), but many Americans buy their internet as part of a package that includes TV and/or phone service too. Meaning to be a serious competitor that can get enough customers to be profitable, you have to also offer TV and phone service to compete with the incumbents.
If becoming a successful ISP is too difficult for Google... then who is going to be able to do it? Who is going to provide the competition to the monopolies of Comcast, AT&T, and Time Warner?
In a system where preventing a monopoly (and ensuring consumer protection) through competition isn't possible, then that's where regulation is needed.
If you feel there is a better way, I'd be interested to hear about it.
> The only reason the rule got put into place was because Verizon was found to be throttling Netflix.
No that's inaccurate. Title II reclassification happened in 2015. Verizon Netflix "throttling" (controversial what actually happened there) happened in 2017.
Edit: I'm having multiple people reply with basically the same thing which is: look here's what happened in 2014. I'm just going to reply to all of you here:
What happened in 2014 was not throttling in the last mile, which is what the 2015 Title II re-classification protects against, so this would've been legal even without the repeal (and more importantly did not meaningfully contribute to Title II classification, like parent is implying). What happened in 2017 probably wasn't either, but could more reasonably be construed that way because it was all happening inside of Verizon's network.
The Netflix Verizon case illustrates what makes Net Neutrality law so difficult to describe in technical terms. Verizon was not slowing down netflix packets, netflix was so big that it fully saturated multiple links. You can argue about what this implies for the peering agreements that are setup, but regardless this area is simply not something that net neutrality covers. Net neutrality says the last mile needs to treat all content it receives the same way. If the congestion is further up the network, NN has nothing to do with it.
If Verizon/others start throttling Netflix again they (Netflix) should just start making ISPs the butt of the joke in some of their original content, or make content directly calling them out.
The fear of Non-Net-Neutrality goes far beyond the usual "there's only two ISPs where I life and they both offer the same deals".
It's something in completely its own category of nefariousness because they could be as anticompetitive as they want, and the market could not solve it.
That's because the injured party isn't their customers, who could take their business elsewhere, or at least loudly complain on the internet (if they have any).
It's someone not part to the ISP<->customer contract, namely that unknown video startup in Nantucket, or the e2e-encrpyted messenger app your friend Lauren is working on. They're going to be forced into paying ISPs if they ever want to reach the ISPs' customers. And there's no risk to the ISP, because nobody is going to change ISPs for some startup they've never heard about.
The result could be ISPs capturing almost every cent of value created by new startups. We will also have a fractured internet, because small companies will have to negotiate contracts with every single ISP. Also want to reach those 500,000 people in eastern Montana? That'll cost you $2,000 per week.
Anyone not living on the US coasts, and people in other countries, will constantly run into "HTTP Error 469: go suck a bag of.."
This doesn't appear to be a problem in any other industry. If I am a farmer, I don't have some inalienable right to have my produce on the shelves of the local grocery store. If am selling widgets through a catalog, I don't have some inalienable right to have my catalogs delivered to customers without paying a fee.
So why don't the results you predict occur in those industries? No one worries about grocery stores capturing all of the excess value from farmers because grocers have plenty of competition. No one worries about postage carriers refusing to deliver their goods because the government has promised to provide that service as a public good for a small fee.
It seems like you could solve your concerns by increasing competition among ISPs or by increasing the number of government run ISPs. I think this is still a "there's only two ISPs where I live and they both offer the same deals" type of problem.
> This doesn't appear to be a problem in any other industry. If I am a farmer, I don't have some inalienable right to have my produce on the shelves of the local grocery store. If am selling widgets through a catalog, I don't have some inalienable right to have my catalogs delivered to customers without paying a fee.
You are paying a fee: for your side of the Internet connection.
Can you make the same argument about a telephone? Should business be able to call their customers and their customers them without having to worry about who has which phone provider? Should the business have to pay the customer's provider?
It's not that the state of the internet pre-2015 was a disaster but, prior to the 2015 reclassification, we were already starting to see abuses of net neutrality. When ISP's and telecoms started to block VoIP traffic because it cut into their phone services, it was unprecedented because no one had really prioritized data based on the content up until that point. Once that started happening and more companies caught on to it, it became a point of contention. While the 2015 reclassification wasn't a perfect solution, it did encapsulate the gist of the argument by saying that, like phone calls, we can't prioritize data based on content.
It's more of an issue now just because our usage of the internet has become increasingly fundamental to day-to-day life. It was, of course, already on this trajectory pre-2015, but corporate and government understanding of the internet was still very much in its infancy.
Few providers abused the privileges they had, because of some combination of uncertainty about backlash, historical precedent, and lack of organization and understanding.
There definitely is a competition problem. Without net neutrality, you will be even more screwed as a consumer when your only good ISP decides to offer you bullshit media packages with fast SNAPCHATZORZ access. Sure net neutrality doesn't help the fact that there just isn't enough competition, but it has the potential to make things a lot worse.
> It also doesn't seem like the internet regulatory state of pre-2015 was a disaster.
This is a common inaccurate argument I have seen pushed by the telcos to justify repeal.
There are many well-documented cases of how the "big 4" ISPs were increasingly blocking, redirecting (Charter's DNS redirection), interfering (injecting javascript and/or ads) and throttling traffic to internet services (Netflix) from their networks before the Title II reclassification of 2015.
All these abuses happened during a small window of a couple years between the previous FCC's Net Neutrality regulations were thrown out by the courts and 2015, when the Title II reclassification happened.
Pre 2015, the FCC was enforcing NN through other means.
In late 2014, a court case declared the method they were enforcing didn't fall under the scope of their powers, but strongly suggested, while noting that the ISPs could and would be a danger to the internet if left to their own devices, that they had other means to enact the same regulations.
"It also doesn't seem like the internet regulatory state of pre-2015 was a disaster."
The internet regulatory state before 2015 was pretty much a disaster. The early internet was de-facto neutral with a bizarro patchwork of idiosyncratic local regulations (see the quote "the internet treats censorship as damage") and a general distaste from network operators for wide-area multicast (with good reason). Neutrality became an issue with major commercialization and particularly when internet services began to compete directly with non-internet services like TV and phones.
"As detailed in the survey below, nearly every operator places
limits on “commercial” use, sometimes including limits on Virtual
Private Networks, as well as limits on acting as a server. Why
might an operator put such a restriction on usage? Doing so
obviously makes the service less attractive to consumers who
might want to act in a commercial way, even in a fairly casual
manner.
"The simple answer is price discrimination. That this is the
case is not just intuition, but can be confirmed by company policy.
As evidence we can consider Comcast’s reply in 2001 to a user
who had complained about the ban on VPN usage on Comcast’s
network:
"Thank you for your message.
High traffic telecommuting while utilizing a VPN can
adversely affect the condition of the network while disrupting
the connection of our regular residential subscribers.
"To accommodate the needs of our customers who do
choose to operate VPN, Comcast offers the Comcast @Home
Professional product. @Home Pro is designed to meet the
needs of the ever growing population of small office/home
office customers and telecommuters that need to take
advantage of protocols such as VPN. This product will cost
$95 per month, and afford you with standards which differ from the standard residential product.
Sometimes network providers got in trouble with their restrictions. Sometimes they were changed via customer and public pressure. Sometimes the complaints went to the government, usually the FCC. Sometimes they were addressed there, sometimes they weren't. Some providers were prevented from restrictions by agreements with the FCC, some weren't. Sometimes, something you wanted to do was impeded by your ISP or an upstream provider. Sometimes you could pay more to avoid the impediment, sometimes you couldn't. Sometimes you could change providers to avoid the restrictions. Usually not, though. (Strike that; try "Essentially always not.")
Increasing competition is a dandy idea, and it was the primary argument at the time. Unfortunately, there are two ways to do it, mostly: force utility-infrastructure plant operators (the phone network, the cable TV network, whatever) to be neutral with regards to actual service providers (which sort of worked for long-distance telephone providers, I guess), or to destroy all of the streets in America by laying more cables. Again.
Competition hasn't worked before in the US, and I'm unaware o...
> It also doesn't seem like the internet regulatory state of pre-2015 was a disaster.
From 2010-2014 similar rules to the 2015 rules were in place, citing a different statutory basis; these ruled were struck down in 2014, with the court pointing to Title II, be basis of the 2015 rules, as the available statutory basis for the kind of rules adopted in 2010.
From 2014-2015 there were no open internet rules in place, but the industry was operating in awareness that he FCC majority was drafting new rules with similar objectives.
And FCC net neutrality policy existed from 2004-2010, working on yet a different mechanism, which was struck down by the courts in 2010.
And before that, things get complicated, because even though there was no net neutrality policy for broadband in general, there was also very little broadband of any kind, and what there was often, for much of the pre-2004 period, fell under different regulatory regimes based on the underlying technology (cable as cable, DSL under telephone related rules.)
So, perhaps none of the pre-2015 regulatory states were a disaster, but repealing the 2015 order doesn't returns us to any of those states, or even to a condition where the law would allow the FCC to reimplement them. In fact, it gets us farther from any of the 2004-2015 states than the 2015-2017 state was.
Don't forget that ISP's have been buying up media companies and vice versa, this hasn't always been the case. We now have a situation where huge amounts of media have moved from traditional networks (cable, UHF, satellite etc) to the internet. This makes it incredibly appetizing to own the networks being used and offers a huge financial incentive to prioritize your own goods over others.
Factor in the way that corporations have been operating over the last decades (shareholder value is the number 1 priority) and you really do have a recipe for disaster for the consumer and small businesses.
There were net neutrality regulations before 2015! The idea that neutrality is this novel thing invented during the Obama administration is as toxic as it is ridiculously false.
Pre-2015, the FCC still had regulations to enforce net neutrality, just different ones. It was active in punishing ISPs for violating neutrality under those provisions. Verizon managed to get a court to say that those regulations were inappropriate, but the court also pointed out that if ISPs were regulated under Title II, then the FCC would have the power to set the regulations that had been de facto in place for the past decade. The FCC under Tom Wheeler immediately did just that.
The problem with this vote is that it removes all protections without replacing them with anything else. All we have now is "yeah, the FTC might look at it if it's egregious... also the ISPs promise really hard to behave themselves." It's not just that the FCC has removed the rules (although that's still incredibly important), it's that they've totally abdicated their position as the regulatory body for telecommunications.
This whole discussion is missing one point. Why are FCC members supposed to represent some parties, instead of being independent experts? It's the root of the problem. Instead of objectively addressing the issue, FCC is dominated by dumb partisan politics.
How do you expect those independent experts to be chosen? Even then, how do expect these experts to "objectively address" the issue? I don't agree with partisan politics, but the solution isn't demanding independent, magical objectivity, because that doesn't exist, regardless, everyone would claim to have it, the liars and the idiots especially.
If we want better representation of the facts and the People's opinion, we need better representation. The current system lacks nuance and seems to be subject to Elite interests over popular ones.
It's funny, the FCC's mandate isn't to poll the public and do whatever most of them want. Strange how people seem to think it's a numbers game, at least when they feel the numbers are on their side
Why did they solicit public feedback then? And why did they misrepresent public feedback and refuse to acknowledge that most people want net neutrality? Obviously they aren't beholden to what the public wants, but the latter is clearly scummy, is it not?
Soliciting and addressing public feedback is; ignoring and/or misrepresenting it is not (and may, in fact, help support a finding that the act was arbitrary and capricious in the light of the information available to the agency at the time of the decision, though that's—even with that fact established—a fairly difficult case to make.)
Yes, the intent is to let the public weigh in, help the committee make an informed decision as opposed to a capricious and arbitrary one. The decision is clearly arbitrary, as Pai has stated from the beginning he's going to do this, has blatantly ignored everyone, and is now on record as having insulted us. In terms of capricious, that's harder to prove. Between the EFF and the various attorneys general, this will be tied up in federal court.
It also means due to personal whim. I don't think it was this either. Pai has reasons for his choice. Many, of course, disagree with these reasons or think they are bad reasons but they are reasons nonetheless. It wasn't an arbitrary decision.
It's "arbitrary" because Pai, on multiple occasions, indicated he will not take the comments into effect. Even after the reports of the faked comments, the calls to delay the vote by some senators, the faked DDoS attack, he still went through with it. There's also allegation he violated the FCC's process. He was determined to ram this through no matter what. That's arbitrary.
No, that just means it's not a democracy. One can listen to a bunch of comments, disagree with them, and choose to do the opposite of what they say without being arbitrary.
His determination actually demonstrates the lack of arbitrariness. Arbitrary choices are held lightly and easily changed. This was the opposite.
That's capricious, not arbitrary. If Pai wanted this to go by the book, he would have pushed the vote out until the investigations into the fraudulent comments was completed, at the least. Someone who was determined to see this go through, but not in an arbitrary fashion, would have waited until the various issues with the process were resolved, and then held the vote. Pai was determined to hold this vote no matter what, that's arbitrary.
Capricious means "given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior."
AFAIK at no point during the process did Pai change much at all. He made it clear what he was going to do from the beginning and stuck to it the whole way through.
"The term arbitrary describes a course of action or a decision that is not based on reason or judgment but on personal will or discretion without regard to rules or standards."
Most of Pai's arguments are half-truths or out right lies. There have been several instances where his claims were fact checked against the data and proved to be false.
Furthermore: "In many instances, the term implies an element of bad faith, and it may be used synonymously with tyrannical or despotic."
I think there's a good case that Pai's actions and statements could be shown to be despotic.
The intent is to let different parties bring their concerns to the attention of the FCC. It is not a vote. Every public comment could advocate for one thing, and the FCC is perfectly in its right to do the other.
The only federal elections are for the President, Senators, and Representatives. This is not a direct democracy.
The direct feedback mechanism is voting, for people who draw maps that determine who get's elected to have the power to determine the composition of the rule-making bodies.
You could even argue it's how people spend their money that determines who has money to chose who get's to draw the maps etc.
I'm not sure I'd use the term "direct feedback mechanism" to describe voting for an elector who votes on a President who appoints a commissioner to a five person committee for five year terms.
It's required because it's supposed to help inform the FCC of pending legal challenges. FCC and other government agencies are supposed to take those comments seriously to avoid implementing bad rules and attracting expensive lawsuits in order to save the government (and ultimately the peoples') money.
The FCC has dismissed the public's feedback[1]--they never considered it and did a poor job of soliciting it in the first place. The servers went down during the feed back process, the interface for solicitation was confusing and there wasn't much effort to prevent spam. There were 22 million replies (the previous record was 3.7 million during the last net neutrality debate). Even if you write most of that off as spam or duplicate, form-comments, that's still an immense amount of feedback. To dismiss it all is misrepresenting it.
You're complaining about servers going down while acknowledging that the number of comments was unprecedented?
And your link doesn't support your claim:
>The Pai staffer who spoke with reporters acknowledged that there were legitimate comments from both sides in the net neutrality docket. In Pai's draft order, the FCC comprehensively addresses all the serious comments that made factual and legal arguments, the official said.
> You're complaining about servers going down while acknowledging that the number of comments was unprecedented?
Yes I am. My point is that they did a poor job at soliciting feedback--not that they didn't get a lot. The fact the volume was so high just shows how important it was for this issue. If servers are going offline, then you can show good faith by extending the comment period or addressing it in some other manor.
Being "required to solicit comments and to consider them" doesn't mean you only consider a subset containing legal arguments.
The structure is such that people elect representatives and those representatives sometimes appoint other people to roles because it's not feasible for people to elect 10's or 100's of thousands of public employees with decision and regulatory making power.
Also, all of these people are still humans. Meaning that they have their own closely held beliefs. If you are honestly expecting non-elected officials to violate their own beliefs based on public feedback simply because "majority rules", you aren't living in reality. That virtually never happens. When it does happen, it usually happens on issues that are not hot-button issues and those being hounded by the public don't have a strong opinion so they are willing to switch sides if necessary.
And the US is not and has never been a majority rule democracy. It's a constitutional republic and that's a critical difference. Part of that structure is ensuring that in some cases (like the electoral college), the majority don't get to make the rules simply because they decided to band together or live close to each other. The electoral college exists precisely for the situation the US is currently in - where the more liberal areas are all clustered in relatively small, high density areas. They now account for more than 50% of the population but far less in the electoral college because the system was built to prevent that density issue where these small areas by land mass could force feed laws upon the rest of the country, enabling those areas to effectively have control over money and resources which they otherwise would not.
Logician and Philosopher Raymond Smullyan had a story about this in one of his books. He had gone on a trip with a woman with a little girl. The adults wanted to eat at colorful local cafes, while the girl wanted to eat at McDonalds. He suggested that they vote, and the little girl replied, "That's no fair. I'd lose!"
Our republic isn't designed just to do what the people want. It's intentionally designed so that good people can sometimes do something unpopular in the public interest. For this to work, it's incumbent on the voting public to elect good people.
That's not true. He was appointed in 2012 by Obama and confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Trump merely renominated him to keep the position for another 5 year term.
No, Trump selected him to be the chair, he didn't merely renominate him.
But, in any case, Obama nominated him but did not choose him so much as he choose not to violate long-standing precedent as to how the seats that cannot (because the 3 members of one party limit has been reached) be from the President’s party are selected.
Now, he could have violated that precedent, but that wouldn't have likely gotten someone else into the seat, just given up any chance of Senate confirmation.
Obama still made the decision to nominate him. Plain and simple. And Trump did renominate him for another 5 years. Yes, he elevated him to chairman, but he still gets the same 1 vote, so it doesn't matter. Not quite sure what point you were trying to make.
People keep saying this like he's the person who chose Pai. The way these commissions work is:
- it's staffed by members of each party
- each party's leaders (typically in the Senate) choose the people who will be appointed
- the President typically rubber-stamps those appointments
- the President at the time really only gets to choose which member of the commission is the Chairman
So if you want to blame someone for Pai, you should be blaming Senator McConnell for telling President Obama "here's the Republican we want you to put on the commission".
Not disagreeing with you - I'm taking issue with the parent poster who wanted to blame this on trump. There's plenty of blame to go around in our government, but it doesn't all fall on Trump (as the post I replied to implied)
Ajit Pai was appointed to the FCC by Obama, your elected official, and was designated FCC Chairman by Trump, your other elected official. So it looks like you voted wrong twice in a row!
While technically correct, your comment is misleading because the seat legally belonged to the Republicans and he was chosen by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Obama could have rejected the nomination but anyone that the Republicans have a say in will be anti-net neutrality.
Appointed by President Obama allegedly as a sort of "Olive Branch" to the Republicans.
I really wish the Democrats had just started firing broadsides at Republicans in the last decade, given that the Republicans clearly can stomach the lowest of the low political gamesmanship.
> Appointed by President Obama allegedly as a sort of "Olive Branch" to the Republicans.
It was an “olive branch” to Republicans in much the same sense as the British sovereign offering the leader of the party that has secured a majority the opportunity to form a government is an “olive branch” to that party; it is, through combination of law (limiting the number of members of one party, and mandating Senate
confirmation before a nomination becomes an actual appointment) and established custom (as to how nominees that are not of the President’s party are chosen), a requirement that, if violated, would produce a major crisis.
It's not an olive branch. The President is required to appoint no more than 3 members of one (his own) party, and 5 total. The chair is then designated by the President.
Yes, but I took the OP to mean that you could press your congressional rep to sponsor or support a Net Neutrality bill that would override agency regulations.
Yep, there's a reason populism is commonly derided even in democratic societies. The founding fathers and "The Federalist Papers" [1] talked heavily about this problem (aka the influence of the "lowest common denominator" in popular voting).
Where these popular ideas do matter is in the marketplace. The entire tech industry, including some of the wealthiest companies in the world, will most certainly rebel against any attempt by ISPs to threaten net neutrality. And there will similarly be a revolt by customers.
Google Fiber was created merely to promote the deployment of fiber, Net Neutrality is a far bigger issue than fiber to both the tech industry and ISP consumers.
Even without FCC rules it will still be very dangerous for any ISP to make any significant changes to how the internet works.
The most likely scenario is that a few mobile internet providers may offer niche small packages of limited internet to mobile users for $5-10/month (which so far is the only real world example of "net neutrality" being violated in the world, by a Portuguese ISP)... basically a way to offer cheaper packages to some users who can't afford full broadband. This is basically the only thing I could see ISPs getting away with. I highly doubt any ISP would risk limiting the internet for any average home broadband users. Most American ISPs are public companies who still have worry about their bottom line.
The backlash even without FCC laws will be a significant deterrence.
Apologies, I should clarify, my Portuguese ISP example is the only real world example of the "TV-style limited internet packages" being deployed by a real-world ISP (which is the primary scenario nearly ever pro-net neutrality article warns about).
> Comcast's throttling of bittorrent
Were these FCC laws blocking Comcast from throttling Bittorrent traffic?
Canada was also the first country to throttle bittorrent traffic as well and the adoption of encryption in Bittorrent clients was largely able to bypass this issue AFAIK (I haven't experienced any slow downs in years in Canada since I toggled "force encrypted peers").
> Rogers throttling of all encrypted traffic in Canada
Source? I used Rogers for years and I've never heard of this problem.
""Comcast's practices are not minimally intrusive, as the company claims, but rather are invasive and have significant effects," the commission said, demanding an end to the practices by year's end."
This was under the Title I classification that was struck down by the verizon lawsuit, where the court said that the way to enforce these rules within the FCC's existing powers was via Title II.
Comcast and Verizon both throttled netflix for a while, before getting smacked. What do want to bet that's back in force, as soon as tomorrow perhaps? They've got all the code from last time ready to go.
ISPs already do incredibly unpopular things, but it doesn't hurt their bottom line because their customers don't have other provider options. What are they going to do, go without internet?
Comcast is one of the most hated companies in the US, but you wouldn't know it by looking at their stock price. The free market is not a solution here.
Have they pissed off the entire tech industry and attempted to fundamentally change how the internet works?
Having poor customer service, high fees, etc seems like a far cry from completely changing how internet billing works and whitelisting websites/throttling the entire internet.
What is the "entire tech industry" really going to do when the ISPs decide to fundamentally change how the Internet works? It seems like access to consumers, which the ISPs control, is pretty important for a large segment of the tech industry.
But first the ISPs have to actually do the things that we were warned they would do if the FCC scraped these laws. No ISP has yet announced or even proposed any specific future changes.
I'm not even sure what being "wrong" here will look like in practical terms:
- Are average home broadband internet plans going to have their internet filtered unless they pay more for 'unlimited'? With TV-style "grouped" packages?
- What websites (tech companies) will be included in these hypothetical filtered packages?
- Will they (Netflix/Disney/Facebook/Google/etc) let the ISPs include their brand(s) in marketing these new non-neutral plans? Will they let the ISP include their website in any throttled package in technical terms?
- Will ISPs be launching the new plans perfectly in sync with other ISP companies, for the 80% of Americans who have more than one ISP option, so they won't hemorrhage customers to competitors when they completely revamp their billing? Will they grandfather existing users?
...there are far too many questions to properly give you a answer about how the industry will respond.
When/if that actually becomes a reality then it will be easier to guess how the trillion dollar industry will react and if the ISP customers will sit idly by with no recourse... at the moment I'm confident there will be plenty to do to make business/life for Comcast/ATT shareholders uncomfortable if they ever were dumb enough to mess with how the internet works for the average American.
Three days and no answer to my questions? This is the third time I've posed these questions on HN/Reddit and not a single 'activist' has given me an answer.
That's exactly why I'm not buying this idea that these FCC policies were what's stopping ISPs from disrupting 'net neutrality'.
If you actually dig into the details it doesn't make much sense and is extremely risky. Yet I seem to be one of the very few who is actually challenging this stuff on rational grounds rather than "herr derr I support republican policies and want to be a contrarian".
The reality is that not every situation calls for government intervention. Especially extremely hypothetical situations which have never even been tried in the market place.
This is equivalent to regulatory "pre-crime" enforcement...
In the past, people getting really mad at ISPs has not changed anything. I don't see any reason to believe that people getting really really REALLY mad is going to change anything either. There's no mechanism for it to.
Customers "being mad" at ISPs is hardly what I'm saying is stopping them. It's merely a minor part of the problem. See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15926116
The customers revolting is not a matter of influencing Comcast/ATT/etc, it's a matter of influencing Google/Apple/HBO+Disney/Netflix etc etc etc.
People love to trivialise this counter-point as merely "oh ISPs dont have competition therefore the market can't fight this problem", which is incredibly reductive and misses the forest for the trees.
That's not the problem. The problem is that this is not a free market. The ISPs have effective control of the federal government and many state governments, and use that control to block competition from e.g. municipal ISPs. If the free market were actually allowed to operate, it would very likely solve the problem.
I didn't say the free market is a problem. I'm not a communist; I like the free market and I agree with your comment.
However, like you said, it's not a free market and it won't be for the foreseeable future. Fantasizing about that changing isn't a solution either. At the moment, government regulations are the best tools we have to protect consumers.
Why don't you consider T-Mobile's "Binge On" plan to be a violation of net neutrality? I recall it being something like: Netflix data is free, other data is $10/GB.
It seems exactly the same as that widely-quoted Portuguese example, which also let you pay a data rate for sites that weren't in their special packages. This happened in the US because net neutrality was weak and never really applied to mobile carriers.
> The entire tech industry, including some of the wealthiest companies in the world, will most certainly rebel against any attempt by ISPs to threaten net neutrality
Have you noticed not many tech companies have complained? Did telecom win by attrition, or did they negotiate after the last failure?
I think you are ignoring the main financial motive for this change - ISPs want to shake down Google, Facebook, and other successful internet companies. Customers won't see this directly. It will have indirect effects by increasing costs for the companies they use, but not in an obvious way that will cause a revolt. In financial terms, this dispute is mainly about these giant companies battling over who gets the fat profits Google and Facebook are currently taking home.
Sure, it's easy to drown people with a link and a 210 pages document, but can you briefly explain it with your own words and voice your opinion for us?
"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."
I believe Netflix and YouTube and what-not already pay their service providers for the bandwidth they use.
Neither Netflix nor YouTube would exist if they had to pay for bandwidth at the rate consumers do. If Netflix was sending everything over the regular internet, it would literally break - the only reason Netflix can stream as much as it does is because of caching close to consumers.
Well, I’m a sucker. I just read your very lengthy first link and learned absolutely nothing. The entire statement is questionable anecdotes, unreasoned conclusions and baseless declarations of what is good.
What about this text did you find valuable? Please share.
>So it’s no surprise that the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, which represents small fixed wireless companies that typically operate in rural America, surveyed its members and found that over 80% “incurred additional expense in complying with the Title II rules, had delayed or reduced network expansion, had delayed or reduced services and had allocated budget to comply with the rules.” Other small companies, too, have told the FCC that these regulations have forced them to cancel, delay, or curtail fiber network upgrades. And nearly two dozen small providers submitted a letter saying the FCC’s heavy-handed rules “affect our ability to find financing.” Remember, these are the kinds of companies that are critical to providing a more competitive marketplace.
This is pretty disingenuous because one elected official is oftentimes overloaded with multiple responsibilities. In this case the FCC chairman was appointed by the president (Barack Obama). Are you implying that the REAL way to deal with the Net Neutrality issue is that we need to become single-issue voters with respect to net neutrality next presidential election cycle? That seems a bit silly, and yet seems like the only reasonable way to affect change in this situation by "playing by the rules". It would be a lot less anxiety producing if people had a more direct way of affecting FCC rules without having to possibly sacrifice some other completely unrelated issue they care about (such as Supreme Court appointment, or health care direction, etc. etc.).
It would be a lot easier to get behind the idea that we should elect "good people" if we weren't concentrating so many responsibilities to the one magic "good person" we get to choose.
Are you implying that the REAL way to deal with the Net Neutrality issue that we need to become single-issue voters with respect to net neutrality next presidential election cycle?
No. I'm not trolling either. Raymond Smullyan's stories are meant to be like Zen Koan. My factual and historical observations are much the same. It's more like a Rorschach blot.
It would be a lot easier to get behind the idea that we should elect "good people" if we weren't concentrating so many responsibilities to the one magic "good person" we get to choose.
Our world is considerably more complex than it was in 1800.
To further clarify, the FCC rules state that Only three commissioners can be of the same political party at any given time. Pai was Obama's nomination but he was not Obama's choice. He was McConnell's choice.
And you believe that Ajit Pai is "one of the good people" doing the "good thing" against public interest?
Funny because I believe Ajit Pai is a corporate shill doing what his Friends at Verizon wanted and I am sure he is hoping the land a nice 6 figure job in the private sector in a couple years....
This move today for the FCC has absolutely nothing to with public interest
I was about to say people think in Democracy every vote counts the same. It doesn't. Imagine quality of people's life in big cities if majority living outside would be playing first violin. The latest Presidential race is great example how Democratic election works.
> Imagine quality of people's life in big cities if majority living outside would be playing first violin.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here - that's exactly what happens in the US. People in rural Nebraska or Wyoming's vote is often up to three times more "effective" than someone in NYC or LAs.
You're right that it's not a referendum. But the public poll was not "yea or nea?" it was "if we did this, what sort of problems would it raise for you?" And if they had substantive answers to the problems raised, then it would be logical for them to override the outcry. But it was instead as if the answer was, "Yes, the feedback solicited was merely our bureaucratic obligation but we are not obligated to follow through."
This isn't exactly true. There is a reason that the FCC must accept submissions from the public before it makes a major decision -- it's part of the FCC charter to consider the input of the public. If a prosecutor can argue that the FCC did not take the public's comments into account (or did not take them seriously or the public commenting process was not done properly), then a court should overturn the FCC's decision.
This is true with some caveats. "The judiciary" can overturn a decision in some cases. See [0] for a very detailed explaination. Comments to the FCC do MATTER. If half of America says that Net-Neutrality is good and then it gets repealed, then the judicial branch can accept a case examining the decision. Or something, IANAL, but the the dude who wrote [0] is.
Specifically, the paragraph which starts with "Another way they'll drop their deference" is roughly the section which covers the caveats.
Let us agree that what you said is True. Let us also agree that this statement is true, and perhaps becoming increasingly at odds with our federal government:
> Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
That's just not true. The FCC are appointed by our elected representatives. Why do you think they even have to pretend they are accepting public comments on things like this? If the FCC does something bad, like this, we have the ability to elect better representatives, who will throw out these telco stooges and appoint people who represent us, not the large telco monopolies.
What do you suppose the purpose of government agencies is then?
Looking at their mandate it seems pretty clear that they are there to serve the interests of American citizens and should be acting in citizens best interests.
I think that's pretty clear in the use of the phrase "the people of the United State" here:
The FCC's mission, specified in Section One of the Communications Act of 1934 and amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (amendment to 47 U.S.C. §151) is to "make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nationwide, and world-wide wire and radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges."[1]
Republican legislators are pretty uniformly against net neutrality. The Republican public is not, with one recent poll showing 3 out of 4 Republicans familiar with the issue voicing opposition to the rollback of regulations. [1]
That's because you don't get to choose your issues one at a time. You get to choose a basket of issue positions at the same time as a legislator's personality. Normally from a choice of two.
Because people voted for someone, doesn't mean they fully agree with the elected person's whole program. In an election you have only a few candidates for a large number of possible combinations of positions. If you mostly agree with republicans except on a few things, you're probably still going to vote republican.
Exactly. For example, if you believe very strongly in Second Amendment rights, most Democratic candidates are not an option on election day. Additionally, Hillary Clinton was a very polarizing candidate even among registered Democrats.
As a prolific (and I mean prolific) gun owner, I've yet to see evidence of mass-Democrat candidate opposition to the 2nd amendment in general. "Gun Grabbing" hasn't been a party-wide concept despite Republican propaganda otherwise.
Stupid gun rules, like magazine size limitations, sure, but they almost never "come for my guns." Often the suggestions are perfectly reasonable in my mind - national gun registry, for example.
What purpose would a national gun registry serve other than to set the stage for eventual confiscation? I'm genuinely curious, because I can't think of any crime it would prevent, while being a big affront to privacy.
Considering that guns keep being sold to people they absolutely should not be, a registry makes it easy for the FBI or ATF to get flagged when an "unallowed purchaser" attempts or succeeds to make a purchase. Then they can know to either confiscate (because of an illegal purchase) or start monitoring heavily. Previous mass shootings were by people who should not have been able to purchase, but lack of a registry allowed them to "slip through the cracks."
Another scenario - the FBI is monitoring radicalization in a small community. They check the gun registry to see which of the people in the community becoming radicalized are actual potential threats and zero in their investigation on those individuals, to prevent a shooting.
Etc. Basically just makes law enforcement's jobs more feasible.
The government doesn't have the resources to "confiscate" every registered gun owners' guns at the same time, and so we would be well aware if a confiscation by a tyrannical government is coming, and all of us weirdo militia folk and preppers would already be putting the sandbags out. Trust me, some of these guys are practically wishing for it.
The intent behind a gun registry is to empower courts, and potentially police. A judge would be able to identify that someone owns several more guns when considering whether to grant bail for an armed robbery, and the surrender of those weapons until trial might be a condition of bail. It might be useful information for a judge who is crafting an order of protection in a case of stalking or domestic violence.
Similarly, police who are serving an arrest warrant might be able to serve the warrant with the knowledge that person of interest has several firearms on the property. Sometimes police know this today, but not because of government records.
(I'm not arguing a personal position one way or the other, just explaining the rationale.)
If an opinion isn't important enough to affect what politicians you vote for, you shouldn't be surprised that the government you elect doesn't represent your view on that issue.
We live in an oligarchy, the will of the voters hasn't been relevant for a long time:
> Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
This is objectively true. There are studies that show that the opinions of American voters have a near zero, statistically insignificant effect on policy:
Which is exactly what cracks me up... Republicans, moreso than Democrats, are always talking about government screwing over the people and yet this vote was completely on party lines. I wonder how they're going to figure out that dissonance.
"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it."
Well, by saying that Title II was an overreach of the government and stifles competition. (Not my opinion. Just stating that it's not exactly inconsistent with their ideology. Just another example of ideology over common sense preventing people from doing what's right)
Right... I just think its curious that their statements are so meaningless and have such little substance that you could replace "government" with "oligarchy", "corporations", or any other term that describes are large, organized group of people.
This move decreases the government's regulatory power in this area; it completely follows republican ideaology. The government cant screw over citizens if they aren't touching an issue.
Nature fucks them over because the government doesn't protect them from nature. The government does not fuck them over. There's a very distinct difference, and recognizing that difference is one of the fundamental things that separates Democrats and Republicans.
In this case, it is an act of government, repealing an existing regulation, which is allowing the fucking over. Hence, government fucking over citizens.
If you're interested in further reading I found this analysis [1] of the gap between GOP policy and GOP public positioning pretty interesting. However, it's certainly couched as a screed. Depending on your politics that may make it difficult to wade through.
Is it? Republicans were voted by the public into Congress, into the presidency. They are acting just as anyone voting for them could expect. In that sense they are representing the will of the people who duly elected them.
The FCC ignored the will of a small % of technology-oriented, predominately liberal voters. Just because all the media that you might tend to consume and the people you tend to converse with are vocally against this repeal, doesn't mean that that represents the will of the majority. That same sort of ideological bubble is what caused everyone to be so shocked when Trump actually won, despite all the polls and predictions to the contrary.
When you explain what Net Neutrality is, an overwhelming majority of people supported it, including republicans. This isn't just a tech-literate liberal issue.
A majority of people support Democrat's economic policies...even though Republicans hold a majority of the seats at both the state and federal level. It seems like people aren't necessarily voting for the party that represent's their positions--or, more likely, there are wedge issues that cause them to vote another way.
From everything I've seen, net neutrality seems to have broad voter support, regardless of party, and even many Republicans in office have voiced concerns. So are they really acting the way voters would expect?
In an ideal world, people vote in the government they want, and the elected representatives follow the will of the people. We all know such a world doesn't exist [1]. In practice:
* Most voters don't even know what net neutrality is. How will they care if they don't understand that they should care? It's a complicated, nuanced subject even for tech people.
* It wasn't part of the Trump/republican platform at the time of the election. As far as I can recall, it didn't even come up during the presidential debates. Voters might want net neutrality, but they might not have known that voting for Trump/GOP would cause a repeal.
* The last couple of decades show that Congress (and politicans in general) overwhelmingly goes where the money is. There's a huge amount of money and lobbying power on the pro-repeal side, and the current FCC is a classic example of regulatory capture [2], with every indication that the FCC (and the Trump administration) is now stocked with industry insiders.
Hate to say "I told you so", but conservatives (sometimes) and libertarians have been warning the country for ever about the pitfalls of centralizing important things like this under an unaccountable federal bureaucracy. If you're opposed to this ruling, you're most likely reaping what you sow.
What? If you're a staunch libertarian who wants the FCC to go away, how would the absence of FCC help net neutrality?
We only have (had!) net neutrality and other important regulatory protections because the FCC exists.
Something needs to exist as a protection against corporate abuse. If it's not a centralized agency, then what? There's no self-correcting mechanism in capitalism that magically prevents companies from screwing with consumers.
Never said I was an opponent or proponent of 'Net Neutrality'. I was merely commenting on the interesting turn of events where the obvious ramifications of a centralized bureaucracy 'hurt' the perceived well being of the people who typically argue FOR centralized power. For all my ill feeling towards the Trump administration, it has been extremely fruitful in providing situations which exhibit this hilarity.
As for your statement and question;
> Something needs to exist as a protection against corporate abuse. If it's not a centralized agency, then what? There's no self-correcting mechanism in capitalism that magically prevents companies from screwing with consumers
Couple points...
First, "There's no self-correcting mechanism in capitalism that magically prevents companies from screwing with consumers" gave me a solid laugh. Little thought experiment: let's say there are two alternate realities. In one of these realities, somehow, Starbucks is the ONLY way for you to get coffee. Somehow, they've completely ensured other coffee shops can't open (it's either too expensive for them to open or literally illegal). In the other reality, opening a coffee shop is easy! Starbucks hasn't colluded with any government agency to make coffee shop ownership too expensive or difficult to pull off. In which one of these realities do you think (the) coffee shop(s) would abuse their customer base(s), charge inflated prices, or provide lackluster serviced that rarely if ever are innovated on? I'm hoping for the sake of discussion, you understand my point. Scenario 1 is hardly a far stretch from exactly what has happened over the years in the ISP industry. The FCC is HARDLY innocent in creating our current dismal ISP situation. Open markets are THE system that prevents abusive actions towards consumers.
The second point, I am far from against the government protecting consumers from abuse by corporations. Fraud or anti-competitive behavior should be met with a stern legal response. But when the government played a huge role in creating an environment where we can't protect ourselves, I'm extremely dubious of any power grab attempted in the name of "we'll protect you". In an open market, I have a perfectly good mechanism for protecting myself which also happens to stimulate innovation, lowers prices, and improves the product/service.
So yea, an artificial monopoly has now been given more leeway in how they provide services to an already abused customer base... it's a bummer. However, I'm not keen on providing more power to the very people who helped get us here so that they can control the problem they created. Let's fix the root of the issue. Decry crony capitalism always - not just when it's 'the other guys' doing it.
And one last point... ISPs provide an extremely expensive and complex service to their customers. In what world are price controls and artificial monopolies a good idea? We need innovation in this space, not uniformity of service and centralized decision making. It's the internet, not the DMV. We should make it so ISPs have to win our usership by providing the best most valuable service, not by wielding the legislative process more effectively then there would be competition.
This has made me feel pretty damn powerless, as pretty much every site/person of significance has stated their opposition to such a repeal, and yet they went through it anyway. Just a gut feeling that our democracy isn't working properly when such a loud and clear, great majority of the population messaging is completely ignored.
Keep in mind the FCC is not accountable to the public – we don't vote them in. However, we as the public still have power to push our representatives to encode NN as law. Now that NN has unfortunately been repealed, we can cue in Congress to act.
Democracy doesn't work through public declarations, it works through elections. One year ago, the states chose Donald Trump as president, knowing they he would end Net Neutrality [1]. If a population wants to send a different message, they must do it in the next election [2].
You're just saying your democracy isn't working properly, just for different reasons.
Most Trump supporters did not elect trump "knowing ... he would end Net Neutrality", and a statement from 2014 does not disprove that (a cursory glance at r/TrumpCriticizesTrump/ kinda makes the point).
The US public is atrociously misinformed as a whole, either due to lack of education or bad media incentives or both. In order to function, a democracy requires an informed public.
Thankfully we don’t live in a democracy. America is a democratic republic. As the public is naturally under-informed, this is arguably a good thing; regardless of your views on Net Neutrality.
E.g. has Trump been able to build the wall that arguably half the population approved of? No, because his budget approval process has been checked by other elected representatives.
Having a good memory is the singularly best way to combat the money corrupting politics.
The people just proved with the Alabama special election that they can change the establishment if they feel strongly enough about it.
Sadly I think the effects of repealing Net Neutrality will be felt more like a frog in a slowly heating pot of water, and no single change is going to entice the majority of the population to vote. It's not the tech industry that needs to be convinced that repealing neutrality is bad, it's the general non-tech population that needs to be convinced to care.
Alabama didn't prove anything really. It demonstrated that the bar for getting elected to a national office in Alabama is a minuscule amount above "accused of sexually assaulting minors".
It also demonstrated that the established incumbent party can lose if they ignore the will of the people. They could have easily found another Republican (even another judge) that wasn't accused of numerous sexual misconducts. They chose not to bother because why swap out a yes-man with a person that might have principles when Alabama is a guaranteed win?
Eventually both parties are going to realize that they would be better off putting forward a candidate that the people like instead of putting forth an establishment yes-man (in the Dems case from the presidential race, a yes-woman).
Our democracy is hardly a democracy. I kind of wish people would stop discussing it as such. The opinion of the population matters very little to the outcome of legislation, and for those whose opinions it does matter (legislators), they are bought and paid for.
Also, if you really think that people who voted for Donald Trump understood the intricacies of net neutrality you must be an incredibly optimistic individual.
I think his very-well-known inconsistencies on policy matters makes it hard to argue that he won on the merits of his policies. His personality, attitude, and his not being Hillary Clinton seemed to be more important.
While I do not think Donald Trump is turning out to be a great president, his competition was not any better for different reasons. I think there is also a problem with how our Democracy elects people as well.
I don't like Hillary at all and think the Democrats would've easily won if they hadn't used establishment tactics to put thru their establishment candidate over Bernie, but..
>his competition was not any better
Really? Hillary was going to carry on a lot of Obam-ian policies. Net neutrality would still exist, pedophiles would not be publicly endorsed by her, and a 'tax cut' that is actually just a confusing mess that only clearly benefits the super-rich would not have happened.
So what exactly would she have done to be as bad as Trump? The guy is incessantly mired in scandals; says things that a centrist family would barely tolerate their old, crazy, racist uncle saying around holiday dinners; and is basically a narcissist.
I don't like Hillary at all and don't see how you can say "she's not any better than Trump" with a straight face.
Probably because of political leaning, but statements Trump made like wanting to incentivize companies to return to the US, deporting illegal immigrants, and decreasing military spending. Were some of the main reasons I thought Trump was even worthy of being considered.
Trump has been wishy washy on his immigration and military spending statements since being in office.
I an pretty far away from you guys, but from where I’m sitting trump seems like a utter maniac, lying even when people can clearly prove it is lies. Alternative facts etc etc. I have a hard time understanding how he can be compared to pretty much anyone and come out on top.. I know the Media paints their own picture of him, but still?
Clinton has been demonized for decades by the right. Right wing media turned her into the boogie woman who elicits a visceral, emotional response from Republicans. It's so ingrained, they're still talking about her daily on Fox News, because they understand the effect she has on the Republican base.
> One year ago, the states chose Donald Trump as president, knowing they he would end Net Neutrality
More charitably, they chose Donald Trump on the suspicion that he would do "better" than Hillary Clinton on: abortion, immigration, the economy, leading in "the culture wars", and maybe a few other issues. Net neutrality was a litmus test for basically nobody.
I'm not sure the electorate sees elections the same way.
I think most of them are true Republicans in the sense that they want to elect people they think are trustworthy and then let them make decisions as their proxy. In that case, a candidate can have policies and platforms to convince people to let her be their proxy, but she doesn't need them. She could just have a "trust me, I'll make the right decision" pitch.
Besides, if Trump is an ideologue, what is that ideology? At best it's a new (or at least renewed) nativist spin on identity politics. That's not an ideology; that's a team.
I'll respectfully disagree. Trump doesn't really care about limited government, balanced budgets, traditional values, federalism, reducing abortion, market-based solutions to societal problems, etc.
He does have a laundry list of issues he tweets about, a subset of which he picks at with executive orders (which, itself, is unconservative) but that seems more like raw appeasement of his political base than anything coherent (or even consistent!).
There are a few exceptions, I guess. He's, at least in rhetoric, for a strong military. Though we're nowhere near a "Trump doctrine" that proposes a coherent framework for that desire. It's, again, more of an id-driven move than anything rational.
> I think you’re looking for the term populist, not extremist.
Actually, I meant extremist. The "Trump" party is full of people who want to roll back amendments to the 1940s or earlier.
These are extremist views, in my opinion, and don't represent the average American. Bannon and those who would raise white supremacist marches chanting against Jews can go suck a lemon.
> Time will tell whether electing an extremist candidate was a good idea or not.
And in the meantime, who cares if the country is lit on fire? That's the future elected officials' problem.
Sarcasm aside, I actually agree that we need to speak with our vote. I just wish we didn't have such large swings of the deregulation penis in the meantime, and instead we had cool-headed, logical people at the helms of these agencies and our Executive branch. I suppose it's too naive of me.
US democracy has many more choices because so many issues (marijuana legalization, divorce laws, tax rates, etc.) are state issues.
To some degree, this whole mess is due to pushing ostensibly state-level laws (abortion regulations, for example) to the national level, which leaves much less room for genuinely national issues, like internet regulations, defense spending, immigration law, etc.
It might seem unnecessarily inflammatory to bring up abortion in a net neutrality discussion, but it's hard to get around the fact that appointments to the Supreme Court (which basically sets abortion policy) might have been the thing that convinced enough people to vote for Trump.
So I guess I agree that a lack of choices results in outcomes like this, but U.S. democracy provides other mechanisms for political diversity. They're just not being utilized on certain key issues at this point in history.
Did you submit a comment on this proceeding, beyond just clicking on some site that auto-generated a comment?
I spent several days working on my comment; it was a dozen pages long, it included relevant citations, and it addressed specific questions asked in the NPRM. I took the time to correct a few falsehoods in the NPRM's technical analysis.
Now imagine what it is like to see that comment being specifically cited and totally dismissed in the draft rules that were just approved. In a way it is worse than just being ignored -- someone took the time to read my comment and comments by like-minded experts, saw the part where we corrected falsehoods, and then replied with, "Well, ISPs say $X so $X is true and your comment wrong."
I am not going to give up on civic engagement but I am sure some of those like-minded engineers and researchers might.
Please don't. I mean that very sincerely. The fact that you took the time to do this is very inspiring to me. It reminds me of this guy: https://professional-troublemaker.com
It kind of blows my mind to think of how much individuals who are focused and determined can really accomplish.
The effort's appreciated. I'd commend you for it even if I disagreed with your position — to take the time to directly express concern and raise issues is key, in my opinion, to enacting real change.
This isn't a democracy, this is a republic. While we have some power in who we elect, those elected are representing us, and can choose to vote how they want. Whether that screws them in future elections is another story.
This is false. The United states is a representative democracy, AND a republic. A democracy can be direct (As in parts of ancient Greece), or representative (As in... Every democracy that is not in ancient Greece.)
The only criteria for being a republic is that you don't have a monarch. The USSR was a republic. China is a republic. Canada is not a republic. Yet, Canada is also a representative democracy, while neither China, nor the USSR are.
Same, so as a petty man I've made a personal vow to send Ajit Pai a card every Christmas reminding him he sold his soul to Comcast and that I will never forget or forgive him for it.
Totally pointless right now when the whole country is calling for his head and he gets to play the haughty "I don't give a fuck, I'm set for life now, suck it plebes" card.
But in 2040, when he has long since moved on, and the rest of the country has forgotten, and he's an old man that just wants to spend time with his grandkids and ensure a good future for his family or whatever, every Christmas, still, a card from me - "Hey shithead, remember when you sold out the American people for cash? Fuck you."
In this instance, it's working as intended. Based on the election results, this is pretty much expected.
I suspect it's more that all the people of significance who have stated their opposition also share the same core political ideology as you, which doesn't match that of the party currently in power. So you view the system as not working because you didn't get what you wanted by having everyone on your side yell louder.
Washington state will act under our own authority and under our own laws and under our own jurisdiction to protect the very important measure of net neutrality for all Washington citizens,” he said. “We are not powerless.
It'll be interesting to see how that goes, whether other progressive states adopt similar rules, and whether we end up for some time in a country where some states are much more attractive to internet users and startups.
They're free to do so; companies exist to make money. Cable internet carriers probably will attempt something like this.
The next thing that will happen is, when Comcast goes too far, another provider (cable? wireless carrier? satellite broadband? something new from a startup?) disrupts the market by offering an alternative to Comcasts' egregious policies. Comcast loses subscribers and is monetarily forced to be more consumer-friendly.
Except due to regulatory capture and lobbying of enough municipalities this has become harder
Selling a plain service and doing it well for a fair price should have won most consumers but they will switch companies for minor discounts or the shiniest cellphone then complain they get shafter
Yes, you're right, regulations make it more difficult.
But if startups have taught us anything, it's that businesses find a way to disrupt existing economies even in the face of regulations.
Ironically, Net Neutrality (NN) is itself a regulation. One of the reasons we reject NN is because creating regulations often has unintended consequences. We believe it's better to not have the regulation and let the free market and open competition sort out the details.
In the last ten years, I've lived in 6 different localities and have had a total of 4 options for ISP, never more than 2 at any given time. In at least some of those cases, I've watched as potential competition to those options was shut down by ISP-lobbied local regulation. At whatever point there's a possibility of competition in this space, I'll readily buy the free-market argument that they should be de-regulated.
Are you counting wireless as an option? We're beginning to see some folks use their mobile carrier + tethering as their home internet, often times with better speeds than their cable internet.
And what does the future hold? Undoubtedly more competition: the internet already plays a huge role in our lives, and that's likely to only increase. A startup that can disrupt the cable company stranglehold would tap a huge market and force cable companies to be more consumer-friendly.
Wireless is the only plausible competitor. Currently, the costs are still too high and the reliability too low. However, looking 1-2 years forward this will be a very attractive option.
Great! So the competitor can rely on leasing municipal broadband networks to avoid expensive, wide-spread fiber buildout? No, because that’s illegal in many cities thanks to lobbying from Comcast and friends.
Ok, so the competitor can build their own fiber network. That’s very expensive and time consuming, but it can be done...if local legislators approve it. Sure hope Comcast and friends don’t have any influence there! This is one of the suspected reasons for the failure of Google Fiber, but hey, maybe it’ll work next time.
Incidentally my two options for internet service are:
1) Comcast
2) A local competitor offering sub-1MBPS
You're thinking too small. Disruptive technologies are disruptive so often because they bypass the current infrastructure. Ford didn't need horses, Lyft didn't need a fleet of taxis. Maybe the next disruptive broadband company doesn't need to lease existing wire infrastructure.
As for internet service options today, yes, it's not great. But it's getting better. We already have several options; here are two examples. Some wireless carriers already allow unlimited tethering; no cables needed. Broadband via satellite is available virtually everywhere in the US; again, no cable infrastructure needed.
I can also see some of the four horsemen (AAPL, GOOG, AMZN, FB) discussing something along these lines: "We have enough cash and/or market cap to buy some of these last-mile companies AND we can block our competitors. Shall we pull the trigger?"
Is anyone working on market based routing over mesh networks with crypto currencies? Would that have been disallowed under the network neutrality rules?
1,508 comments
[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 421 ms ] threadOther dual-meaning phrases that have been abused of late:
* Fake news
* voter fraud
* Election rigging
* Collusion
* Corruption
What else do we have?
As South Park put it, it's the choice between "Giant Douche vs Turd Sandwich".
[1] Alabama has a Democratic state senator for the first time in decades.
There's probably a Democratic wave happening nationally, but the Alabama special election is really poor evidence to use for it.
Yes, there's definitely some unusual factors that went into this race, and the Republican party made a lot of unforced errors that let the race be competitive. But the fact that it was even possible for it to be competitive seems like evidence of a wave to me, especially when you pair it with the recent Democratic wave in Virginia.
Which sounds impressive, except that he was running unopposed (not just no Democratic opponent but no other candidates filed for the election at all) in both the primary and general election.
I'm not quite sure if that was true if Clinton had one, we'll never know, but one thing is for certain: The opposition to the current government and policies seems reinvigorated, and the generational aspect of it could be true as well. Perhaps this country really did need an enema.
This isn't a game where you earn points for purity. You can pat yourself on the back for not voting for "a neoliberal or corporate Democratic candidate" all you want, but the election had consequences, one of which is Trump becoming President. Presumably as a supporter of Sanders you oppose most if not all of the policies Trump is pursuing, yet your refusal to vote against Trump helped enable everything he is doing whether you intended or like that. Real-world consequences happen regardless of how you think or feel about them.
You're putting your own vanity over actual beliefs. If you truly stand for what you claim, you'll fight for it any way you can, even if that's not personally appealing or ideal.
Trump is under a microscope only in the sense that people can point out how corrupt he is acting, but without any power to actually stop that corruption.
And the idea that Hillary wasn't under (and wouldn't continue to be under) a microscope it absolutely ridiculous.
Come on. Congressional Republicans held seven separate Benghazi investigations in an attempt to pre-impeach Clinton.
I'm putting principles (edit: autocorrect fixed) first. I don't fault you if you don't, but what I "stand for" (people taking an active interest in the political landscape) is still going to come to pass, even faster than previously with Trump having been elected (while notably, he has very little control over actual policy). Congress will see more tilting towards progressives under a Trump administration than it ever would have under Clinton.
Step 1: Set fire to house
Step 2: "Do we have your attention now?"
Step 3: Progress
Congress drafts legislation, true, but it would be much harder for Republican legislation to pass if they didn't also control the White House. You'll recall that legislation needs to be approved by the President to become law, and at the very least a President Clinton would not be assisting a Republican Congress and Senate in passing all these things you oppose.
>I'm putting principals first.
They do work hard to lead their schools and deserve admiration for that, but we should probably be discussing principles.
> I don't fault you if you don't, but what I "stand for" is still going to come to pass
Maybe, but faux-religious certainty of future victory ignores the very real suffering that comes between now and the glorious future. People losing access to food or healthcare today thanks to Republican policies, for example. That could have been avoided with a different electoral outcome, and telling someone who can no longer afford to eat or get the medication or treatment they need that some day we'll have universal healthcare or UBI or whatever isn't exactly helping.
>Step 1: Set fire to house
>Step 2: "Do we have your attention now?"
>Step 3: Progress
Step 1: Set fire to house
Step 2: You are homeless and have nothing
Step 3: Some day this situation will fix itself, I guess? In the meantime you are starving and living in the street.
How quickly we forget that Bill Clinton was responsible for dismantling welfare in the 1990s. [1] Hillary would've done better? I don't believe so. Nor does Hillary Clinton think she could get universal healthcare done [2].
> Step 3: Some day this situation will fix itself, I guess? In the meantime you are starving and living in the street.
Step 3 is in progress. Step 2 was beyond our control due to Republican majorities. Excuse our dust while we fix our country.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/03/the-wor...
[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-single-payer-he...
No one forgot, it's just not relevant to this conversation. The choice was between Hillary Clinton and Trump. Whatever Bill did can be discussed on their merits.
>Nor does Hillary Clinton think she could get universal healthcare done
And she's right by your very own admission: the Republicans currently control Congress. Universal healthcare isn't happening anytime soon. What could have been done is limiting the damage the Republicans could do while working to take back the legislature. You chose to exchange that real chance for idealistic fantasy.
>Step 3 is in progress. Step 2 was beyond our control due to Republican majorities.
But, again, there didn't have to be a Republican President to implement their policies. It was very much within our control. You are, again, ignoring reality.
>Excuse our dust while we fix our country.
We who? The Republican majorities you seem to oppose are now both in power and have a President who works with them. The "dust" is the human misery currently being caused by them while your glorious Golden Age beckons just over the horizon. I'm not happy calling that suffering "dust" or accepting it as the price to pay for some nebulous future, and I don't think "you have to break some eggs to make an omelette" is very principled at all, especially when those affected in the meanwhile are the poorest and most vulnerable, exactly the people you claim to want to help.
The two party system in the US today means that voting for anyone that is not a Democrat or Republican is a complete waste of time.
Abstaining from voting is cowardly and non-committal. Your silent protest is worthless.
Continuing to support a broken system has consequences, whether you like or want them. This action by the FCC is one of them.
Vague discussion of "a broken system" obscures the concrete reality and the results of your choices, which is likely why you choose to discuss the matter in this way.
Source? Because you likely don't have some magical crystal ball, which means you're just 'hoping' that whoever won the election in Sangermaine's alternate universe would have let this ride.
No one in the previous administration had the spine to make Net Neutrality permanent, and you can't hide that no mattery how much gloss you throw at it. Keep dreaming, buddy!
We don't need a crystal ball, we have the statements of the candidates during the election. Trump was, from the beginning, anti-Net Neutrality. As for Clinton:
2015: >Hillary Clinton is vowing to enforce strong net neutrality rules if she is elected president....
“Closing these loopholes and protecting other standards of free and fair competition — like enforcing strong net neutrality rules and preempting state laws that unfairly protect incumbent businesses — will keep more money in consumers’ wallets, enable startups to challenge the status quo, and allow small businesses to thrive,” she wrote in an op-ed in Quartz.
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/257569-clinton-touts-ne...
2016, during the election:
>Hillary Clinton has indicated support for net neutrality. She gave two thumbs up to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal for strong net neutrality rules, though admitted it was only a “foot in the door.” Clinton has expressed concern that regulations could mean stagnant competition among service providers, saying “we’ve got to do more about how we incentivize competition in broadband.” And she’s committed to fighting broadband monopolies, citing Google Fiber in Kansas City as a perfect example of what she wants to see everywhere in the US.
https://gizmodo.com/the-2016-presidential-candidates-views-o...
2016, after the election:
>Hillary Clinton gave a shout-out to a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission for her rallying call to "raise a ruckus" to save net neutrality, which the Republican-led FCC is poised to dismantle next month.
>"Time to call foul. Time to raise a ruckus. Time to save #NetNeutrality," Jessica Rosenworcel, one of two Democrats on the five-commissioner FCC, tweeted Wednesday.
>In response, Clinton tweeted: "You go girl! This is important; costs will go up, & powerful companies will get more powerful. We can’t let it slip through the cracks"....
>Net neutrality was not a major issue often brought up during the 2016 campaign. However, Clinton, who served as former President Barack Obama's first secretary of state, has shown support for net neutrality in the past. She said she would vote for it back in 2015, calling it a "foot in the door," and characterizing it as a starting point in the broader Internet regulation discussion.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/hillary-clinton-we-cant-le...
It's simply a statement of fact that the FCC would not be repealing Net Neutrality right now, or ever, under a Clinton administration. You can argue about the nature of Clinton's support for NN, but she has always consistently voiced support for the policy.
You've so committed to your fantasy of both sides being the same that you've become unhinged from reality.
The previous administration spent all their political capital passing Obamacare. After that, they lost the house and senate and were stonewalled at every opportunity by Mitch "Let's make him a one term President" McConnell.
Clinton would not have repealed Net Neutrality. Keeping Net Neutrality was one of the Democratic platform planks. So right there, we know that this action would not have happened.
Second, the idea that no one in the Obama administration wanted to make Net Neutrality permanent is absolutely idiotic. The only way something like that could be made permanent would be through an Act of Congress. And the opposition party controlled Congress, so you're not getting that to happen.
Honestly, given your deliberate misunderstanding of the issues, it's probably best you don't vote. Let the adults make the decisions.
Yea, because personal attacks are SUCH a grown-up, mature thing to do. Stay classy, fellow HN user.
This thread is about Net Neutrality. The rules being rolled back by the current Republican administration were put in place by the previous Democratic administration.
Not voting is just a vote for whoever wins. You voted through inaction for the candidate that supported removing these protections.
A half-assed effort, at best from your 'good guys'
Take a look at some of these votes:
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/6brytw/comment/dhpcbd...
I still did it, because I firmly believe it's my duty (and I personally would go so far as to say we should have Australia-style penalties for NOT voting) - though I did get to protest vote both Hillary and Trump since the latter was going to win my state anyway.
The problem with most voters is that they choose an identity and then vote according to how they think that identity votes. It's why you end up with people who vote Republican even if it is not in their best interests. I try to vote for people that I think have strong moral character and will be willing to do what's right (in my opinion) rather than what's likely to get them elected.
That's because it's sports to many people, they want their team to win - but instead of a superbowl title it's our nation at stake....
Being a liberal in Idaho kinda feels like being a Raiders fan at this point, now that I think about it.
We can discuss ideologically what the differences are between the parties, but as those of us in CA, NY, NJ, etc. well know - it's purely academic.
[edit:] Folks, it's a winner-take-all capital-E Electoral system in the vast majority of states, and in the vast majority of states, the demographic votes consistently in the same way. Thus very few states swing the entire Presidential election process, meaning that they matter. In California, for example, 3 million Democrats could have stayed in bed all day and not voted at all, and still it would have not touched the end result there.
And there's "no difference" for the average candidate, not for outliers.
It does matter, but it only matters in small sliver of states, as those states literally can swing elections.
Whether Republicans and Democrats have the same, slightly different, medium different, or wildly divergent views is secondary to the fact that for most Americans, the choice has already been made.
As an example, take Wisconsin - it was a blue state for 8 cycles before swinging to Trump in 2016. Democratic turnout was paltry, in great part because Democrats assumed that Hillary would win without them.
https://www.270towin.com/states/Wisconsin
Howard Dean pursued an explicit "fifty-state strategy" as chairman of the Democratic National Committee in the mid-2000s, putting resources into building a Democratic Party presence even where Democrats had been thought unlikely to win federal positions, in hopes that getting Democrats elected to local and state positions, and increasing awareness of Democrats in previously conceded areas, would result in growing successes in future elections.
The strategy was gradually abandoned after Dean stepped down from the DNC, and I believe that a large part of the Democrats' losses since then is exactly a result of your mindset, since abandoning red states or districts as lost causes only allowed the Republican Party to grow even stronger in areas where it was unchallenged, resulting in lopsided losses for Democrats in even more races and killing any ability to lay the groundwork for future victories.
It's kind of counter-intuitive, but the election of a Democrat in Alabama actually provided a lot of discouraging data about gerrymandering. While a Democrat won the state-wide popular vote, if those votes had been cast in the House districts, Republicans would have won six of the state's seven seats. Gerrymandering doesn't really help as much in a Senate race, but in House races, it's everything.
What is unquestionable is that in a very tangible way, Garland would have provided a crucial vote here. He would have been on the court with a Clinton presidency, instead a partisan extremist is. The path to progress is by participating in the current system so that you hold power to make things better. Things would have gotten better directly on this issue with a Clinton presidency. So if you’re not participating because you think that’s the quicker path to progress, I think this issue provides a large point against that logic.
You are technically correct. Almost no election is changed by the result of a single person. However, if everyone who thought this way chose to vote anyway, they could collectively swing every election.
When a policy issue comes up, politicians look at their constituency. An issue may be very important to certain demographics, but if those demos don't vote, they don't care.
One of the single best ways to get your voice heard is to vote. Even if it doesn't have direct impacts, it drastically changes what politicians look at. They won't vote to your every whim just because if it, but they'll try to gain your vote at any opportunity they can. Lots of small decisions add up.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/15/u-s-voter-tu...
At some point, a president will be elected with only like, 10% of the population having actually voted for them, and that'll be a crisis that forces us to overhaul some things.
[0]https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazils-Michel-Temer-...
I'll take my chances.
He was appointed by Obama, but not as chairman -- and was a recommendation from McConnell.
Obama was pretty clearly pro net neutrality.
Blaming Obama for Pai being on the committee, rather than the Republican Party, is like blaming Elizabeth II for acts of the British Government rather than the parliamentary majority party.
OTOH, where no such legal or traditional constraint limited his choices, Trump selected Pai as FCC Chair, so blaming Trump for Pai’s current position and his reasonably direct endorsement of Pai’s long-overt goals for the FCC is appropriate.
[0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201...
Any such appointee would not have been confirmed and thus would have been a waste of time.
Trump appointed Carr. Obama appointed O'Rielly and Pai.
This one is on all of us. We let Congress become a swamp in the first place.
2 democrats voted against repealing NN. If we had 3 D's in the FCC, if we had Hillary, you would have seen the opposite result.
Please stop peddling this "there's no difference" narrative. It's clearly untrue in this case. Otherwise, why would the split be on party lines? Republicans voted to repeal NN, not democrats.
Just like it's even more important to guard against sparks when the forest is already dry, it's even more important to take this responsibility when the topic is already politicized.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This happens in many situations, such as public transit. Build half a subway line so that it goes to nowhere and it fails, thus getting ridiculed as a failure from the start. How are we supposed to accomplish anything big or complex in this system?
Merely leaning Democrat isn't enough when the president can veto legislation. (I'm also not so sure it will be leaning Democrat in the first place, but that's secondary.)
Edit: To everyone downvoting: what did I say that was wrong...?
Are going to have to take up this fight every four years?
Money from the even richer companies that want to prevent it from happening.
Think of the ad campaigns: "Since have been able to charge content providers for their use of our network, we've kept our costs low - that's why you pay only $99.99/month for your ultra fast 10 mbit connection , f net neutrality comes back, your rates will skyrocket"
It's just a bit strange that there was less protest from the giants this time than in past Net Neutrality battles. It's beginning to seem like a number of these large web companies have become ambivalent to the issue.
Do you really think they'd be opposed to a plan that basically subsidizes their bandwidth?
Same for all the other internet giants, net neutrality pretty much cemented their spot in the status quo.
no it's not subsidizing. Basically I pay X amount to the ISP to ACTUALLY VIEW NETFLIX. Basically the ISP gets more out of the deal by having access to netflix, not the other way.
I don't know how anyone could honestly say that taking away an important consumer protection is going to help innovation, outside of innovative new billing practices by ISPs.
It's like Russ Hanneman (Mark Cuban, right?) on Silicon Valley. We can take this thing called the "radio" and put it on this new thing called the "Internet". Not as mind blowing as he believes.
"As a preliminary matter, it’s important to recognize that net neutrality principles and protections in different forms have actually been around since 2005 and even earlier. So the flourishing of the internet and everything relying on it during that time occurred under the protections. A few years ago, however, the courts struck down one form of net neutrality protections (those that had relied on Title I of the Communications Act), so then in 2015 the FCC put net neutrality protections back in place under Title II instead (they also expanded the earlier protections, e.g., to include protections against abuses related to interconnection, which had not been the subject of net neutrality protections before 2015). Now, in 2017, the FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai is proposing to repeal net neutrality protections altogether (and the courts’ earlier decisions effectively foreclose a return to net neutrality protections under Title I). So that would be entirely new territory for the internet.
Why do we think that’s bad? Well, as I explained in my own public comment in the current proceeding (https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/10717583023587/FINAL%20RIF%20Co...), we’ve seen how companies behave in the absence of net neutrality protections, specifically in the area of interconnection before it was regulated in 2015, and their unregulated conduct harmed consumers. In essence, they made a deliberate business decision to let the quality of internet access degrade, knowing that it hurt consumers, to try to squeeze revenue out of edge providers like Netflix and backbone providers like Cogent and Level 3. Plus, we know that many consumers have few ISPs to choose from, so competition isn’t as effective a check as in other markets. So I believe strong net neutrality regulations are needed to avoid harms to consumers."
The AMA: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15853374
Did they do that before 2015, there are cases of it, but not really that much. Providers mostly want to slowly introduce it now or at least the option to introduce it. I don't think they want to switch it quickly, but giving them this power is very dreadful.
So saying it will go back to 2015 (basically not really an issue), is looking at things a bit closed minded.
Net neutrality has never been made law, as the 2015 FCC Open Internet Order is not a law. The FCC cannot write laws. Full net neutrality, as defined here [1], has also never been mandated in the US.
The 2015 Open Internet Order mandated "net neutrality protections", not net neutrality itself.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
That being said, I think it's pretty clear that more harmful policies proposed in recent times have come predominantly from a single source, and I think it's more important to work in opposition to that harmfulness than to find a group that perfectly represents you. Especially with a first past the post electoral system in which fractiousness dilutes the value of your vote.
Saying Pai is Obama's fault is disingenuous, because he had to appointment a Republican, and any Republican chair would implement Republican policy.
That's pretty rich for being the "party of personal responsibility".
Ajit Pai has the confidence of Republican leadership and was appointed by Obama at McConnell's behest, again because of requirement. I'm sure if Obama could have appointed a political ally he would have.
Ajit Pai certainly is responsible for this, but he is acting on behalf of the GOP and has their full backing. I think it's fair to hold them accountable for that.
Politics are more nuanced than red or blue.
This topic is already highly partisan, of course, so it's all the more important not to make it more so. This is very much a collective responsibility.
I don't have a party, and net neutrality is one of the few political issues Hacker News has officially done something for, including quite recently. I don't fault you for not knowing that, because most people see only a tiny slice of what passes through here and no one sees all of it. But the dynamic of jumping to a view of someone as your enemy is a thing we all need to work on.
Anyone have advice on tech hotspots in the EU that are willing to put up with English-speaking engineers? I've thought about Finland a couple times, good schools for my daughter, ample hunting and fishing opportunities and from what I can tell pretty good broadband infrastructure.
Each one has different pros/cons depending on whats important to you: type of work, money, work/life balance. All of them are good (and, aside from London soon, easy to move between once you're resident in Europe or here on a long visa).
Thanks, I'll have to take a look. Still debating whether I'd want to move across the pond from my family, especially with a 5 year old in tow - but I've thought about moving to the EU for roughly 10 years at this point.
> (and, aside from London soon, easy to move between once you're resident in Europe or here on a long visa).
That part's pretty easy for me, my wife inherited Italian citizenship through her bloodline - we just need to get all the paperwork taken care of to get it recognized.
I might be talking crap but worth checking out. In any case, it's definitely do-able and you should give it a go! Europe's awesome (and v. kid friendly)
The UK, along with all other commonwealth countries, has no equivalent rules to repeal or support.
Also, I don't know if you're referring specifically to the UK. I happen to have some experience with the ISP situation in Canada, and I can tell you that there are places smack-dab in the middle of the largest city in the country where you only have access to one ISP. There are really only about four, maybe five, functioning terrestrial ISPs in Canada, and in a given city, usually only two operate. I have no idea how sparse it gets out in the sticks, cottage country at least gets LTE. Generally the only terrestrial ISP competition in Canada is between monopolies on roughly either side of the continental divide in telephone DSLs (Bell or Telus, depending on region) and modems on the cable TV infrastructure (Rogers or Shaw, depending on region), a fifth is coming up just in Toronto (Beanfield), time will tell if they can manage to expand the fiber infrastructure enough to grow their business.
So I'm stuck here, for good or bad.
We have to get Congress to pass that law:
https://www.wired.com/story/after-fcc-vote-net-neutrality-fi...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/net-neutrality-ii
- David Autor
this is an infuriating argument. distributing your content throughout a network of servers to decrease rtt and increase cache hits is how the internet is supposed to work. giving priority to powerful corporations in an already congested network infrastructure, on the other hand, is anti-consumer and promotes monopolization.
The current marketplace is a different story. In many places in America, Internet service is a defacto monopoly. And the current legal landscape is anti-competitive and protects the big players. States can't experiment with their own net neutrality policies [1]; heck, legislation is in place in many states to defacto prevent municipal broadband alternatives [2]. And even with private players like Google Fiber, the "big players" show every willingness to use nuisance lawsuits in attempt to delay that pesky capitalist competition from coming into play. [3]
I did notice that a lot of the comments in that survey of economists brought up both the anti-competitive nature of the current broadband market, as well as the worry about vertical integration (which also is a monopoly concern). So it's not like they aren't aware of some of the strongest reasons (MHO) for needing net neutrality style regulations at the moment.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/fcc-will-also-or... [2] https://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/resources/brie... [3] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171101/10474538530/att-b...
You are right, the market economist are basically just misinformed about the structure of the market. Most of them are not actually people that know much about the internet or work in that space specifically.
My attempt at a solution is to equate packets with real live postal services. The postal service is not allowed to open your packets but they are allowed to look at the stamp. This is how the IP protocol was designed to work, and it would work, but that requires a change in how IP do pricing and so on and so on.
"Should companies have to pay more for faster internet speeds?" "Probably yes"
The answer is, of course, yes. But people like to think in terms of black and white, ingroup and outgroup, friend and enemy. The public is now thoroughly convinced not only that the reclassification had the intended effects (and it's not clear that's the case), but that reinstating the reclassification is the only way to address the issue. Anyone who says anything against this norm will be hounded until they shut up.
I talk with a number of Americans (especially on Freenode and over mailinglists) whose only options are satellite (which explains partly why they're still on IRC) or installing their own point to point radio network. All the current rules mean is that their only available ISP has to tell them explicitly that they'll be sabotaging BitTorrent traffic. Leased highway conduit space or leased dark fiber, and a loosening of (other, more administratively significant) regulations would have an outsize impact on the cost of the last miles of radio and/or fiber backhaul, instead of just adding pages to the subscriber agreement.
Uhh yes. You must not own a cell phone or use a wireless data plan in the USA.
Based on my limited knowledge of the ISP market, there's significant barrier of entry in each area for a new ISP or even an existing one like AT&T or Wave G.
"The two specific items to be voted on Thursday include a plan to make it easier for broadband providers to charge other businesses higher prices to connect to the main arteries of their networks." - From a pre-vote article. The vote passed. It includes a link to the document. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/technology/ajit%2Dpai%2Df...
Ok, so assuming the monopolies aren't just going to let you steal away their business by creating a municipal ISP that uses their lines... You could try and lay your own lines to get around this. However, that's the exact problem Google ran into. Google required cities pass ordinances that allowed them to move Comcast/AT&T lines on the utility poles so that Google could add their own, but the existing ISPs sued saying that the cities did not have the right and won in court. This means Google had to wait for Comcast techs to come out and move the lines for each and every pole, a process which could take months and the ISPs were dragging out just to make Google's life miserable. This battle over the utility poles is something you can research.
So, assuming we're not better than Google, and that laying new lines will be a regulation nightmare, we're left with the option of renting the existing ISP's lines... of which I already stated I don't think would work either because the same anti-regulation mentality that caused the FCC to deregulate NN has also caused them to deregulate pricing protections for business peering.
Read: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/10/26...
If becoming a successful ISP is too difficult for Google... then who is going to be able to do it? Who is going to provide the competition to the monopolies of Comcast, AT&T, and Time Warner?
In a system where preventing a monopoly (and ensuring consumer protection) through competition isn't possible, then that's where regulation is needed.
If you feel there is a better way, I'd be interested to hear about it.
EDIT: See my response about the possibility of Municipal Broadband here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15925827
No that's inaccurate. Title II reclassification happened in 2015. Verizon Netflix "throttling" (controversial what actually happened there) happened in 2017.
What happened in 2014 was not throttling in the last mile, which is what the 2015 Title II re-classification protects against, so this would've been legal even without the repeal (and more importantly did not meaningfully contribute to Title II classification, like parent is implying). What happened in 2017 probably wasn't either, but could more reasonably be construed that way because it was all happening inside of Verizon's network.
The Netflix Verizon case illustrates what makes Net Neutrality law so difficult to describe in technical terms. Verizon was not slowing down netflix packets, netflix was so big that it fully saturated multiple links. You can argue about what this implies for the peering agreements that are setup, but regardless this area is simply not something that net neutrality covers. Net neutrality says the last mile needs to treat all content it receives the same way. If the congestion is further up the network, NN has nothing to do with it.
It's something in completely its own category of nefariousness because they could be as anticompetitive as they want, and the market could not solve it.
That's because the injured party isn't their customers, who could take their business elsewhere, or at least loudly complain on the internet (if they have any).
It's someone not part to the ISP<->customer contract, namely that unknown video startup in Nantucket, or the e2e-encrpyted messenger app your friend Lauren is working on. They're going to be forced into paying ISPs if they ever want to reach the ISPs' customers. And there's no risk to the ISP, because nobody is going to change ISPs for some startup they've never heard about.
The result could be ISPs capturing almost every cent of value created by new startups. We will also have a fractured internet, because small companies will have to negotiate contracts with every single ISP. Also want to reach those 500,000 people in eastern Montana? That'll cost you $2,000 per week.
Anyone not living on the US coasts, and people in other countries, will constantly run into "HTTP Error 469: go suck a bag of.."
So why don't the results you predict occur in those industries? No one worries about grocery stores capturing all of the excess value from farmers because grocers have plenty of competition. No one worries about postage carriers refusing to deliver their goods because the government has promised to provide that service as a public good for a small fee.
It seems like you could solve your concerns by increasing competition among ISPs or by increasing the number of government run ISPs. I think this is still a "there's only two ISPs where I live and they both offer the same deals" type of problem.
You are paying a fee: for your side of the Internet connection.
Can you make the same argument about a telephone? Should business be able to call their customers and their customers them without having to worry about who has which phone provider? Should the business have to pay the customer's provider?
Few providers abused the privileges they had, because of some combination of uncertainty about backlash, historical precedent, and lack of organization and understanding.
This is a common inaccurate argument I have seen pushed by the telcos to justify repeal.
There are many well-documented cases of how the "big 4" ISPs were increasingly blocking, redirecting (Charter's DNS redirection), interfering (injecting javascript and/or ads) and throttling traffic to internet services (Netflix) from their networks before the Title II reclassification of 2015.
All these abuses happened during a small window of a couple years between the previous FCC's Net Neutrality regulations were thrown out by the courts and 2015, when the Title II reclassification happened.
In late 2014, a court case declared the method they were enforcing didn't fall under the scope of their powers, but strongly suggested, while noting that the ISPs could and would be a danger to the internet if left to their own devices, that they had other means to enact the same regulations.
The other means was Title II classification.
The internet regulatory state before 2015 was pretty much a disaster. The early internet was de-facto neutral with a bizarro patchwork of idiosyncratic local regulations (see the quote "the internet treats censorship as damage") and a general distaste from network operators for wide-area multicast (with good reason). Neutrality became an issue with major commercialization and particularly when internet services began to compete directly with non-internet services like TV and phones.
"As detailed in the survey below, nearly every operator places limits on “commercial” use, sometimes including limits on Virtual Private Networks, as well as limits on acting as a server. Why might an operator put such a restriction on usage? Doing so obviously makes the service less attractive to consumers who might want to act in a commercial way, even in a fairly casual manner.
"The simple answer is price discrimination. That this is the case is not just intuition, but can be confirmed by company policy. As evidence we can consider Comcast’s reply in 2001 to a user who had complained about the ban on VPN usage on Comcast’s network:
"Thank you for your message. High traffic telecommuting while utilizing a VPN can adversely affect the condition of the network while disrupting the connection of our regular residential subscribers.
"To accommodate the needs of our customers who do choose to operate VPN, Comcast offers the Comcast @Home Professional product. @Home Pro is designed to meet the needs of the ever growing population of small office/home office customers and telecommuters that need to take advantage of protocols such as VPN. This product will cost $95 per month, and afford you with standards which differ from the standard residential product.
"If you’re interested in upgrading . . . ."
-- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=388863 [2003]
(Other examples available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_S..., https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/net-neutrality-violations-hi..., and https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-vio...).
Sometimes network providers got in trouble with their restrictions. Sometimes they were changed via customer and public pressure. Sometimes the complaints went to the government, usually the FCC. Sometimes they were addressed there, sometimes they weren't. Some providers were prevented from restrictions by agreements with the FCC, some weren't. Sometimes, something you wanted to do was impeded by your ISP or an upstream provider. Sometimes you could pay more to avoid the impediment, sometimes you couldn't. Sometimes you could change providers to avoid the restrictions. Usually not, though. (Strike that; try "Essentially always not.")
Increasing competition is a dandy idea, and it was the primary argument at the time. Unfortunately, there are two ways to do it, mostly: force utility-infrastructure plant operators (the phone network, the cable TV network, whatever) to be neutral with regards to actual service providers (which sort of worked for long-distance telephone providers, I guess), or to destroy all of the streets in America by laying more cables. Again.
Competition hasn't worked before in the US, and I'm unaware o...
From 2010-2014 similar rules to the 2015 rules were in place, citing a different statutory basis; these ruled were struck down in 2014, with the court pointing to Title II, be basis of the 2015 rules, as the available statutory basis for the kind of rules adopted in 2010.
From 2014-2015 there were no open internet rules in place, but the industry was operating in awareness that he FCC majority was drafting new rules with similar objectives.
And FCC net neutrality policy existed from 2004-2010, working on yet a different mechanism, which was struck down by the courts in 2010.
And before that, things get complicated, because even though there was no net neutrality policy for broadband in general, there was also very little broadband of any kind, and what there was often, for much of the pre-2004 period, fell under different regulatory regimes based on the underlying technology (cable as cable, DSL under telephone related rules.)
So, perhaps none of the pre-2015 regulatory states were a disaster, but repealing the 2015 order doesn't returns us to any of those states, or even to a condition where the law would allow the FCC to reimplement them. In fact, it gets us farther from any of the 2004-2015 states than the 2015-2017 state was.
Factor in the way that corporations have been operating over the last decades (shareholder value is the number 1 priority) and you really do have a recipe for disaster for the consumer and small businesses.
Pre-2015, the FCC still had regulations to enforce net neutrality, just different ones. It was active in punishing ISPs for violating neutrality under those provisions. Verizon managed to get a court to say that those regulations were inappropriate, but the court also pointed out that if ISPs were regulated under Title II, then the FCC would have the power to set the regulations that had been de facto in place for the past decade. The FCC under Tom Wheeler immediately did just that.
The problem with this vote is that it removes all protections without replacing them with anything else. All we have now is "yeah, the FTC might look at it if it's egregious... also the ISPs promise really hard to behave themselves." It's not just that the FCC has removed the rules (although that's still incredibly important), it's that they've totally abdicated their position as the regulatory body for telecommunications.
If we want better representation of the facts and the People's opinion, we need better representation. The current system lacks nuance and seems to be subject to Elite interests over popular ones.
Support for Net Neutrality was overwhelming and bi-partisan, yet Ajit Pai just plowed forward without consideration for what the citizens demanded.
This is government at its worst.
based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
"his mealtimes were entirely arbitrary"
synonyms: capricious, whimsical, random, chance, unpredictable;
(of power or a ruling body) unrestrained and autocratic in the use of authority.
"arbitrary rule by King and bishops has been made impossible"
synonyms: autocratic, dictatorial, autarchic, undemocratic, despotic, tyrannical, authoritarian, high-handed;
mathematics. (of a constant or other quantity) of unspecified value.
This is false both in mathematics and in everyday language.
His determination actually demonstrates the lack of arbitrariness. Arbitrary choices are held lightly and easily changed. This was the opposite.
AFAIK at no point during the process did Pai change much at all. He made it clear what he was going to do from the beginning and stuck to it the whole way through.
"The term arbitrary describes a course of action or a decision that is not based on reason or judgment but on personal will or discretion without regard to rules or standards."
Most of Pai's arguments are half-truths or out right lies. There have been several instances where his claims were fact checked against the data and proved to be false.
Furthermore: "In many instances, the term implies an element of bad faith, and it may be used synonymously with tyrannical or despotic."
I think there's a good case that Pai's actions and statements could be shown to be despotic.
The only federal elections are for the President, Senators, and Representatives. This is not a direct democracy.
The direct feedback mechanism is voting for those who determine the composition of the rule-making bodies.
The direct feedback mechanism is voting, for people who draw maps that determine who get's elected to have the power to determine the composition of the rule-making bodies.
You could even argue it's how people spend their money that determines who has money to chose who get's to draw the maps etc.
I try to engage in commerce with entities that do/make good things.
Could you give examples of them "misrepresenting public feedback"?
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/why-the-fcc-igno...
And your link doesn't support your claim:
>The Pai staffer who spoke with reporters acknowledged that there were legitimate comments from both sides in the net neutrality docket. In Pai's draft order, the FCC comprehensively addresses all the serious comments that made factual and legal arguments, the official said.
Yes I am. My point is that they did a poor job at soliciting feedback--not that they didn't get a lot. The fact the volume was so high just shows how important it was for this issue. If servers are going offline, then you can show good faith by extending the comment period or addressing it in some other manor.
Being "required to solicit comments and to consider them" doesn't mean you only consider a subset containing legal arguments.
USA is not a democracy, thank God. A democracy is mob rule.
Also, all of these people are still humans. Meaning that they have their own closely held beliefs. If you are honestly expecting non-elected officials to violate their own beliefs based on public feedback simply because "majority rules", you aren't living in reality. That virtually never happens. When it does happen, it usually happens on issues that are not hot-button issues and those being hounded by the public don't have a strong opinion so they are willing to switch sides if necessary.
And the US is not and has never been a majority rule democracy. It's a constitutional republic and that's a critical difference. Part of that structure is ensuring that in some cases (like the electoral college), the majority don't get to make the rules simply because they decided to band together or live close to each other. The electoral college exists precisely for the situation the US is currently in - where the more liberal areas are all clustered in relatively small, high density areas. They now account for more than 50% of the population but far less in the electoral college because the system was built to prevent that density issue where these small areas by land mass could force feed laws upon the rest of the country, enabling those areas to effectively have control over money and resources which they otherwise would not.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Our republic isn't designed just to do what the people want. It's intentionally designed so that good people can sometimes do something unpopular in the public interest. For this to work, it's incumbent on the voting public to elect good people.
EDIT: I am not factually incorrect, so could you please explain why you are downvoting?
Obama won by ~5 million and ~10 million votes in 2012 and 2008, respectively.
Obama Designated Tom Wheeler chairman, and he put in place the regulations that Pai dismantled today - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wheeler
But, in any case, Obama nominated him but did not choose him so much as he choose not to violate long-standing precedent as to how the seats that cannot (because the 3 members of one party limit has been reached) be from the President’s party are selected.
Now, he could have violated that precedent, but that wouldn't have likely gotten someone else into the seat, just given up any chance of Senate confirmation.
- it's staffed by members of each party
- each party's leaders (typically in the Senate) choose the people who will be appointed
- the President typically rubber-stamps those appointments
- the President at the time really only gets to choose which member of the commission is the Chairman
So if you want to blame someone for Pai, you should be blaming Senator McConnell for telling President Obama "here's the Republican we want you to put on the commission".
> But it's predictable that one party would have appointed someone like him and not the other.
It is fair to blame this vote on Republicans, given that the vote fell along "party lines".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_Pai
I'm simply pointing out that we empower and trust the "good people" we elect to choose "good people" they appoint.
Obama could have rejected the nomination but anyone that the Republicans have a say in will be anti-net neutrality.
I really wish the Democrats had just started firing broadsides at Republicans in the last decade, given that the Republicans clearly can stomach the lowest of the low political gamesmanship.
It was an “olive branch” to Republicans in much the same sense as the British sovereign offering the leader of the party that has secured a majority the opportunity to form a government is an “olive branch” to that party; it is, through combination of law (limiting the number of members of one party, and mandating Senate confirmation before a nomination becomes an actual appointment) and established custom (as to how nominees that are not of the President’s party are chosen), a requirement that, if violated, would produce a major crisis.
Except in this case, it is not in public interest
Where these popular ideas do matter is in the marketplace. The entire tech industry, including some of the wealthiest companies in the world, will most certainly rebel against any attempt by ISPs to threaten net neutrality. And there will similarly be a revolt by customers.
Google Fiber was created merely to promote the deployment of fiber, Net Neutrality is a far bigger issue than fiber to both the tech industry and ISP consumers.
Even without FCC rules it will still be very dangerous for any ISP to make any significant changes to how the internet works.
The most likely scenario is that a few mobile internet providers may offer niche small packages of limited internet to mobile users for $5-10/month (which so far is the only real world example of "net neutrality" being violated in the world, by a Portuguese ISP)... basically a way to offer cheaper packages to some users who can't afford full broadband. This is basically the only thing I could see ISPs getting away with. I highly doubt any ISP would risk limiting the internet for any average home broadband users. Most American ISPs are public companies who still have worry about their bottom line.
The backlash even without FCC laws will be a significant deterrence.
[1] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/The_Federalist_Papers
How would you describe Comcast's throttling of bittorrent or Rogers throttling of all encrypted traffic in Canada?
> Comcast's throttling of bittorrent
Were these FCC laws blocking Comcast from throttling Bittorrent traffic?
Canada was also the first country to throttle bittorrent traffic as well and the adoption of encryption in Bittorrent clients was largely able to bypass this issue AFAIK (I haven't experienced any slow downs in years in Canada since I toggled "force encrypted peers").
> Rogers throttling of all encrypted traffic in Canada
Source? I used Rogers for years and I've never heard of this problem.
""Comcast's practices are not minimally intrusive, as the company claims, but rather are invasive and have significant effects," the commission said, demanding an end to the practices by year's end."
This was under the Title I classification that was struck down by the verizon lawsuit, where the court said that the way to enforce these rules within the FCC's existing powers was via Title II.
As for Rogers, http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2007/04/rogers-packet-shaping/
https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7521304546.pdf
[Citation needed]. Whatsapp has virtually no competition in Brazil because most carriers do not count it toward the data cap.
ISPs already do incredibly unpopular things, but it doesn't hurt their bottom line because their customers don't have other provider options. What are they going to do, go without internet?
Comcast is one of the most hated companies in the US, but you wouldn't know it by looking at their stock price. The free market is not a solution here.
Have they pissed off the entire tech industry and attempted to fundamentally change how the internet works?
Having poor customer service, high fees, etc seems like a far cry from completely changing how internet billing works and whitelisting websites/throttling the entire internet.
But first the ISPs have to actually do the things that we were warned they would do if the FCC scraped these laws. No ISP has yet announced or even proposed any specific future changes.
I'm not even sure what being "wrong" here will look like in practical terms:
- Are average home broadband internet plans going to have their internet filtered unless they pay more for 'unlimited'? With TV-style "grouped" packages?
- What websites (tech companies) will be included in these hypothetical filtered packages?
- Will they (Netflix/Disney/Facebook/Google/etc) let the ISPs include their brand(s) in marketing these new non-neutral plans? Will they let the ISP include their website in any throttled package in technical terms?
- Will ISPs be launching the new plans perfectly in sync with other ISP companies, for the 80% of Americans who have more than one ISP option, so they won't hemorrhage customers to competitors when they completely revamp their billing? Will they grandfather existing users?
...there are far too many questions to properly give you a answer about how the industry will respond.
When/if that actually becomes a reality then it will be easier to guess how the trillion dollar industry will react and if the ISP customers will sit idly by with no recourse... at the moment I'm confident there will be plenty to do to make business/life for Comcast/ATT shareholders uncomfortable if they ever were dumb enough to mess with how the internet works for the average American.
That's exactly why I'm not buying this idea that these FCC policies were what's stopping ISPs from disrupting 'net neutrality'.
If you actually dig into the details it doesn't make much sense and is extremely risky. Yet I seem to be one of the very few who is actually challenging this stuff on rational grounds rather than "herr derr I support republican policies and want to be a contrarian".
The reality is that not every situation calls for government intervention. Especially extremely hypothetical situations which have never even been tried in the market place.
This is equivalent to regulatory "pre-crime" enforcement...
The customers revolting is not a matter of influencing Comcast/ATT/etc, it's a matter of influencing Google/Apple/HBO+Disney/Netflix etc etc etc.
People love to trivialise this counter-point as merely "oh ISPs dont have competition therefore the market can't fight this problem", which is incredibly reductive and misses the forest for the trees.
That's not the problem. The problem is that this is not a free market. The ISPs have effective control of the federal government and many state governments, and use that control to block competition from e.g. municipal ISPs. If the free market were actually allowed to operate, it would very likely solve the problem.
However, like you said, it's not a free market and it won't be for the foreseeable future. Fantasizing about that changing isn't a solution either. At the moment, government regulations are the best tools we have to protect consumers.
It seems exactly the same as that widely-quoted Portuguese example, which also let you pay a data rate for sites that weren't in their special packages. This happened in the US because net neutrality was weak and never really applied to mobile carriers.
I'm pointing out that the Portuguese non-neutral mobile carrier is no different than our US non-neutral mobile carriers.
Have you noticed not many tech companies have complained? Did telecom win by attrition, or did they negotiate after the last failure?
"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."
I believe Netflix and YouTube and what-not already pay their service providers for the bandwidth they use.
What about this text did you find valuable? Please share.
It would be a lot easier to get behind the idea that we should elect "good people" if we weren't concentrating so many responsibilities to the one magic "good person" we get to choose.
No. I'm not trolling either. Raymond Smullyan's stories are meant to be like Zen Koan. My factual and historical observations are much the same. It's more like a Rorschach blot.
It would be a lot easier to get behind the idea that we should elect "good people" if we weren't concentrating so many responsibilities to the one magic "good person" we get to choose.
Our world is considerably more complex than it was in 1800.
https://www.fcc.gov/about-fcc/what-we-do
Funny because I believe Ajit Pai is a corporate shill doing what his Friends at Verizon wanted and I am sure he is hoping the land a nice 6 figure job in the private sector in a couple years....
This move today for the FCC has absolutely nothing to with public interest
Key phrase. There is zero evidence that repealing Net Neutrality is anywhere close to the public interest.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here - that's exactly what happens in the US. People in rural Nebraska or Wyoming's vote is often up to three times more "effective" than someone in NYC or LAs.
Specifically, the paragraph which starts with "Another way they'll drop their deference" is roughly the section which covers the caveats.
[0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/6x0bdy/985_of_uni...
> Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
Looking at their mandate it seems pretty clear that they are there to serve the interests of American citizens and should be acting in citizens best interests.
I think that's pretty clear in the use of the phrase "the people of the United State" here:
The FCC's mission, specified in Section One of the Communications Act of 1934 and amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (amendment to 47 U.S.C. §151) is to "make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nationwide, and world-wide wire and radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges."[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commiss...
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/12...
There is no candidate that does not hold policy positions contrary to at least some my own.
What they've done is decided that this issue is less important than others, and based their votes on that.
Of course not. As you say, it's clearly not a significant issue for most Republican voters.
However, I think a lot of voters assume that the party reflects the values of the voters though - clearly that is not always true.
And this is at best -- it assumes your elected representative even holds their campaign promises, which is maybe a long shot.
Stupid gun rules, like magazine size limitations, sure, but they almost never "come for my guns." Often the suggestions are perfectly reasonable in my mind - national gun registry, for example.
Another scenario - the FBI is monitoring radicalization in a small community. They check the gun registry to see which of the people in the community becoming radicalized are actual potential threats and zero in their investigation on those individuals, to prevent a shooting.
Etc. Basically just makes law enforcement's jobs more feasible.
The government doesn't have the resources to "confiscate" every registered gun owners' guns at the same time, and so we would be well aware if a confiscation by a tyrannical government is coming, and all of us weirdo militia folk and preppers would already be putting the sandbags out. Trust me, some of these guys are practically wishing for it.
Similarly, police who are serving an arrest warrant might be able to serve the warrant with the knowledge that person of interest has several firearms on the property. Sometimes police know this today, but not because of government records.
(I'm not arguing a personal position one way or the other, just explaining the rationale.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
http://fightthefuture.org/videos/does-voting-make-a-differen...
it's: short for "it is".
its: possessive version of "it". E.g. its worse -> worst belong to "it"
EDIT: The original misguided pedant has now changed "worse" to "worst" in both instances; after downvoting me, of course.
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/at-it...
- P.J. O'Rourke in Parliament of Whores (1991)
Dunno. Fighting institutional <word that ends in 'ism'> is pretty popular on the left.
[1] https://splinternews.com/the-long-lucrative-right-wing-grift...
Well color me pink.
Is it? Republicans were voted by the public into Congress, into the presidency. They are acting just as anyone voting for them could expect. In that sense they are representing the will of the people who duly elected them.
The FCC ignored the will of a small % of technology-oriented, predominately liberal voters. Just because all the media that you might tend to consume and the people you tend to converse with are vocally against this repeal, doesn't mean that that represents the will of the majority. That same sort of ideological bubble is what caused everyone to be so shocked when Trump actually won, despite all the polls and predictions to the contrary.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/12...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/05/2...
Voter support (a couple of instances here, but there are many), (PDF): https://na-production.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/American_Pu...
Even this claim is arguable, given gerrymandered congressional districts and inherent overweighting of low-population rural states in the Senate.
In an ideal world, people vote in the government they want, and the elected representatives follow the will of the people. We all know such a world doesn't exist [1]. In practice:
* Most voters don't even know what net neutrality is. How will they care if they don't understand that they should care? It's a complicated, nuanced subject even for tech people.
* It wasn't part of the Trump/republican platform at the time of the election. As far as I can recall, it didn't even come up during the presidential debates. Voters might want net neutrality, but they might not have known that voting for Trump/GOP would cause a repeal.
* The last couple of decades show that Congress (and politicans in general) overwhelmingly goes where the money is. There's a huge amount of money and lobbying power on the pro-repeal side, and the current FCC is a classic example of regulatory capture [2], with every indication that the FCC (and the Trump administration) is now stocked with industry insiders.
[1] http://www.bartleby.com/73/417.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
We only have (had!) net neutrality and other important regulatory protections because the FCC exists.
Something needs to exist as a protection against corporate abuse. If it's not a centralized agency, then what? There's no self-correcting mechanism in capitalism that magically prevents companies from screwing with consumers.
As for your statement and question;
> Something needs to exist as a protection against corporate abuse. If it's not a centralized agency, then what? There's no self-correcting mechanism in capitalism that magically prevents companies from screwing with consumers
Couple points...
First, "There's no self-correcting mechanism in capitalism that magically prevents companies from screwing with consumers" gave me a solid laugh. Little thought experiment: let's say there are two alternate realities. In one of these realities, somehow, Starbucks is the ONLY way for you to get coffee. Somehow, they've completely ensured other coffee shops can't open (it's either too expensive for them to open or literally illegal). In the other reality, opening a coffee shop is easy! Starbucks hasn't colluded with any government agency to make coffee shop ownership too expensive or difficult to pull off. In which one of these realities do you think (the) coffee shop(s) would abuse their customer base(s), charge inflated prices, or provide lackluster serviced that rarely if ever are innovated on? I'm hoping for the sake of discussion, you understand my point. Scenario 1 is hardly a far stretch from exactly what has happened over the years in the ISP industry. The FCC is HARDLY innocent in creating our current dismal ISP situation. Open markets are THE system that prevents abusive actions towards consumers.
The second point, I am far from against the government protecting consumers from abuse by corporations. Fraud or anti-competitive behavior should be met with a stern legal response. But when the government played a huge role in creating an environment where we can't protect ourselves, I'm extremely dubious of any power grab attempted in the name of "we'll protect you". In an open market, I have a perfectly good mechanism for protecting myself which also happens to stimulate innovation, lowers prices, and improves the product/service.
So yea, an artificial monopoly has now been given more leeway in how they provide services to an already abused customer base... it's a bummer. However, I'm not keen on providing more power to the very people who helped get us here so that they can control the problem they created. Let's fix the root of the issue. Decry crony capitalism always - not just when it's 'the other guys' doing it.
And one last point... ISPs provide an extremely expensive and complex service to their customers. In what world are price controls and artificial monopolies a good idea? We need innovation in this space, not uniformity of service and centralized decision making. It's the internet, not the DMV. We should make it so ISPs have to win our usership by providing the best most valuable service, not by wielding the legislative process more effectively then there would be competition.
lol
Democracy doesn't work through public declarations, it works through elections. One year ago, the states chose Donald Trump as president, knowing they he would end Net Neutrality [1]. If a population wants to send a different message, they must do it in the next election [2].
[1] https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/53260835850816716... [2] https://swingleft.org/
Most Trump supporters did not elect trump "knowing ... he would end Net Neutrality", and a statement from 2014 does not disprove that (a cursory glance at r/TrumpCriticizesTrump/ kinda makes the point).
The US public is atrociously misinformed as a whole, either due to lack of education or bad media incentives or both. In order to function, a democracy requires an informed public.
E.g. has Trump been able to build the wall that arguably half the population approved of? No, because his budget approval process has been checked by other elected representatives.
The people just proved with the Alabama special election that they can change the establishment if they feel strongly enough about it.
Sadly I think the effects of repealing Net Neutrality will be felt more like a frog in a slowly heating pot of water, and no single change is going to entice the majority of the population to vote. It's not the tech industry that needs to be convinced that repealing neutrality is bad, it's the general non-tech population that needs to be convinced to care.
Eventually both parties are going to realize that they would be better off putting forward a candidate that the people like instead of putting forth an establishment yes-man (in the Dems case from the presidential race, a yes-woman).
Also, if you really think that people who voted for Donald Trump understood the intricacies of net neutrality you must be an incredibly optimistic individual.
>his competition was not any better
Really? Hillary was going to carry on a lot of Obam-ian policies. Net neutrality would still exist, pedophiles would not be publicly endorsed by her, and a 'tax cut' that is actually just a confusing mess that only clearly benefits the super-rich would not have happened.
So what exactly would she have done to be as bad as Trump? The guy is incessantly mired in scandals; says things that a centrist family would barely tolerate their old, crazy, racist uncle saying around holiday dinners; and is basically a narcissist.
I don't like Hillary at all and don't see how you can say "she's not any better than Trump" with a straight face.
This is precisely why she did not win.
Trump has been wishy washy on his immigration and military spending statements since being in office.
More charitably, they chose Donald Trump on the suspicion that he would do "better" than Hillary Clinton on: abortion, immigration, the economy, leading in "the culture wars", and maybe a few other issues. Net neutrality was a litmus test for basically nobody.
At that time, sure. Time will tell whether electing an extremist candidate was a good idea or not.
Losing in deep red Alabama isn't a good sign.
Are you serious? Every politician is an ideologue. It's why we elect one over another. We agree with one's idea about policies over another's.
The only people who we expect to divorce themselves from ideologies are judges, who are there to interpret the law, not make it.
I think most of them are true Republicans in the sense that they want to elect people they think are trustworthy and then let them make decisions as their proxy. In that case, a candidate can have policies and platforms to convince people to let her be their proxy, but she doesn't need them. She could just have a "trust me, I'll make the right decision" pitch.
Besides, if Trump is an ideologue, what is that ideology? At best it's a new (or at least renewed) nativist spin on identity politics. That's not an ideology; that's a team.
Republicanism is an ideology. Trump's is clearly farther right than previously elected R presidents.
He does have a laundry list of issues he tweets about, a subset of which he picks at with executive orders (which, itself, is unconservative) but that seems more like raw appeasement of his political base than anything coherent (or even consistent!).
There are a few exceptions, I guess. He's, at least in rhetoric, for a strong military. Though we're nowhere near a "Trump doctrine" that proposes a coherent framework for that desire. It's, again, more of an id-driven move than anything rational.
Actually, I meant extremist. The "Trump" party is full of people who want to roll back amendments to the 1940s or earlier.
These are extremist views, in my opinion, and don't represent the average American. Bannon and those who would raise white supremacist marches chanting against Jews can go suck a lemon.
And in the meantime, who cares if the country is lit on fire? That's the future elected officials' problem.
Sarcasm aside, I actually agree that we need to speak with our vote. I just wish we didn't have such large swings of the deregulation penis in the meantime, and instead we had cool-headed, logical people at the helms of these agencies and our Executive branch. I suppose it's too naive of me.
To some degree, this whole mess is due to pushing ostensibly state-level laws (abortion regulations, for example) to the national level, which leaves much less room for genuinely national issues, like internet regulations, defense spending, immigration law, etc.
It might seem unnecessarily inflammatory to bring up abortion in a net neutrality discussion, but it's hard to get around the fact that appointments to the Supreme Court (which basically sets abortion policy) might have been the thing that convinced enough people to vote for Trump.
So I guess I agree that a lack of choices results in outcomes like this, but U.S. democracy provides other mechanisms for political diversity. They're just not being utilized on certain key issues at this point in history.
The states, yet not the people
Sure, he won with our current system, but even school children think our current system is silly
I spent several days working on my comment; it was a dozen pages long, it included relevant citations, and it addressed specific questions asked in the NPRM. I took the time to correct a few falsehoods in the NPRM's technical analysis.
Now imagine what it is like to see that comment being specifically cited and totally dismissed in the draft rules that were just approved. In a way it is worse than just being ignored -- someone took the time to read my comment and comments by like-minded experts, saw the part where we corrected falsehoods, and then replied with, "Well, ISPs say $X so $X is true and your comment wrong."
I am not going to give up on civic engagement but I am sure some of those like-minded engineers and researchers might.
Please don't. I mean that very sincerely. The fact that you took the time to do this is very inspiring to me. It reminds me of this guy: https://professional-troublemaker.com
It kind of blows my mind to think of how much individuals who are focused and determined can really accomplish.
The only criteria for being a republic is that you don't have a monarch. The USSR was a republic. China is a republic. Canada is not a republic. Yet, Canada is also a representative democracy, while neither China, nor the USSR are.
But what exactly did Google do to oppose this?
In my view: doing nothing == being evil.
Same, so as a petty man I've made a personal vow to send Ajit Pai a card every Christmas reminding him he sold his soul to Comcast and that I will never forget or forgive him for it.
Totally pointless right now when the whole country is calling for his head and he gets to play the haughty "I don't give a fuck, I'm set for life now, suck it plebes" card.
But in 2040, when he has long since moved on, and the rest of the country has forgotten, and he's an old man that just wants to spend time with his grandkids and ensure a good future for his family or whatever, every Christmas, still, a card from me - "Hey shithead, remember when you sold out the American people for cash? Fuck you."
I will do this until he or I dies.
Making it easier: https://www.mailmygov.com/
Telling people: Turn to your right and tell your coworker, I guess. Make a twitter post?
I suspect it's more that all the people of significance who have stated their opposition also share the same core political ideology as you, which doesn't match that of the party currently in power. So you view the system as not working because you didn't get what you wanted by having everyone on your side yell louder.
From what I've read, it seems like they've got some pretty good arguments against the FCC, so hopefully something good will come of that.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/washington-gov-jay...
Washington state will act under our own authority and under our own laws and under our own jurisdiction to protect the very important measure of net neutrality for all Washington citizens,” he said. “We are not powerless.
The next thing that will happen is, when Comcast goes too far, another provider (cable? wireless carrier? satellite broadband? something new from a startup?) disrupts the market by offering an alternative to Comcasts' egregious policies. Comcast loses subscribers and is monetarily forced to be more consumer-friendly.
Selling a plain service and doing it well for a fair price should have won most consumers but they will switch companies for minor discounts or the shiniest cellphone then complain they get shafter
But if startups have taught us anything, it's that businesses find a way to disrupt existing economies even in the face of regulations.
Ironically, Net Neutrality (NN) is itself a regulation. One of the reasons we reject NN is because creating regulations often has unintended consequences. We believe it's better to not have the regulation and let the free market and open competition sort out the details.
This is laughably naive.
If we wish to talk about hand waving, consider all the "the internet is going to blow up!" hysteria[0] going on right now from the pro-NN side.
[0]: https://twitter.com/thereaIbanksy/status/940989790677291010
And what does the future hold? Undoubtedly more competition: the internet already plays a huge role in our lives, and that's likely to only increase. A startup that can disrupt the cable company stranglehold would tap a huge market and force cable companies to be more consumer-friendly.
Ok, so the competitor can build their own fiber network. That’s very expensive and time consuming, but it can be done...if local legislators approve it. Sure hope Comcast and friends don’t have any influence there! This is one of the suspected reasons for the failure of Google Fiber, but hey, maybe it’ll work next time.
Incidentally my two options for internet service are:
1) Comcast 2) A local competitor offering sub-1MBPS
Some choice.
As for internet service options today, yes, it's not great. But it's getting better. We already have several options; here are two examples. Some wireless carriers already allow unlimited tethering; no cables needed. Broadband via satellite is available virtually everywhere in the US; again, no cable infrastructure needed.