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FCC Has Voted to Repeal Net Neutrality Rules
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AOL didn't control your content? Seriously? Each link on their startup screen used to lead right to a business who paid them to be there.
Oh and also this, so much for "it never happened". Feel free to research any of these cases you don't 'believe'.
https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history
Well, Thompsons main point about competition beating regulations is fair... if there is real competition, which there are not in this case. I would assume someone writing about business strategies would know this, but apparently he does not. It's going to take some time for me not to view him as an asshat.
I just wanted to add after reading this other comment from you I'm a very right wing, conservative person, I believe in capitalism, free markets with sensible regulations - because anyone who's studied economics understands unregulated markets tend towards monopolies. I hate welfare and over taxation, uncontrolled immigration and I don't like the government being in my business. But anyone who believes in free speech, free market capitalism and competition should be die-hard supporters of Net Neutrality. This isn't a left wing, right wing debate like immigration.
US ISPs recieved around $400bn dollars in the 90's to build a world class fibre optic infrasturture that would've delivered huge benefits to the economy for generations to come. Instead the ISPs pocketed the money and then used the same money to corrupt politicians. How can you support and trust anything the ISPs say?
I wish people would stop this government regulation = bad, unregulation = good. It's such an insane mentality. Government regulation can actually make a market far fairer and more competitive and net neutrality is a perfect example. I'm not being facetious here but do you actually understand what net neutrality is and the implications of it? Because it sort of sounds like you don't and if that's the case I'd be happy to explain. Because I don't believe any person capable of rational critical thought can possibly be against such regulation.
Yeah, and what happened to AOL? The open market went for other services.
IF (a big “if”) ISP’s do what the lamestream media hasn’t stopped talking about, where they do bundles for services, other ISP’s will sprout up where they don’t have bundles. The open market always wins.
Yes! Excellent point. I forgot to mention that.
He seemed to write his piece from the angle of assuming that we actually have competition, or at least enough of it, which we do not… Which negates his entire premise really.
Also, and not to bag on him too much, but I have trouble listening to that podcast anymore. Too much of it is just him going bananas trying to get words and exasperation out of his mouth and James just sort of being in submissive agreement.
Ben always seems frustrated that listeners and readers don't "get" his sort of libertarian/utopian free market economist textbook fantasies.
All that said, I can agree with Ben in that what we really need is local loop unbundling and actual competition. That's single point needs to be the focus.
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Except that you conveniently left out that other ISP's were able to offer competition because back then we all accessed the internet via the phone company which falls under the public utility protections. Now if you want to argue that perhaps like the phone company, electric and Gas company, we should be allowed to choose our provider using those same lines thus creating real competition, that is a different story.
Actually if you pay a lot it will be much faster.
Lol - Yeah I tried to cover that with the "more expensive" part
I'm not quite sure what point you are trying to make here. AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy in their early days all had their own private platform/network and they were, of course, responsible for what showed up in their network, unlike the World Wild Internet. Once the internet took off in the mid-90's, they lost out to open network providers and essentially became glorified dial-up services to the internet (yes, I'm kinda old and have been around since the very beginning, circa 1990). Do you have a point to make?
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Well done Trump voters. Hope you're enjoying America becoming great again
Loving it as is my 401k
And the question to ask is "Who is paying those smart people that have studied this issue?"
Always ask where the money is coming from.
I'll give you griund on the lying bit. All of those people did lie and try to cover thier asses. The context of those meetings was mostly overblown, IMO. The news turned it into a symbol, more of a sign, than anything else. I'd like to see a trial, too. I think it'd end up being much ado.
As for the 17 intelligence agencies... you actually trust them? I don't. They've been the root cause of so much harm and violence throughout the rest of the world.
Check this book out for an example:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46347.All_the_Shah_s_Men
They will even operate against the citizens of the United States if they feel like it (something the CIA, in specific, is not supposed to be doing per their own mission statement).
Here are two examples of that:
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
Have a look. Then come back and try and tell me that those intelligence agencies are credible and work in the interest and purview of the public. Should open your eyes a little bit.
I personally don't take anything in the news at face value anymore, either. They whatever run scandalous headlines that will generate them the most advertising dollars, even if they are shaky or blatantly incorrect. They'll write whatever they have to write to get access and get the scoop.
More liberal folk than I went to Twitter after the election and screamed about 1984 and Trump being Big Brother, etc. Honestly, we've been living in 1984 for some time, well before this election, IMO. IMO, Wikileaks has been exposing this.
Most of the issues listed there werent net neutrality issues (and can still exist today under net neutrality). And most of the others were short lived (hence the dates showing it only occurred a year or two, until people found out about it. And the problem was solved by free markets (people taking their business elsewhere... or the fear they would)... not by net neutrality which came much later. If those few examples are what you base a fear of “end of the world” because we ditch net neutrality... well... ugh
Except the big ISPs have such powerful regional monopolies and powerful legal arms they literally block and crush any attempted competition. It's so hard to build a competing ISP in the US that Google, one of the biggest companies in America gave up.
ISPs have bought regional politicians and governments up to the point where they enact regulation that actively prevents newcomers from entering the market. If Google struggled fighting this then what snow balls chance in hell does anyone else have?
Please don't be so niave.
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Can you post some up? Because this is one topic I can honestly say I've researched to death and I've yet to find any reasonable arguments against it.
Please dont reference a twitter discussion. No matter what validity any argument might have, it wont have very much weight if its based on the equivelant of a comments board discussion... which usually is comprised of 90% crazy people, and 5% spam. Much better to reference an actual research paper or journalistic article.
Its like reading the comments here... 95% of which ate from people that just want any good opportunity to polotically bash and insult others.
Did you not read it?
It is not twitter discussion or arguing or crazy people at all.
It's a wonderful history thread from someone who works at the EFF.
It just happens to be on twitter (good way to reach a large audience).
It's really good background history on this topic.
Do me a favor...trust me...click the link real quick and I think you'll find it informative.
(There are links throughout to the types of sources you're asking for)
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Do you want an open internet? Yes? Then you want Net Neutrality.
If not, then someone is lying to you.
If not, then someone is lying to you.
Telecom and Cable industry has been preparing for this by ensuring that they have exclusive monopolies in the regions they operate in. They have funded state candidates that have sponsored laws that make it impossible for municipalities to create their own networks.
http://www.ibtimes.com/political-ca...sponsors-bill-ban-municipal-broadband-2604850
https://consumerist.com/2014/08/28/...bying-and-campaign-donations-that-block-them/
These cable companies are not spending all this money on political campaigns so that they can run a minimum cost service for the customers. The executives are spending this money money because they know there are massive profits to be gained that will fund their take home bonuses.
http://www.ibtimes.com/political-ca...sponsors-bill-ban-municipal-broadband-2604850
https://consumerist.com/2014/08/28/...bying-and-campaign-donations-that-block-them/
These cable companies are not spending all this money on political campaigns so that they can run a minimum cost service for the customers. The executives are spending this money money because they know there are massive profits to be gained that will fund their take home bonuses.
Except for large portions of the country, consumer options for ISP is limited to 1 or 2 options. More often then not it's one ISP that owns all the lines in the area. In order to get DSL you have to live within a short distance to a hub to get service. In my area we have comcast and att, att is twice as slow as comcast. Other then that there are no other options. That's how it is for most rural areas. Even in places that allow third parties to use the main lines, they still have to pay for that usage which always gets passed on to the consumer and they rarely offer the same quality service the main holder of those lines could offer. So while that would qualify as an open market, that in no way equates a win for the consumer.
You do realize Comcast and others were already slowing down certain sites who weren’t paying them to get optimum speed. Even though consumers were already playing them super high prices for bandwidth. Why should I pay for a certain speed but have that same provider slow down the site I want to use because they want up double dip to get addition money for access to the internet that they get to use for free.