re: Where do you stand on net neutrality?

I just wish there was a way to create meaningful competition in the ISP market. I don't know what the way to do that is, but i know giving the current local monopoly ISPs direct control over content is not a good thing. Perhaps ending the old TV network monopoly over spectrum and opening up some of the best wireless spectrum available to a high speed wireless ISP would help.

Cox cable has been the de facto only ISP in my area for 20 years now. No one else can come close to competing with them comparatively. They have always been shitty, horrible customer service, slow or flat our refused to upgrade infrastructure. I don't know what the fix is.

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I'm not against net neutrality per se but this is just fearmongering

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It's fearmongering to say we need rules that protect consumers from the type of actions that ISPs have proven they are willing to do?

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If anyone tells you that corporations are becoming more monopolistic so we need to apply 1930s rules to 21st century technology, they should immediately be ignored. 

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I didn't advocate for or against any particular law, rule, or strategy. I only said that the principles of net neutrality must be enforced in some way.

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Exactly. The internet is a private commodity, not a public utility. Considering the vast majority of people need an ISP to get to it, it’s not a public utility. Government needs to stay out the internet

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Holy frick I didn't realize people were this dumb.

Also, 100% chance the dumb fricks saying government should stay out of the internet will be the very first ones to bitch and complain about the "liberal" agenda being forced on them by the giant telecoms and crying about conservative views being stifled.

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Not allowing large companies determine what is allowed on the internet is what made it the most useful tool on the planet.

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So we don't trust businesses because we fear they will "determine what is allowed on the internet," but we trust the fricking government to keep their hands out of it after we give them the power to have their hands in it?

Why trust government over a company?

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Why trust government over a company?

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I don't, but if the government ever abuses its power over the internet in order to promote or impede a particular company or tech, then everyone, right, left, center, will be all over it to stop it.

But if we take a "hands off" approach and chalk up whatever happens to "market forces" as if private companies can do no wrong as long as there appears to be a free market, then half the country won't give a frick which companies or techs get screwed. And that's bad.

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Why trust government over a company?

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I'm not about to trust Cox, ATT Time Warner, Comcast, etc.

They'll piss on you, tell you it's raining and then force you to buy their umbrella

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if the government ever abuses its power over the internet in order to promote or impede a particular company or tech, then everyone, right, left, center, will be all over it to stop it.

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bullshite.

On one hand I'm for net neutrality. I want me internet to be an open pipe where my ISP can't selectively block or restrict what data comes into or out of my internet pipe I've paid for.

On the other hand I also feel that companies should be able to take advantage of their synergies when providing content and service. So lets say a service provider owns a content provider. All data streamed from the content provider doesn't count towards your data limit. I'm perfectly fine with that. I'm also fine with the service provider saying the performance of using their content will be better than using streaming service B that they don't own. They own the backbone to both systems I imagine they should be able to optimize content delivery and promise better service. But, I don't believe the companies should be able to artificially throttle content delivery from competing services.

But what if the demands of using content provider B puts a strain on the network so if you don't throttle service from content B it negatively effects all of the ISP's customers? To get service to the customers from content provider B now the ISP has to do a lot of network upgrades to keep all of the ISP's customers working properly. Who pays for the upgrade in the infrastructure? Are we OK with the ISP throttling service to content provider B to keep the larger majority of their users working properly?

About 4 years ago a VP of ATT gave a keynote address at a technology conference I was at. Someone asked him the question about net neutrality and why ATT wanted Netflix to pay for the infrastructure upgrades required to increase capacity in order the deliver the Netflix's content to ATT's subscribers. That goes against everything the staunchest supporters of net neutrality believe in. When NetFlix delivered DVDs by mail the cost of delivering content was included in the subscription fee to NetFlix. NetFlix didn't ask for the customer's neighbors to help pay the costs of delivering their movies. So if delivery of their content is now done via ISP instead of mail why should the content provider be able to demand that the ISPs bear all the cost and stresses in the service of delivering their content? So it comes down to which consumers should pay for the infrastructure upgrade necessary to deliver the content. Net Neutrality would say that all of the ISPs consumers should bear the cost of the infrastructure upgrades regardless of whether or not you use content provider B. Or should the people using that service pay for the delivery of that service? Does the ISP charge users of that service a extra charge? (No says Net Neutrality!). Or does the content provider help pay the delivery costs of delivering their service? (No says Net Neutrality!).

The conversation of net neutrality is a little more complicated than what most people make it out to be.

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On one hand I'm for net neutrality. I want me internet to be an open pipe where my ISP can't selectively block or restrict what data comes into or out of my internet pipe I've paid for. On the other hand I also feel that companies should be able to take advantage of their synergies when providing content and service. So lets say a service provider owns a content provider. All data streamed from the content provider doesn't count towards your data limit. I'm perfectly fine with that. I'm also fine with the service provider saying the performance of using their content will be better than using streaming service B that they don't own. They own the backbone to both systems I imagine they should be able to optimize content delivery and promise better service. But, I don't believe the companies should be able to artificially throttle content delivery from competing services. But what if the demands of using content provider B puts a strain on the network so if you don't throttle service from content B it negatively effects all of the ISP's customers? To get service to the customers from content provider B now the ISP has to do a lot of network upgrades to keep all of the ISP's customers working properly. Who pays for the upgrade in the infrastructure? Are we OK with the ISP throttling service to content provider B to keep the larger majority of their users working properly? About 4 years ago a VP of ATT gave a keynote address at a technology conference I was at. Someone asked him the question about net neutrality and why ATT wanted Netflix to pay for the infrastructure upgrades required to increase capacity in order the deliver the Netflix's content to ATT's subscribers. That goes against everything the staunchest supporters of net neutrality believe in. When NetFlix delivered DVDs by mail the cost of delivering content was included in the subscription fee to NetFlix. NetFlix didn't ask for the customer's neighbors to help pay the costs of delivering their movies. So if delivery of their content is now done via ISP instead of mail why should the content provider be able to demand that the ISPs bear all the cost and stresses in the service of delivering their content? So it comes down to which consumers should pay for the infrastructure upgrade necessary to deliver the content. Net Neutrality would say that all of the ISPs consumers should bear the cost of the infrastructure upgrades regardless of whether or not you use content provider B. Or should the people using that service pay for the delivery of that service? Does the ISP charge users of that service a extra charge? (No says Net Neutrality!). Or does the content provider help pay the delivery costs of delivering their service? (No says Net Neutrality!).

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This might hold a tiny bit of weight if all the major telecoms hadn't already received billions (trillions?) in federal funds and tax breaks for the specific purpose of upgrading their infrastructure.

And they didn't even make those upgrades. They just straight up stole the money.

Yea I don't trust them in anyway. Pretty sure major telecoms are the only entities that enjoy less public trust than our government. And for good reason.

Anti net neutrality people are the tech version of anti-vaxxers