So a few questions on net neutrality

I know so little about it but it sounds like they're trying to turn the internet into cable television where you pay for certain channels (or sites in this instance).

I may be completely off but if that's what it means I'm going to be pretty pissed off and I say we all go dark.

I have mixed emotions regarding this topic. On the one hand I do not like excessive government control. I don't want the party in power at a given time to be able to use government power for political gain. The the other hand, in some areas where monopolies are in play, government regulation can be a necessary evil. I favor free enterprise in a market economy but if there isn't enough competition or if competitors are conspiring to prevent changes that would benefit consumers, then it's a problem.

As an example of the former, unfortunately the Obama administration set a bad precedent by using the IRS as a weapon against political opponent groups. Could something similar happen through the FCC? I think it quite possible.

Yes we did we just didn't have laws protecting it.

NN will die.

Quit listening to the George Soros internet propaganda.

Your life is not going to spiral out of control when this Obama-government takeover scheme dies.

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Since companies already compete by price, why would they not also compete by offering unlimited content that other ISPs are not offering?

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This argument depends on actual competition, which doesn't exist for most of the country.

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So can someone convince me that there are ISPs believe that limiting content would be an effective business model? 

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All you have to do is a tiny bit of research to see that many ISPs have thought/realized that limiting content would be an effective model. ISPs have blocked internet phone services, made Netflix nearly unusable, etc. When you have little to no competition, limiting what your customers have access to becomes a VERY profitable model.

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Is this a real threat? Were ISPs doing this before net neutrality? What prevented them from doing it?

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I'm going to over simplify this but... It wasn't a big deal several years ago until cord-cutting became a big thing. ISPs are in the cable TV business also. Now that they are losing cable TV subscribers they are looking to make it up for that money 1) making money from other content providers/competitors or 2) by forcing people back into cable TV and satellite TV subscriptions.

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NN will die.

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If NN dies (I'm talking about the principles, not any particular law or rules), then so does any chance the US may have had of being a tech leader (or given the importance of the internet in all business, a leader in anything) in the coming decades.

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Quit listening to the George Soros internet propaganda.

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Quit blaming any view that you oppose on propaganda.

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Your life is not going to spiral out of control when this Obama-government takeover scheme dies.

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No, our lives will not spiral out of control, but it is going to hurt our economy in many, MANY subtle ways.

The problem with depending on the "free market" to sort this out is the ISP market is not (and I would argue cannot) be truly free. We cannot go out into the marketplace and choose any ISP.. we can only choose from the ISPs that come to us. We cannot drive to a store and come home with an ISP, nor can we have one shipped to us. The product must be delivered to the premises via expensive infrastructure, which is a defining characteristic of a utility. You may not want to acknowledge the fact that your ISP is a utility, but it remains a fact.

So, regardless of your local government deals/regulations/whatever that may prevent true ISP competition, our choice of ISP will always be limited by the simple fact that it is expensive to build out infrastructure. Also, redundant infrastructure makes zero economic sense for anyone. We don't have a dozen power companies running lines through our neighborhood not just because of regulation, but because that would be 12 times more capex that must be recouped from that single neighborhood. Competition on this level results in products that are MORE expensive, not less. And the "free market" solution, which would invariably be power companies divvying up territory to keep costs down, results in local monopolies which also does nothing to keep prices in check. Hence, regulation.

The endgame for infrastructure will always result in local monopolies, it just makes economic sense. The ideal competitive scenario would be multiple companies competing over shared infrastructure, but that creates a lot of issues with agreeing on an upgrade path. One solution would be to force ISPs into separate entities: one regulated and in charge of operating and upgrading the infrastructure, and the other the ISP competing with new ISPs over the shared infrastructure. No special deals, all ISPs would have to pay for their share of usage, and they would compete for customers on price and customer service. You know, like how most functioning markets work.




But if we rely on the free market with no regulation, the majority of us will be left with limited choices of ISP, and those ISPs will be free to control what we do and how we use what is now and will forever be an essential part of our lives.

That means your ISP may choose to extort Google by blocking their ad network. If Google doesn't pay up, it may hurt their bottom line a bit, but more importantly it won't just hurt but it would absolutely destroy millions of sites that rely on those ads for revenue. Think of the economic damage. Do you think that wouldn't happen? Think again. ISPs have already proven their willingness to degrade service to Netflix, citing excessive traffic. Care to guess how much of our internet use is devoted to ads? It's a lot, and that makes it a very juicy target for ISPs. With no rules or regulations in place, what makes this action illegal? Do you even think it should be illegal? Does it quality as actual extortion in your opinion? If so, do you think we should handle this on a case by case basis? Think of the legal expenses, which are essentially a drain on the economy. Is it worth it to allow this sort of thing to happen (and it will)? Should we allow an ISP to cut into the revenue of another company, and essentially destroy the revenue of millions of others, just to chase some "free market" ideal that doesn't actually work in practice?

And that's just one scenario off the top of my head, but it's one that consumers likely wouldn't care about. Who cares if they see fewer ads? But what we wouldn't immediately see is the collateral damage it causes, such as all the small sites being forced to shut down or try to find a new ad network that ISPs haven't tried to extort yet. There are many other ways for ISPs to abuse the power they wield, as well, and many of them can be easily crafted to appear pro-consumer, while hiding all the ways that they stifle innovation and creativity, and impact essentially the entire economy in subtle ways, just to boost the profits of a handful of companies in a single industry.

Internet either needs to be classified as a utility or they need to do away with the monopolies that cable companies have in cities.

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Korkstand

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I'm actually really scared that your post has 5 down votes

Kork has been killing it in the NN threads and yes, it's really bad to see the pushback he's been getting on his posts that contain facts and pretty damn reasonable projections of what's to come if NN the laws and NN the principle are trashed.