Can someone please help explain this decision to me. My understanding is that net neutrality basically put everyone on the same level with no preference give for upload speeds and things like that. Site like Netflix and youtube take up most of the data that can be disseminated (I've heard it described like a pipe and most of the water coming through it belongs to them?). Killing net neutrality will allow internet providers to charge a company like Netflix a fee and them give them their own distribution channel with preferred speeds. And this can become a freedom of speech issue because if you are not paying that fee, then the internet companies can slow your speeds to a stop, preventing you from putting things online. Do I have the basics right here or am I way off? Thanks.
They won't charge Netflix. They're going to charge us. The user. Currently, Net Neutrality treats the internet like any other utility. It's like your power, your water, your phone. The service providers want to treat the internet like they treat television. They want to be able to charge you based on packages. It's already being done in other places around the world. You'll pay more money to be able to visit Netflix. You'll pay more money to be able to visit ESPN. They'll have sports packages. They'll have entertainment packages (Hulu/Netflix/Amazon/etc). The GOP has somehow made this into a partisan issue, but it's not. This is about keeping the internet free from control. Nobody should be able to control the internet. Not the government. Not your ISPs. It should be free flowing. These telecom industry people are pissed because they're losing money over the death of cable television, so they want to get the control back. They want it back to the old days where you had to pay extra to view the Disney channel. You had to pay extra to get HBO. They don't like that you can go directly to HBO now. They don't like that you go directly to Netflix. Television was a luxury. The internet is vital. It should not be infringed by anyone.
It really opens up how ISPs can leverage their product against content producers and customers. For example, ISPs will be allowed to create their own versions of Netflix and Youtube (which they could do now), and throttle your download speeds when you stream from Netflix and Youtube instead of ComcastFlix and ComcastTube, so that you'll be "encouraged" to use their free services. OR, you could pay $4.99 a month more for the Flix&Tube package that unthrottles Netflix and YouTube. See? You have so much more choice!
The worst part is that this is literally the telecom industry buying our government. They put one of their stooges in as the head of the FCC, they're getting rid of Net Neutrality in the face of overwhelming public outcry, and they don't give a shit. They don't care at all that the people want Net Neutrality to stay. If this doesn't scare people, I don't know what would.
Thanks, much appreciated! That was a much more clear and concise answer than I could find reading several articles on the subject today.
Probably because the main strategy by the GOP is to confuse people about what NN is and what it is not. They're trying to sell it as the government controlling the internet. It's not the government controlling the internet. It's the government trying to keep the internet free. I used to call myself a Republican, but not anymore. Not with the way they have been selling us up the river to the highest bidder. It's disgusting how these politicians take legal bribes to fuck us over. Companies like Comcast go into cities and buy the politicians to keep the cities from passing public utility internet bonds.
We have green font for sarcasm--I need a "devil's advocate" color. Dark red, perhaps? There seems to be a big difference between TV and internet in that TV channels have to be provided, whereas internet content simply has to be accessed, and as such, any ISP that attempts to block access to certain content will simply lose subscribers to an ISP that won't. It would essentially require industry-wide collusion for the scenario you describe to occur. Any ISP that wanted to generate an advantage would just say "We are net neutral by choice!", and anyone who cared about neutrality would flock to them. On the flip side, this opens up an opportunity for, as a non-existent but hypothetical example, an ISP that wants to market itself as family friendly, blocking all porn sites at the distribution level. They now could advertise, "We give more reliable internet speeds as we can guarantee your bandwidth won't be throttled by other users on our network streaming large volumes of adult content, and as a bonus, you can rest assured knowing that your children will not accidentally (or intentionally) access inappropriate material online."
On the other hand, how can such an ISP exist when the ISPs have all already colluded to take territories in monopoly without overlapping? Tortured metaphor: If the contracting company that paved roads for ODOT decided to put in toll booths on every road and threaten to activate them on the west side unless Intel paid a fee, would that be market freedom?
This all hinges on the idea that there's a lot of options for ISPs.... but there isn't. In many places, there's just one provider. Remember when you used to be able to get a no limit data plan for your phone? The telecom companies just decided that they didn't want to do that anymore, and they all got in line. A competitive market is a nice theory, but these days it's hard to be competitive when 2 or 3 companies own everything, and it's in their best interest to work together to gouge the fuck out of us.
The goal of course is to get a Let's You And Him Fight scam going where they: 0 - Set up "ComcastFlix" as a competitor to Netflix 1 - Threaten to throttle Netflix unless Netflix pays a crazy fee 2 - Throttle Netflix when they don't pay the crazy fee 3 - Tell users via pop-ups that This Is Netflix's Fault 4 - Get Users and Netflix to fight over the commodity neither own (bandwidth) 5 - Either Netflix hemmorages users who flock to ComcastFlix, or they pay the crazy fee 6 - Netflix raises their price to cover the crazy fee, or goes out of business; either outcome makes ComcastFlix the primary option for Comcast users ComcastFlix doesn't have to be as good as Netflix; it won't have The Crown or Stranger Things or even Longmire; the picture quality will probably suck, and the movie library will only be from companies they already own. But because Comcast owns the experience for both ComcastFlix and Netflix, they get to decide how I experience both platforms, and so they get to decide who wins. The consumer loses because they don't get Netflix, or they have to pay way more for it. It's like if you have the NBA, but the home team literally owns the referees. Sure, they might make the game entertaining, but you know who will win.
I still have a no limit data plan on my phone, and there are several other cell service options outside of the big 4 that offer unlimited data as well. And of course, those cell companies are also ISPs in their own right, which makes for a few more options than are implied.
