Hacker News Reader

Comment by jordigh | Hacker News Reader

I still can't believe that the movement to kill net neutrality was (is?) called "restoring internet freedom". I guess it's a shortening of "restoring internet service providers' freedom"? But the longer form isn't as catchy.

View on HN

Well, it is about "restoring internet freedom". It's just that, except in a few large cities, Americans have very little choice about ISP. So there's no way for ISPs to compete for users who care about net neutrality.

Edit: Actually, we'd have even more freedom with an Internet version of the FERC rule for open access to electrical transmission lines.[0]

> The legal and policy cornerstone of these rules is to remedy undue discrimination in access to the monopoly owned transmission wires that control whether and to whom electricity can be transported in interstate commerce.

0) https://www.ferc.gov/legal/maj-ord-reg/land-docs/rm95-8-00w....

What's your definition of freedom?

Being unconstrained.

So you’d obviously want to ensure net neutrality then?

Net neutrality is literally constraint on how data passing through networks can be routed and shaped. It’s exactly “constraining the Internet”. It’s not “freedom” in any shape or matter. Freedom is never constraint on others. It’s a popular constraint, and people just happen to confuse and conflate “things I like/feel positivity about” and “freedom”.

It’s controversial to say here but I don’t think it gets discussed enough: Net neutrality only really helps established players. That is not to say it hurts others, but it certainly helps established players.

That’s why they all love it. Facebook, Hulu, Netflix, GitHub, Tumblr, Microsoft. Unestablished unpopular players are not the ones getting throttled. It’s the ones already using tons of bandwidth getting throttled and odds are good most new players bandwidth usage is hardly even noticeable to the ISP. They wouldn’t be touting the joys of something that had the potential to displace them.

The one who would be getting throttled is primarily Netflix, who literally uses over half of the bandwidth of the Internet. Literally slows everything else on the Internet down. Netflix doesn’t want to be throttled, so of course they love net neutrality.

I’m not saying net neutrality is inherently bad, I just don’t think it’s as innately good as a lot of the cheerleaders attest.

When att makes it free to use their video service and not free to use everything else, that hurts unestablished players.

Net neutrality also helps users. Do I really need to explain how?

It’s not as clear cut as “it helps users”. There are positives and negatives for users as there are in all things in life; nothing is black and white.

Firstly I would hardly call demanding the end of free services on moral grounds “helping users”. As far as the end user cares, forcing them to pay for all services equally when they could previously get one for free is a net harm.

The bigger problem however is that internet has been running largely at full bandwidth capacity since mid 2015, particularly the backbone. Bandwidth is being devoured faster than it is being added. Not being able to limit major hogs, namely streaming services, in favor of other smaller and potentially more important connections actually harms users with slower overall response time for the internet at large.

I personally think things like medical/government services and online banking traffic getting priority over entertainment is not that controversial - but not allowed under net neutrality.

It’s not as clear cut as people think.

Average connection speed has been steadily increasing for over a decade. I dont like the idea of a risky solution to a non problem. I spend most of my time on the internet & I have one provider to "choose" from in my area.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/616210/average-internet-...

> Freedom is never constraint on others

Of course it is, you have to constrain the powerful so they cannot take freedom away from the dispossessed.

You have to restrict the freedom of Southern plantation owners to own slaves to ensure the freedom of slaves. You have to restrict the freedom of corporations to merge into a giant conglomerate so you can protect the freedom of choice of consumers. You have to restrict the freedom of corporations to charge for the origin of internet traffic so you can protect the freedom of internet users to visit any site they wish.

Freedom in society is always an exchange and a compromise. Your freedom to swing your fist ends five centimetres away from my nose.

> Net neutrality is literally constraint on how data passing through networks can be routed and shaped.

That's arguing that opposition to putting a dam in a river to alter its natural course is a constraint, because it constrains the placement of dams.

> Net neutrality only really helps established players.

Good for them. For once they're on the right side of an argument.

> Unestablished unpopular players are not the ones getting throttled.

How is that an argument in favour of anyone getting throttled at the whim of the ISPs?

> The one who would be getting throttled is primarily Netflix, who literally uses over half of the bandwidth of the Internet.

Once again: good for them. On the provider side: if bandwidth is a scarcity, data plan prices should reflect that. No need to give them the power to ghettoise the Internet.

What about my freedom to choose an ISP? If this is really about freedom and not just another cash grab, why doesn't Pai regulate that monopoly rules are illegal?

This doesn't make sense. Why would the ISP's want to throttle the websites that their customers are using? Even with the lack of ISP competition, pissing off your users that much seems like a bad strategy. And they can already throttle users based on bandwidth used, how would eliminating net neutrality help them achieve this goal.

I predict the ISP's selling a default throttled connection to everything, and then for $10 more you can unthrottle Netflix or YouTube. Competitors would need to convince ISPs to allow unthrottled access to even have a chance.

Your prediction is exactly what you said doesn't make sense. Your prediction also doesn't match history. In 2014 Netflix was the one that had to pay Comcast to end its throttling.

In 2014, my prediction was illegal due to net neutrality regulations, while limiting Netflix based on usage was possible.

This goes to the heart of the matter.

Is freedom to build whatever you want without having to pay gatekeepers important or is freedom from rules important?

It’s a very 1984 way of doing things where the ones in power blatantly say the opposite of what their intent is, to twist the truth and the meaning of the words entirely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

Branding makes the world go round. Whether it's forward, or in this case, backward.

It's nowadays quite a good heuristic that purpose and effects of a bill is opposite to what the bill's name says.

It's freedom... just not for a lot of people.

Freedom of the powerful to abuse the powerless endlessly and without consequence.

Libertarianism in a nutshell ;)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com