re: Obama's plan to save the internet draws bold reactions

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Inferior to what?

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I told you with my electronic billing example. Was my water/gas/electricity service "inferior"? Like you said compared to what? I felt it was adequate and reliable enough, but my billing experience was/is inferior compared to the majority of companies I deal with.

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Doesn't matter what services you use, the "fast lanes" will be per-site or even per- type of content. The host you use is irrelevant.

...As I said, it wouldn't just be your Amazon bill going up. A small company would have to negotiate directly with Cox/Comcast/whatever ISP in order to get on the "fast lane" with their customers.

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Amazon maybe, because that's a bit of a self serve service, and that actually could pose a problem as they are the back end to quite a few web services. But the bigger web hosting companies like RackSpace and SquareSpace would surely make a deal for all the sites they host. And even Amazon would have motivation to make a deal for their customers if they started losing business and marketshare to companies that did put their customers in the fast lane. A fast lane will amount to an undeserved tax, but not a crippling one IMO.

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This is definitely "the bad path".

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I lean more towards the FCC regulating more because I don't trust these large corporations with lots of influence and bad intent, but I think the fears of what will happen if we keep going down the road that has gotten us where we are today are overblown and view things through a worst case scenario lens.

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I told you with my electronic billing example. Was my water/gas/electricity service "inferior"? Like you said compared to what? I felt it was adequate and reliable enough, but my billing experience was/is inferior compared to the majority of companies I deal with.

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I don't know what utilities you are talking about, but yes I know a lot of them are behind the times. A major part of that is likely the fact that public utilities are not-for-profit.

Whatever the reason(s), though, it doesn't have to be that way. I think the people of Lafayette are quite happy with the quality of service and online billing of LUS, including the fiber to the home internet.

But designating ISPs as utilities doesn't even have to work like public utilities. The ISP would still own the lines. They would just have to lease out bandwidth to other companies, much like MVNO's like Net10 and Straight Talk.

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But the bigger web hosting companies like RackSpace and SquareSpace would surely make a deal for all the sites they host.

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"Surely"? The only sure thing here is that the only purpose of even thinking about "fast lanes" is to extract as much money as possible from content producers. Why, then, would an ISP "surely" make a deal with a web host that covers all the sites they host? Seems a bit risky as far as potential lost revenue. It also seems like a bad deal for all the sites they host that don't want to subsidize "fast lane" access for the larger sites.

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And even Amazon would have motivation to make a deal for their customers if they started losing business and marketshare to companies that did put their customers in the fast lane. A fast lane will amount to an undeserved tax, but not a crippling one IMO.

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So, in your imagination, what will happen is all sites will basically get "fast lane" access? Can you not see the next logical step, which is that the ISPs will create a new faster fast lane? Here's the thing: the ISPs want one thing, and that is the power to control which online services will survive and thrive. By making it legal to offer "fast lane" access, this gives ISPs the ability to basically kill Netflix in favor of their own video on-demand services. No competition on price or service, just flat-out "frick you I win". And it would be legal.

It is crippling, without doubt. Don't let anyone muddy the waters with "free market" bullshite talk. The ONLY way for the internet to be an actual free market is if the pipes are open and non-discriminatory. "Fast lanes" are the opposite of free market.

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This is far too much power for an ISP IMHO. I don't understand how people don't see that.

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Either they don't see it, or they prefer an ISP to have that power rather than big bad government. Nevermind that the government wouldn't have the sort of power that ISPs would.

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It wouldn't be an issue if you had choice in your ISP but you really don't throughout much of america.

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And that's how infrastructure works. Many will blame it on government involvement, but utility infrastructure gravitates toward natural local monopolies regardless, and for good reason. Multiple redundant services are costly, and it will always be cheaper to operate one grid. Mankind has known this for as long as we have lived in communities. I don't know why people like to blame it on government these days. The only reason government has to get involved is so that the monopolies don't take advantage of their position.

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So, in your imagination, what will happen is all sites will basically get "fast lane" access?

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Yeah, kind of like how hardly anybody pays for dial up any more. And there may be varying degrees of fast lane access just like there are varying degrees of broadband tiers. The ISPs don't want to curb content consumption, they want to double dip on it. And you don't need to be condescending and call things as my imaginings when everything you see happening is happening in your imagination as well.

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Yeah, kind of like how hardly anybody pays for dial up any more.

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Nobody pays for dialup because for twice the money you can get 100X the service. It was a tech advancement that improved the internet and the economy (and that happened with a neutral internet, by the way). "Fast lanes" are just a different term for "throttling", and are a step backward for the internet and the economy.

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The ISPs don't want to curb content consumption, they want to double dip on it.

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And, let's not forget, make their own competing services more attractive by taking advantage of their position as the last-mile delivery service.

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And you don't need to be condescending and call things as my imaginings when everything you see happening is happening in your imagination as well.

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This didn't happen in my imagination

Neither did all of this

And neither did any of the thousands of other incidents of ISP throttling and/or extortion attempts. And all this when there were makeshift rules in place to prevent this sort of thing. And you think it might be a good idea to make it not only legal, but the way it is when it comes to internet service? You think it should be legal for one company to use its position to deliberately harm and extract money from unrelated companies, just because?!

Pardon me for thinking that condescension was warranted.

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But, at least in the southern United States, water and electricity is almost always on; there are relatively few power surges, brown outs, or black outs; the water is safe to drink; both are relatively cheap and abundant.

As for broadband, even though technology costs drop pretty fast as they become ubiquitous, I am still paying more money for less bandwidth than I was 8 years ago (Baton Rouge vs LC), and now I have data caps to go with my slower, more expensive internet!

I mean, I have a $700 2 year old phone in my pocket that is more powerful than a $2000 desktop I built in 2002, but my internet speeds are nearly the same.

You ask if anyone has bragged about their water and electricity. Have you ever bragged about your ISP or cable provider? Unless you have FIOS or Google Fiber I bet you haven't.

Look at what ISPs have historically called innovation. Bundling more channels that you probably won't watch to drive up your cable bill is one of their big tactics. When Tivo came along many cable companies balked at issuing cable cards to force consumers to rent boxes from them instead. They rent out $100 cable modems at $10/month (at this point I would have paid $1300 for a $100 cable modem if I had rented it from them.) They gave us the great innovation of Pay-Per-View which allows you to pay $10 to watch a movie, while Netflix, operating under Net Neutraility lets you pay $8/month to watch an unlimited amount of their entire catalog. But the ISPs are the ones that innovate, right?

I love that everytime I have to call Suddenlink because something of theirs isn't working they pitch me on home phone service. Because I'm most likely to buy more of their stuff while I'm complaining to them how their stuff hardly ever works.

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Wow...insert :boom: gif here. Ace Midnight got schooled there.

colorchangintiger -

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You are putting words in my mouth. I've already said I lean towards regulation, I just think the fears of what happens if we don't regulate more are over blown

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How can you say the fears are overblown when exactly what is feared will happen has already happened countless times? And that's without the government's blessing. And I don't mean to put words in your mouth, instead I'm trying to convince you (and everyone else) to say the words yourself and think of the consequences.

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the zealous way you're coming at me bro isn't helping your case that I'm underreacting.

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Someone sitting back and saying "it won't be so bad", or worse, broadcasting on the internet that it won't be so bad, is something that I, for one, would rather not let happen. I don't care if I come across as zealous or condescending or if I hurt your feelings or whatever.

But I'm almost to the point of just saying "frick it", because if everything I am advocating for does happen, nobody will give a shite about how bad things almost were. I kind of want "fast lanes" to become a thing, and for everything I'm saying to come to pass, just so average people will actually care and get pissed off about the things that are happening.

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How can you say the fears are overblown when exactly what is feared will happen has already happened countless times?

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And what impact is this already happening having? NetFlix continues to grow despite cable company shenanigans. People are consuming more data than ever in more ways than ever despite throttling and data caps. What you fear will happen is already happening but it's had negligible impact on the consumption of data.

I'm not saying nothing can go wrong. Amazon Web Services not getting in the fast lane would be a serious concern, and one I hadn't considered before this thread. It's the infrastructure of choice for many wanting to start up any kind of web service/mobile app, so that right there could kill a lot of start ups and innovation if Amazon didn't feel the need to pay extra for a side business that sprung out of the extra capacity they had to create for their main business.

But other than that, the fast lane seems like it'd be little more than a money grab. An unwarranted and unjust money grab yes, but that doesn't mean it will kill the Internet as we know it. Leo Laporte who runs TWIT likes to talk about how he couldn't run his network if there were a fast lane. I understand him being fearful of the prospect, but how can he predict it would shut him down when he doesn't even know how much it would cost him? The ISPs don't benefit from making things so expensive that people need to use the Internet less.

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And what impact is this already happening having?

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Netflix has surely lost a few customers, or at the very least a few customers with misplaced anger.

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NetFlix continues to grow despite cable company shenanigans.

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Because someone has always been there to point out that what the cable companies are doing is against the rules. Eliminate the rules and Netflix will begin their decline.

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What you fear will happen is already happening but it's had negligible impact on the consumption of data.

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Although it has happened a lot, it has only so far been a small fraction of the total time spent on the internet. If fast lanes become legal and the norm, the impact will be anything but negligible.

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the fast lane seems like it'd be little more than a money grab.

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It's much, much more than a money grab, as I've been trying to explain. It would be giving a handful of companies total control over the fate of millions of others. You have to understand this point and what it means, otherwise there's no sense continuing to discuss this with you.

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Leo Laporte who runs TWIT likes to talk about how he couldn't run his network if there were a fast lane. I understand him being fearful of the prospect, but how can he predict it would shut him down when he doesn't even know how much it would cost him?

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Does it matter how much it might cost? He already pays for his bandwidth, why must he pay for it again? And again and again and again, to all the ISPs? It would be an extreme perversion of the "free market", and it makes all the sense in the world to fear for your livelihood in such a marketplace.

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The ISPs don't benefit from making things so expensive that people need to use the Internet less.

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Yes they do. If Cox charges Netflix for fast lane access, Netflix's rates would have to increase. At what point does Netflix get so expensive that it's cheaper for me to rent Cox on-demand movies instead? And you can bet your arse that Cox knows exactly how much they would have to charge Netflix in order to make that happen. It's extortion, plain and simple. And if the government goes ahead and says that pay-to-play fast lanes are legal, then it's legal extortion. It is also holding customers hostage from Netflix.

Fees for fast lanes would be like tariffs, as if each ISP were running its own country and economy, with its unwilling customers as citizens (or subjects), and shaping trade to its own benefit.

You keep saying it won't happen, but you need to realize that it MUST happen, because that is what shareholders would demand if it becomes legal.