Startups Seek Tech Solution to Net Neutrality Repeal | Hacker News Reader

Startups Seek Tech Solution to Net Neutrality Repeal

wsj.com

18 pointsVannatter68 comments

Why are startups afraid? Shouldn't the biggest internet/cloud companies be worried first? They are going to be taxed most (esp. Netflix). Or maybe I'm missing something in the big picture?

I agree, expect a shakedown of the biggest players

In fact, I would be very happy if they were overcharged for it (especially Facebook) it would push them for NN

Which means you can predict that they will only be pushed far enough that it's cheaper to pay than to lobby for net neutrality.

If the telco companies had slightly longer-term vision I agree, but I'm skeptical of them not shooting themselves in the foot

startups are going to get strangled in the crib by the biggest companies because they won't be able to afford paying for prioritization

Big companies will be quick to cut deals with ISPs to prioritize their traffic. It's the startups and new products which can't afford to pay that will suffer.

They will be taxed first, but presumably the tax will be low enough that they can comfortably afford it, while also being large enough that startups will have little chance to make the same kind of deal.

Netflix potentially has something to gain, because they'll likely strike a deal with the ISPs to put content physically/technically closer to consumers (which means better quality at quicker rates).

Netflix does this already, both via direct dedicated lines from their CDN to ISPs and content boxes in ISPs' own data centers. I don't think it can be considered a net neutrality violation since the concept of "neutrality" is still a consumer facing one and doesn't really apply for the massive internet infrastructure between ISPs and large company data centers, CDNs etc.

So looks like they were right when they said it would encourage innovation. Go figure.

Some "innovation" is a waste of resources. Specifically, the innovation required to work around broken policy.

Or fixing an already solved problem. Using a VPN addresses basically everything they are trying to fix.

ISPs can trivially prioritize content from preferred providers while throttling all other traffic, including VPN traffic.

VPNs do not solve this problem.

yeah but all your internet traffic would then be throttled. Not just certain services. Using a VPN essentially takes away everything from them and reduces their only tool to a hammer and forcing everything to look like a nail. There is no granularity. All your traffic goes to one location. They can't see what it is or what the final endpoint is because of encryption. So they can't use it to build a profile/data on you to sell. They can't inject ads into HTML or block services that compete with their own, or even grant privileged speeds to approved or preferred services. They basically are forced into a Shakespearean "to throttle or not to throttle" binary choice.

That's true, but in practice most consumers wouldn't notice. That's because the whitelisted services would most likely include those data-hungry services used most frequently by consumers: Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Facebook, etc. which are operated by big providers. This was how Comcast operated in ca. 2013.

The bet is ISPs would be very comfortable throttling traffic, as long as whitelisted services were not affected. (They see this as a revenue generator, because they can sell fast-lane access to companies who don't want their customers' bandwidth throttled.) ISPs that go this route will likely offer a (consumer-paid) option to allow VPN traffic to use the fast lane.

Even without vpn, if non-preferred takes most of the bandwidth for a user, it will be apparent to him that he is getting less speed than what he paid for.

And per the new (lack of) rules, all they have to do is carve out exceptions for vpn traffic in their consumer SLA. The FCC cant do anything nor can the FTC, so long as they aren't blatantly falsely advertising.

What are you going to do if you don't like it? Switch providers?

They aren't going to let such am easy work around get in their way.

Isn't that a description of Uber?

And look at what's happening.

"Our town's window repairmen are going to kickstart our economy thanks to this plucky child with a stone!"

It seems more like breakng a window just to call fixing it 'inonvation' to me [1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

I don't think creating arbitrary pricing tiers to milk your customers and pad the bottom line counts as 'innovation'.

The ISPs will offer full NN access for $100 a month extra. If some startup comes along with similar service, the ISPs will cut the NN price to $50 per month extra until the startup is gone. That is the whole point of repealing NN: ISPs want to be able to offer premium services at premium prices.

How did Netflix survive pre 2015? What about Spotify?

They survived because the ISPs faced strong regulatory backlash if they made too many anti competitive moves.

Trump and Pat have removed those threats.

VPNs for everyone?

Yep. Beat me to making the comment. This is already a solved problem.

A VPN solves this problem quite well. Only exception I see is overall bandwidth usage. They'll obviously still see the total amount of traffic going across their lines and may throttle that, but that would apply to everyone equally, which I don't have an issue with. Since they won't be able to see the traffic due to encryption, they can't inhibit/block certain sites or services. Nor can they inject ads or anything else into the HTML responses. They would also be essentially blind and unable to build a profile about you to sell.

That doesn't work if they decide to throttle anything not on the "whitelist" of high priority sites based on your plan.

i don't believe that's true. they won't be able to see what you are accessing other than the VPN as long as you are routing all traffic through it (which you should be). so it's all or nothing for them. They can't really pick and choose what to prioritize because they can't see what it is due to the encryption.

They can easily choose what to prioritize. VPNs won't be prioritized, so any traffic over them will get slowed down.

Right, I think we're talking about two different things. Yes, they can choose to not prioritize the VPN traffic. But they won't be able to, for example, slow down Netflix because they have a competing on-demand service because they won't be able to see the traffic. So it's all or nothing when on the VPN. All of your traffic is throttled or none of it will be.

Right. So in other words a VPN isnt actually a work around at all.

What if the ISPs block VPN?

It's possible, but tricky, since a lot of companies use VPNs and the US is a corporate welfare state ruled by Big Cos Inc.

Perhaps they will try and charge a VPN or encrypted data surcharge.

Can't they (the ISPs) just block or charge extra for VPN traffic? I've read that China detects and blocks VPN traffic.

Correct, and this also sidesteps the issue of VPNs falling under legislative scrutiny in the future.

they can see encrypted traffic and that it is being sent to an IP associated with VPN services without too much difficulty, but they won't have granular control/access over your data/bandwidth. Meaning they won't be able to prioritize some of the sites/services you access over others because of the encryption. they need to throttle everything or nothing. And they won't be able to see any of your traffic or the sites you visit whatsoever.

VPNs can solve the problem only temporarily.

But what will happen is that ISPs will stop upgrading their "regular" networks, and upgrade only the "fast lanes" networks.

VPN providers will either be outright denied access to those fast lanes or they won't be able to afford using them. So in a few years, whether you're using a VPN or not, you'll still be in the "regular" (read: slow) lane, while the big companies will likely have to move to the "fast lane" (and pay the ISPs for the privilege).

The more time passes, the worse this will get for small companies, as the needs for data consumption and bandwidth increase, so eventually internet users will slowly move to the fast-lane-using services and dump the others.

Also, the more money the ISPs will make from the "fast lanes" the less incentive they'll have to upgrade their regular slow lanes (unless fierce competition appears, which may not), because it just means companies will have bigger "incentive" to pay them for the fast lane access.

Existing ISP's wouln't ban VPN's because of business use but they could make a special high cost lane just for VPN's.

Business VPNs usually look different, traffic-wise, from personal VPNs - you can permit Cisco IPsec and ban OpenVPN, and get close enough.

Also, you can just keep track of known-business or known-personal VPN endpoints. VPNs don't hide the fact that you're using a VPN, nor which VPN you're using, from your provider. (You could still use Tor pluggable transports, but then you've completely given up on performance.)

I keep seeing people recommending VPNs to fight Net Neutrality, but I don't think that will help.

Let's say that they want to slow down sites like TPB and Vodo while making Netflix faster.

Instead of "making everything normal and making TPB slow", which would be a bad for marketing and would be avoided by VPNs, they'll make "everything normal and Netflix fast", which sounds much better in marketing and you can't avoid with a VPN (if you use a VPN, everything will be the same, except for Netflix which will be slower).

This is the same thing that is happening with zero-rating in the EU: If you use a VPN, the only thing that happens is that you'll have limited traffic for all services.

Note that this is exactly what's already happening with services like T-Mobile's "Binge On," AT&T's "Stream Saver," etc. You pay for some amount of data, and certain providers like Netflix don't count against that data allotment (and maybe their videos are compressed, or precached near cell towers, or something).

The FCC was inquiring into these programs until Ajit Pai's appointment as chairman: https://www.geekwire.com/2017/fcc-ends-inquiries-t-mobiles-b...

And the EFF has criticized these programs as a violation of net neutrality: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles...

How do you scale that?

Getting a significant number of users on VPN would take a long time...

Anyone know how to read the article behind the paywall?

click "web" under the title here on HN

that will take you to a google search

click trough there and you wont be "paywalled"

Doesn't work for me :-/ it's still paywalled although I access it via the 'web' link and search results page. I tested disabling Javascript too, didn't help.

Tweet it or find a tweet of the article and click that link.

Chrome incognito mode worked for me.

Isn't the solution just more ISP competition?

Lawmakers don't want that because they get paid lobby money from ISPs

New tech that removes or bypasses existing barriers to entry (like the need to physically lay cable from house to house) is one possible way to create competition.

That's easy to say, but there's the well-known last mine problem. How many separate companies will be willing to run cabling to your home just to compete bitterly with an incumbent? And even if that may happen in your neighborhood, will it happen nationwide? What about rural areas where you're lucky to have one fast ISP?

In other countries there are laws which force the cable owner to rent the last mile to any ISP.

I'd guess countries with that kind of sensible regulation also can manage net neutrality regulations...

Perhaps we should be innovating in that last mile problem.. Surely there are smart people working to engineer tech to avoid running cable.

The problem with wireless is that it's like sharing a single cable with everyone else. Yes, there are a lot of innovations to make that workable, but you're never going to get the same bandwidth and reliability as a cabled system.

But that's not going to happen any time soon? (in the US.) They try to unfairly kill off any competition, as far as I've read.

Instead, what if a decentralized web is a safer solution. Recently here at HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16005961 "Decentralization Roundup for 2017"

A local ISP in a semi-rural area has been putting their business on the line for over a decade now to build out broadband in the area. They're targeting under-served, denser housing swaths of the region where there is little to no broadband competition.

The price tag for the initial stage of the build out is in the several millions of dollars. The first-stage service area would be under 1,000 homes. They hope to charge around $100/mo for the service.

So, you do the math. Is that a business model you'd want to try to live off of?

A startup like Mattermark raised 17 million simply to aggregate data about startups. Surely investors would be interested in an actual business with a clearly defined business model — or any business model for that matter. There’s a graveyard of startups that were able to raise a lot of money and not do basically anything other than raise more money. Didn’t Leap raise a billion dollars for a VR headset thingy that hasn’t even shipped? Surely there’s 50 million for an ISP startup.

With the ability to be something beyond a common utility, there is going to be interest in investing in ISP innovation — especially tech that provides fiber speed without ripping up the landscape.

The problem is that the ISP business meets the textbook definition of a natural monopoly,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

In a non-corrupt market, yes.

That is, to be very generous, a long time horizon solution to a near-term problem.

ISP competition, assuming it's going to happen at all, will not happen quickly, and will be challenged by existing ISPs using a mix of legal and competitive methods.

Startups existed just fine before 2015 (when the repealed regulation was passed.) So why this now?

I loathe Comcast & AT&T as much as any other person, but it seems like this issue has been sensationalized/editorialized so that any sensible commentary is drowned out.

Edit: Well, this is an unpopular opinion (-2 points currently).

This is a common argument with a major flaw. The reason NN was put in place is because Verizon tried to do what the companies want to do today. It's like saying the stock market was fine before the SEC banned insider trading. Yes, it was fine until some people started doing things that affect a large number of people in a negative or un fair way.

Stop spreading disinformation, the regulations from 2015 and reclassification is just legislative juggling. Net neutrality was an issue from way before that (1). See numerous violations (2) and try to assert what changes does a startup have if they are in direct competition with a service which the ISP offers along with internet.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_S...

(2) https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-vio...

People don't downvote you because they don't agree with your 'opinion', it's just that you're wrong. What you wrote is not an opinion, it's just disinformation.

That source (Free Press) is an advocacy organization, so it by definition presents one side of a story. The pros without the cons, or something.

I'm in the boat where I trust companies more than I trust the government, and believe that the original NN regulation was a path for the government to start actively censoring the internet, China-style.

Want to see more debate (even if devil's advocate) along these lines instead of "they are killing startups" and "they are taking away our free YouTube."

> That source (Free Press) is an advocacy organization, so it by definition presents one side of a story. The pros without the cons, or something.

That doesn't make it wrong. You can research each instance and find it documented in other sources too.

> I'm in the boat where I trust companies more than I trust the government, and believe that the original NN regulation was a path for the government to start actively censoring the internet, China-style.

This belief is flawed or misdirected for the following reasons:

1. Revolving door policy, lobbying and elimination of PAC contribution limits for corporations has unified the two and for all intents and purposes there is absolutely no difference between government and companies when it comes to who should be trusted.

2. the government doesn't need to censor the internet anymore. For years, deliberate propaganda using sockpuppets has been proven way more effective in influencing public opinion than straight-up censorship, especially in western societies. Also, if you're looking at censorship, look no further than companies with no backbone but with a lot of greed, not the government (1) (2) (3).

3. Censorship is a different matter. I hate it when people bring it up to oppose NN as it diverts the conversation. NN is about regulating a public utility and limiting monolopies, not necessarily free speech or free internet (whatever the hell that means as I don't know anymore after the republicans use it to define exactly the opposite of what the common understanding would be). Regardless of regulation, referring to censorship, look at Comcast passing the buck (4): "We do not and will not block, throttle, or discriminate against lawful content. " Who decides what's lawful or not? If the Government deems far-left/right or any other website opposing something which the government/military-industrial complex deems as unlawful, how does that work with\without net neutrality rules? Just look at what happened to Wikileaks. Overnight, censorship and corporate economic boycott was in full effect, regardless of laws or regulations.

(1) http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/24/technology/business/cloudfla...

(2) http://blog.dilbert.com/2016/10/03/the-week-i-became-a-targe...

(3) https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/opinion/sunday/the-blog-t...

(4) https://twitter.com/comcast/status/933394263689351175?lang=e...

I forgot one thing. I would definitely be in favor of no regulation what-so-ever on the internet, but only in the context of a healthy ISP ecosystem. I get where you're coming from with your opinion, I really do.

What I'm not in favor is giving an existing oligopoly (which came to power mainly due to point 1. in my previous post) an unbalanced ratio of power over its relationship with the consumer (I include here end-users such as us and small/large companies which leverage internet access to sell their services) on the premise of the 'free market' and the promise that corporations won't do any harm. I don't trust that at all.

Historically, Verizon and AT&T haven't lived up even to their commitments which were made when corporate mergers were approved. Why should I trust that they will not do unethical market practices with the nuclear bomb that the republicans put in their hands? Why won't the legislature eliminate FBAR reporting for individuals making less than $1M/yr on the promise that I won't move all my money out of the country to avoid taxes? I promise I won't do it but if you catch me, there will be no legal repercussions, right? I would call this the 'Financial freedom bill, reverting the draconian fiscal regulations for the common man'

Me, particularly, I was stuck with Comcast as my only option for about 5 years (couple years ago, now I have 2 ISP to choose from). They jacked up my prices for no reason and there was nothing I could do. Absolutely nothing. Why should I trust them now to NOT throttle my content or make me pay extra now that they legally can do whatever they want? Doing so will be cataloged as a 'free market' practice now and if I don't agree, I should change carriers, right? Change it to the other member of the same lobbying group which made this deregulation possible which will in turn throttle content.

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