Net Neutrality: Why It's Not as Good as You Might Think

[Anonymous]

It has its goods and its bads, but does it really need to go away? I mean, it's supposed to stop the evil corporations from censoring content and it's supposed to make it free and equal for everyone. Right?
In theory, yes. But in actuality, it's not as good as you might think.

For example, the speeds of the internet here in America, where it was invented mind you, doesn't even rank in the top 10 countries with the fastest internet speeds on average. With all of the sanctions imposed on ISPs, there is little income from internet usages that limits infrastructure improvements. Since there are businesses and people who use large amounts of bandwidth every month, these groups of people and businesses could pay more for their usage, which would allow more income to ISPs, which would allow for improvements to the infrastructure and allow faster speeds for the rest of us.

Another problem with net neutrality is that it allows ISPs to assign priorities. Let’s take Comcast as an example here. There are numerous online streaming services that offer live TV today: Hulu, PlayStation Vue, and Sling by Dish Network are just three examples. If a customer must choose Comcast as their ISP, then these streaming services could be given a lower priority because they are rival organizations. Comcast could choose to offer the highest speeds to the networks and services it owns and slow down the signals provided by the competition. This would effectively limit consumer choice.

Not to mention the spike in prices we've seen by internet providers for internet speeds that haven't really improved much. Net Neutrality, in theory, and in the minds of many, is a good thing. It's supposed to stop corporate greed and limit censorship, right? Well, we see censorship anyways, especially affecting conservative platforms negatively. And the only ones concerned about it are the ones it is affecting.

That's the problem. Everyone was okay with Net Neutrality because no one saw the cons that it had that affected them. But now, the con of it going away is that people will likely pay more for using the internet more. Why do you think Google, Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, Reddit, Amazon, Microsoft, Mozilla, Airbnb, Etsy, and other large corporations are in favor of Net Neutrality? Large corporations usually vote in favor of something that will allow them to make more money for less. Corporate Greed is a huge determining factor when it comes to making a statement for or against something affecting your company.

It is incredible though, that we see so many people demeaning the arguments from people on either side of the Net Neutrality argument, for example, there are hundreds of articles that claim to sum up the argument into a few paragraphs where they will say that those against it are for corporate greed and others who say those for it are lazy bums who want to play their video games all day and not have to pay more for their usage.

I believe we can all make an argument without misrepresenting one side negatively. What are your thoughts? I'd like to hear them.

[Anpu23]

Net neutrality laws are written specifically to prevent the types of censorship that you are referring to, throttling a site is something addressed in the laws they are overturning. Further the law is to prevent charging for specific content, such as social media. Yes businesses do already pay more for Internet, as they should, the law does not prevent that.

[HungLikeAHorsefly]

Yeah, the OP got a few things wrong in his post. The whole point of Net Neutrality is to NOT allow ISPs to assign priorities to rival service providers.

[Anonymous]

I agree with you.

[HungLikeAHorsefly]

I work in the telecommunications industry as a research engineer. My job is to work with the likes of Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and all of their suppliers to figure out what technology they need to accomplish their business goals - I talk to them on a daily basis. To do so, I have to have a good understanding of their business models and the economics of the market they're working in.

There is only one thing that keeps these companies from investing in their infrastructure: greed.

In general, the regulatory environment actually favors the ISPs rather than restricting them. For instance, take the small town in the Midwest I went to college in. Due to state regulations, Comcast is the only cable company allowed to operate there. There is a utility regulatory commission that holds Comcast accountable for their service, but the state government made a law a few years ago that makes all of the commission's decisions *non-binding*. Comcast has a literal monopoly there with no government oversight on their operations whatsoever. Yet, the speed of Comcast's network is far behind the national average (it caps about at 75Mbps). There is no incentive for them to upgrade, so they don't. This regulatory environment is typical.

You could make the argument that these regulations keep competition (like Charter) from coming in and competing with Comcast. You'd be right. So then, the question is why would the Trump administration repeal Net Neutrality rules instead of going after the state regulations that cause the problem? It's simple - they aren't concerned with competition. They've just sold themselves to Comcast.

You are incorrect on the prioritization issue - Net Neutrality explicitly prohibits the type of traffic prioritization you mentioned in your Take. This is a pro of Net Neutrality, not a con.

Also, businesses already pay more for their service. In most cases, ISP's use a totally different pricing model for their business customers and those customers pay significantly more than residential customers do.

[TripleAce]

But 75Mbps is fast enough... faster speeds are more for if many people are using the same connection...
but 75 for one guy is solid...

[HungLikeAHorsefly]

@TripleAce You're right - more bandwidth isn't necessary for most users. It's actually kind of funny the way people think about this. Everybody wants gigabit speeds and all that jazz, but very, very few people will actually use it. If you take the areas of the world with gigabit (or better) speeds and add up all the subscribers with service at that speed, you quickly get to a number that isn't possible to achieve with current technology. That's because only a very small number of those subscribers are actually using the service at its advertised speeds at any given point in time.

However, there is somewhat of a speed war going on in the industry now - it's cooled down from being really bad a few years ago, but it's still happening. Consumers demand more speed because they've been led to believe they need it. This demand is just one driver of technological innovation - better tech means less cost, better resilience, easier management, etc. [...]

[HungLikeAHorsefly]

[...] The phone companies and cable companies have been clutching obsolete technology for decades and have been trying to nurse every last dollar out of it instead of putting money into real, forward-looking technology investments. DOCSIS? DSL? Who cares if you can squeeze another few megabits out of a 30 year old coaxial transmission system? Why aren't they on fiber?

It's because it's too expensive. But when I say "too expensive", I don't mean "they don't have the money for it". I mean "they can't spend the money on it because their Board of Directors won't let them because it'll look bad to shareholders". That's because shareholders are used to this backward looking investment into antique systems rather than real innovation.

[0112358]

Comcast AT&T and Verizon are currently making over 10Bn combined. That seems enough to invest in infrastructure.

The problem in general with hoping for free market impacts to govern ISPs is the same challenge with say landline phone providers or the electricity company. They have massive fixed costs and extremely low marginal costs. Once someone lays cable they can immediately undercut any competitor until that competition is gone then crank up profits again. The free market doesn’t apply in these natural monopoly or oligopoly companies.

With regards to ISPs you’re often looking at one or two real choices - whoever owns the phone lines and whoever owns the cable lines. And they don’t truly compete.

So governments typically regulate these industries. And force them to behave more like a public good that’s privately financed with “reasonable” profits for investors.

Google and Facebook have in many ways become successful. There’s actually an argument to regulate them. Using google as an example - google DOES censor some results that are not illegal. What if you don’t like what they censor? The free market answer is to just use a different search engine - but if everyone else uses google the ability to effectively have free speech is severely compromised. Don’t like Facebook censorship? You can go build your own social media site and try to get billions to use it. Good luck with that.

But the fact google and Facebook are too powerful doesn’t mean the solution is to regulate Verizon less.

[goaded]

"Don’t like Facebook censorship? You can go build your own social media site and try to get billions to use it. Good luck with that."

This is exactly why Net Neutrality is needed; without it, Facebook can now just pay to be preferred over any startup competitor who won't have anything like their resources. There wouldn't any Facebook or Twitter or YouTube if there hadn't been Net Neutrality at the time; Microsoft or Google would have just paid to have their knock-offs run faster and smoother than the competition, hell, Google would probably not have got anywhere, 4 year old Yahoo would have paid to kill them off. Replacing Facebook would be hard enough now (although I hear Instagram is where the cool kids are nowadays), but repealing Net Neutrality is just a mechanism for ISPs to take money off the big guys, while stifling their competition and innovation.

[CaptainClueless]

@goaded Instagram is Facebook. Facebook owns it.

[goaded]

@CaptainClueless You're right, I didn't know that. The point is that the creators, shareholders (hopefully including employees) of Instagram got paid a ton of money and Facebook shares for it. Without Net Neutrality, Facebook could have probably paid less money to the ISPs to carry their version of Instagram faster than the original, and they'd have got nothing.

[TripleAce]

Dude... if you think giving corporations more power to control prices... they will choose them over us every single time
No they won't just take advantage of large companies and better the infrastructure for us and not charge us a ton for it lol... cmon now

You can't be that naive right...
Take for example cell phone data, in USA it's unlimited... in Canada it isn't. Meaning in Canada you have to pay for more internet usage for your cell phone
--> they can make it unlimited... it doesn't cost them much.. but they don't cause they can

Same thing Will happen there...

[Belgie]

There is so much incorrect information here, this should be removed.

It's like listening to a Flat Earther.

This is why it's impossible to have a rational discussion with this type of conservative. You can have your opinions, but Facts are Facts. You can't just have your own Facts.

Ajit Pai has been caught lying and bullshitting on the subject multiple times. Experts in the field who have no financial stake in the matter, disagree with him and you. Practically every country in the world disagrees with you.

But no, you'll keep repeating bullshit, like Pai.

Well we don't have to believe this shit. And if there's any hope for America it will be in the MANY legal efforts to save Net Neutrality from Verizon's puppet.

[ObscuredBeyond]

According to Wired and others, it was never more than a government sham so that they could fleece the average consumer. Granny checking Facebook is now just as much a "power user" as a guy who plays WoW all day.

Local governments in particular get to fleece the common man through this measure, and only the big ISP giants can afford such an unfair market. When there's a true free market, embezzlers can't get away with embezzlement so easily. When it's the law, then they get a free pass.

Belgie has nothing to offer except smears and attacks, because he knows his side is the losing side.

[Pettifog]

Complete rubbish, probably telecom astroturf.

Go to a site like savetheinternet. com for a run down of all the debunking of all these various talking points.

The key lie here is that the telecoms are operating at full capacity by necessity. The reality in the US is that the public trust created the internet, laid the fibers in the ground, then the telecoms seized control of it, refused to invest in it because it's more profitable to consolidate regional monopolies and gouge up prices in the existing, outdated, slow infrastructure.

[Avneo]

Such a lovely take based on reality behind own benefits behind business tycoons, and political parties, they are keeping people away from reality on the name of net neutrality, just saying that it would invade people's pocket n Rights, but the technical aspects and truth behind it is something else.
Please read my opinion on this topic at given below question, it's interesting.

How do you feel about the FCC vote on repealing Net Neutrality? ↗

[sawno]

As a geek i can say that net neutrality is utmost important, any take claiming otherwise is simply untrue as they don't grasp the concept of net neutrality very well. The only reason large company's are advocating against it is because it eliminates all competition. You need net neutrality to have a guaranteed optimized connection to everything you do rather then the privileged ones.

[Omega_brie]

Honestly I don't even care. The internet isn't a hard necessity, and the "necessary" parts (like email, job apps, etc) are still going to be available if it gets nixed, it's so low bandwidth it doesn't even register.

The primary thing that will happen is that people will watch a lot less youtube, netflix, video, etc. Why should I care about that? I'm not a streamer, nor do I subscribe to the sheepish cult of personality that their fans do.

[Anonymous]

Our ISP, Who art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy Name;
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily net,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

[Infynis]

The top ten countries internet-wise all have more government involvement than the US.

[Lumberman53]

Well net neutrality wasn't even a thing until 2014 so I don't get why people are losing their minds over the repeal of net neutrality

[CaptainClueless]

I have DSL, it was already slow as shit before.
Now its slow as AAASSSSSSSSSSSS.

[Asad1ONE1]

So that's what this is lol. I've been hearing about net neutrality recently.

[sp33d]

I enjoy the conspiracy theories, makes me smile :)

[Anonymous]

Who do you really work for?