Hacker News Reader

Comment by orthecreedence | Hacker News Reader

I get how this could benefit end-users if all goes to plan, but how does this benefit ISPs like Comcast? The entire reason they want to break net neutrality is to push their own agenda on users. This doesn't allow them to do that at all. I suppose it opens users up to coercion.

That said, I think the net neutrality deadlock is a good thing. It's where it's supposed to be at right now. We have a free and open internet and a public branch of the government protecting that.

There will be a constant onslaught of corporate interests trying to limit free speech via marketing and bribery for many years to come, and I don't see Network Cookies solving that issue...in fact, I think it gives leeway more to the ISPs than the users. Now Comcast can sell you a modem with "recommended settings" and unless you know what 192.168.0.1 is you're going to just go along with it.

Let's keep net neutrality simple: access means full access.

View on HN

Well, I'd set up one web shop for content providers where they can buy different cookie plans and pay fees to get ranked differently on my cookie descriptor page.

On the cookie descriptor page I'd use a dark pattern to avoid having users scroll to long down the list. We want to use that list and the order of the entries to pressure more cash out of content providers.

Then, of course, you set up the cookie descriptor page as a type of web shop where users can buy say 1h of netflix fast lane for $1.

It puts the ISPs/carriers in a little bit of an awkward position. If an ISP can afford to provide me X GB / month of zero-rated data, and this technology exists, how can they argue against it while claiming to be pro-consumer?

I'd assume they'd want to charge users different amounts for different priority levels like any other vendor, with perhaps a level that is free for an arbitrary amount. Seems pretty typical for many vendors, or even toll roads. Don't think there's anything in the protocol that dictates how the ISPs use the priority request flags.

More simple yet: you build it, you get to decide what to do with it.

Just curious, what do you mean with "you built it"?

> Just curious, what do you mean with "you built it"?

You know, paid taxes that funded government projects that largely developed the underlying technology. Got your friends in local and state governments to allow you to use a combination of public land and imminent domain to force people to let you build your network (nominally partially as a public good), etc., etc. Once your network was in place, you used regulations to prevent competitors from the same sorts of government manipulations. You built a telco that manipulated governments in the proper way, and now you get to engage in rent-seeking on those imminent-domain'd pipes all you like.

At least in NYC, the local telephone company is required to lease phone lines to competitors essentially at-cost, as a condition of their monopoly status and use of imminent domain (according to my DSL installation guy when I moved to NYC a decade ago, when he explained that my landlord had cut all of the phone lines during renovation and Verizon would take their sweet time providing the legally required 12 inches of working phone line into the domicile). I don't think similar competitive measures apply to cable and fiber lines that also use public land and imminent domain.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com