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

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It's extortion, plain and simple.

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Pretty much this.

Funny thing is, all of TigerinATL's arguments can be applied to actual extortion. Extortion has had a negligible impact on the overall economy, businesses which are extorted still typically thrive, etc. etc. that doesn't mean we should legitimize the mafia.

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Why shouldn't Netflix users pay a premium for expanded usage? To borrow one of Obama's favorite phrase, Isn't that fair?

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"Expanded usage"? What does that mean? And who should "expanded use" Netflix users pay the premium to? Their ISP, or Netflix due to the fee their ISP charges Netflix? Both?! Is that fair? It only seems fair to the ISP, while the content provider AND the customer are just getting fricked by a third party in this transaction. Again, is that fair? Are we to allow entities other than governments to collect taxes?

And don't throw Obama in there as if net neutrality is some liberal agenda. Anyone with half a brain and who puts a little bit of thought into it would support net neutrality, unless they have other profit motives.

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You mention Cox could raise service fees on Netflix to trap customers into using Cox On-demand products. Why would Cox charge Netflix enough to run them out of business, denying themselves the increase rates from fast lanes?

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They wouldn't be "denying themselves" anything, they would be eliminating competition for their own services. It's all about abusing a position of power to eliminate threats. You mean you bought the line about fast lane fees increasing revenues and leading to infrastructure upgrades? Why would they do that in the absence of competition? Especially since, in addition to the existing lack of competition amongst ISPs, they will then be able to eliminate competition for their other services.

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Why wouldn't fast lane or tiers be developed to sell different products to different style web users?

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They already sell different tiers to different style web users. The fast lanes would be for the back end, on the content provider side. Like I said, fast lane fees are a form of tariff or taxation. Which, as I'm sure you know, is called extortion when an entity other than government does it.

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Wouldn't this kind of profit maximazation push the industry to seek it's own level?

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Sure, ISPs will find their own levels, and the content producers who survive will find their own levels. Unfortunately, this would happen at the expense of the economy as a whole, and at the expense of innovation, and at the expense of consumer satisfaction, and at the expense of creating a precedent for legal extortion.

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All data does not need to travel at the same speed. If I'm trying to watch a 4k movie then I need it to travel fast. If I'm trying to upload tiger droppings, i don't. That's the problem. All data providers are not equal in that their content doesn't necessarily need to be as fast as someone else. The users experience will not be affected.

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You clearly don't understand how the internet's infrastructure works. So you're saying that if Chicken decides he wants to save a movie file on the TigerDroppings server, he needs to contact every ISP in the world to get permission for that file to stream properly?

And why do the ISPs get to decide what should go fast or what shouldn't?

If you want this type of functionality at your own home, it's easy to do. Most routers have a function called QoS, and you can use it to throttle/prioritize certain types of bandwidth over others. And besides, if ISPs wanted to implement QoS themselves, they can perform traffic shaping of certain content types already (and some do, like with torrents), there's no need to have negotiations between separate companies here, no extortion money needs to exchange hands.

I run my own server on some older hardware at home, so if you're saying that if one day I decide to put up some HD video clip on my server and share it with friends, it's reasonable for me to need to call up all of my friends' ISPs and negotiate a deal with them in order to have it stream properly when I share the link?

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I don't think there's any doubt that they are inferior.

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They are only inferior if they are poorly managed just like any other corporate entity. My utility is far from inferior and can compete against Google as an Internet provider.

My local power distribution utility offered gig service before Google did their fiber thing. It was sued by and won against these companies that are against net neutrality to keep it from offering Internet and TV. People in Chattanooga are damn proud of their local utility.

The quick scene in Iron Man 3 about chattanooga having terrible Internet was added as a jab against us for our utility doing what they did.

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Also, those people opposing were against this WAY before Obama got involved. He only joined this recently.

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Huh? Obama promised to back net neutrality in 2007 when campaigning for his first term.

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And besides, if ISPs wanted to implement QoS themselves, they can perform traffic shaping of certain content types already (and some do, like with torrents), there's no need to have negotiations between separate companies here, no extortion money needs to exchange hands.

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Well, unless they for some reason decide to shape traffic in a way that makes it look a whole hell of a lot like anti-competitive practices.

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The providers that do need the speed already pay their own ISP for the speed they need in order to deliver their content. The consumer has also already paid their own ISP for the speed they need in order to receive that content.

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Except there are many roads in between the provider and the consumer where the data may get hung up. That's why it's only a video provider that's trying to do this today. To avoid buffering, the video data needs a clear route so that the user has an enjoyable experience viewing. If TD takes 2 seconds longer to load every few clicks, I'll hardly notice it. It's not about average speed.

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. That's why it's only a video provider that's trying to do this today. To avoid buffering, the video data needs a clear route so that the user has an enjoyable experience viewing.

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Which is why streaming tends to be in real time instead of as rearranged packets. There are already rules for handling the difference called protocols.

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Except there are many roads in between the provider and the consumer where the data may get hung up.

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Really? What roads are those?

High quality video streaming just needs a few megabits per second. You're creating an issue that doesn't really exist unless ISP's want it to.

So streaming sites pay the ISP's to carry their large amounts of data from their servers to the consumer (bandwidth), who pays for an internet connection, usually with some kind of data limit.

Why should the type of data matter to ISPs? That is charging twice for the exact same service.

The reason the ISPs are against the streaming sites is b/c it offers competition to their cable packages.

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Really?

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Yes, really. You seem to have absolutely no idea what you're talking about in any of this, so I want you to explain to me the roads of the internet.

Explain to me where it is going to get hung up and how it relates to net neutrality.

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Yeah but that's a different debate.

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That is the entire reason this debate is happening at all.

This:

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That's why it's only a video provider that's trying to do this today. To avoid buffering, the video data needs a clear route so that the user has an enjoyable experience viewing. If TD takes 2 seconds longer to load every few clicks, I'll hardly notice it. It's not about average speed.

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Has nothing to do with this debate. It is already accounted for and most modern networks are way more than capable of handling a user's streaming needs

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It is already accounted for and most modern networks are way more than capable of handling a user's streaming needs

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It's about doing it better.

I get the argument: ISPs should be forced to treat all data the same. This would ensure lanes are modernized and doesn't allow for the bigger players to just upgrade theirs.

I just disagree that everyone should be treated the same as this isn't efficient.