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Comment by sadris | Hacker News Reader

In which the left now suddenly no longer supports network neutrality.

This a great example of a comment from which we learn little but are agitated much.

> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This is not relevant to net neutrality as the phrase is traditionally defined.

Neutrality is about the pipes, which are a natural monopoly. It has nothing to do with the users of the pipes.

Microsoft has a right to choose not to participate in broadcasting speech that it disagrees with, and the reason that's OK is because there are many other platforms for Gab to move to.

For many (most?) people, switching to a different ISP is impossible or comes with severe drawbacks.

Microsoft is an edge provider, not an ISP; net neutrality is about stopping ISPs from controlling edge providers to consumer contact, largely. It's not about regulating edge providers.

net neutrality has nothing to do with freedom or neutrality of speech online, especially in regards to a private company's terms of service.

insert picard facepalm here.

Ahh yes, multinational corporations worth hundreds of billions, also known as the left. Insightful.

The only two other comments in this thread are saying that this is "good".

I don't think other people see the connection to "the left" or net neutrality.

Nobody on "the left" has ever argued that companies can't have a terms of service that prohibits bad behavior.

Net neutrality has always been about preventing the companies that control the last mile for consumers from extorting additional money from server operators that are already paying their own ISP for bandwidth.

Not quite nobody. There were arguments that without Net Neutrality ISPs may develop TOS that target certain data/content services with paywalls, throttles, or blocks - to the point where politically motivated censorship would be a big concern.

This censorship argument played a core part in the Net Neutrality campaign. Note the specific reference to censorship being the biggest problem in the headlines and leading paragraphs of the following popular articles:

1) https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/ending-net-neutrality-... 2) https://qz.com/1158328/what-will-happen-now-that-net-neutral... 3) https://www.vox.com/2017/12/14/16774148/net-neutrality-repea... 4) https://futurism.com/ny-attorney-general-fcc-net-neutrality/

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