re: Net neutrality devil's advocate

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Is it true that net neutrality wasn't regulated until 2015? If so, why weren't ISPs implementing content based subscription services prior to these regulations.

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The term was fairly new, but the principle was in place from the start of the Internet. There was no way a single company can do it all, so they agreed to not attempt to evaluate the data between them. Every bit that passes through their networks gets treated the same.

The big names started to move away from that gentleman's agreement starting around 2006, culminating that Netflix, on top of the massive fees being paid to their ISP to support their streaming bandwith, was being extorted by Comcast and Verizon to ensure that their data was not being impeded to their customers.

So Netflix was paying for their bandwith to company XYZ, and Comcast, on top of the fees paid by their subscribers, refused to actually provide those paid-for-speeds specifically for Netflix traffic....unless Netflix paid them more money, even though Netflix wasn't a direct customer.

It was then ISPs, particularly wired ones, were placed under provisions that treated them as an telecommunications utility, unable to use their position as a sanctioned monopoly in anti-trust ways.

quote:

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It seems like with net neutrality gone, the "little guy" will have a much bigger impact in the market and some of these big piece of shite companies like Cox will actually have to improve their services.

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How?

All net neutrality does is tell everyone to treat the back end the same.

Let's say an up and coming ISP forms.

They offer a great product that "somehow" overcomes the advantages enjoyed by Comcast's government subsidized advantages. They are now threatening Comcast market share.

With no net neutrality, Comcast can legally impede all traffic from this ISP on their backbones, severely degrading quality of service of small ISP.

Threat neutralized.

Or the above scenario with Netflix repeats itself: a popular web service is basically double charged as ISPs piggyback on the popularity of a given service.


Creativity stifled.

Also, one of the provisions of Title 2 is that they MUST make their logistical assets available at fair prices to 3rd parties.

Without it, they get to lock it all back down.


I'm seeing a LOT of hand waving at how removing net neutrality will make things more competitive, but not a one has explained how.