Fair question. IMO this is the government trying to appease the public after they refused to maintain net neutrality, despite overwhelming public support for the policy. I've edited my comment to make that clear.
The issue that local governments granted monopolies to cable companies and telcos -- that's the true problem.
Throttling traffic to certain websites [1] is not a problem?
The reason net neutrality policy came into being is ISPs were beginning to violate it [2].
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/22/major-int...
[2] https://www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/expla...
The FCC policy orientation lasted much longer than that, though the last of the various regimes by which the FCC pursued it only lasted about that long.
Of course, the policy orientation was about maintaining a status quo on the internet which was only starting to crack when the first approaches were taken as commercial ISPs started breaking the way the internet has previously worked either to constrain costs or pursue various synergies with their other businesses; the basic state of neutrality on the internet was older than the FCC policy orientation toward actively maintaining it.
There is no question that public support for net neutrality is broad and bipartisan. The only question that remains is which 2020 candidates will stand up to say they support net neutrality.
I agree it's not a top 5 issue now, but I believe this is our generation's first amendment torch. We can carry it, or let it go out. To that end, I tend to ignore anyone who suggests "this isn't important" or has the defeatist view that "nobody else understands this" because it is our job to share it with them.
> front page of r/technology
If you think the average person follows r/technology, you may live in a bubble.
Absolutely wrong. Among people who understand NN and oppose it are people like Bob Kahn, Marc Andreessen, David Farber, David Clark, Louis Pouzin, and Jeff Pulver, not to mention numerous economists.
It is unsurprising that investors like Andreessen are opposed to net neutrality: they stand to get richer without it. Regional broadband monopolies can strong arm content providers for higher prices by zero-rating services that become "part of the [insert telecom name here] network".
Regional broadband monopolies suck.
You must not have searched very thoroughly. Here’s the first article that came up when I searched “David Farber net neutrality”: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/531671/are-we-really-savi...
> it could have meant something different at that time
Nope. It meant basically the same thing it does today.
> It is unsurprising that investors like Andreessen are opposed to net neutrality: they stand to get richer without it.
The firms and investors backing NN also stand to benefit from it, so this ad hominem is moot.
You're being fairly condescending while assuming I should read the biographies of 7 people based on your brief comment. I'll make this my last comment.
Here is a video titled to make you believe Bob Kahn is against network neutrality [1]. Net neutrality does not come up until the question & answer period. Bob states that the word is just a slogan and that you need to look at what is intended by policy. His response is long, nuanced, and he points out several times that he is against policy that would fracture the internet. And again, that was in 2007.
In 2019, we have a better idea of what net neutrality policy looks like, and we know that ISPs abuse it because they are regional monopolies. Countries that do not have regional monopolies do not seem to have such issues of abuse.
So, there are two options to foster sufficient competition. Bring back net neutrality, or eliminate regional broadband monopolies.