Net Neutrality, Internet access, Media Consolidation

[Bob Schroeck]

Oh, it hasn't deteriorated, it's working perfectly -- for the telecomms companies.

[Labster]

Regulatory capture conditions are nominal.

[classicdrogn]

Because "deregulation is good for businesses, and therefore good for my campaign funding the economy," of course!

[hazard]

1) I'm a Dutch citizen, not a USA citizen.

2) By outsourcing all your infrastructure to companies who can provide and maintain all that infrastructure far more efficiently than any government agency can. And then forgetting, or be unable, to make clear to the companies in question that 'emergency, government services are not to be interrupted and must take priority no matter what' is a thing and will be enforced. Thoroughly.

[Black Aeronaut]

Well, the issue here in the USA is that the Right has led their constituents to believe that deregulating the telecom industry is the way to go, for all the reasons that the ISP's say so. And all the while, they say that the opposition is full of it, that the ISP's would never take unfair advantage, and that consumers would be protected by the mandated transparency.

Unfortunately, the Opposition has been correct so far in this matter.

[robkelk]

I guess our opinion comes from living in a big country. (Ontario is over 1.5 times the size of Texas, for example.) No, telcos, you do not get to skimp or cut corners on telecommunications - that's an essential service.

Trying to pass off less than 99.9% uptime as acceptable would be like trying to pass off a gravel road as an Interstate highway, or a bottle of ketchup as a vegetable. (Granted, the 99.9+% uptime we get isn't as fast as elsewhere in the world...)

[hazard]

Well of course a bottle of ketchup isn't a vegetable.

Tomatoes are strictly speaking fruits.

[Jinx999]

Well of course a bottle of ketchup isn't a vegetable.

Tomatoes are strictly speaking fruits.

I hope you don't mind me getting really sarcastic about this, because it's one of the things that irritates me.

Biologically speaking Tomatoes are still (parts of) vegetables - and so is every other fruit.

The fruit-vegetable divide, where something is either one of the other, is culinary, not biological, about how they are used in western cuisine and how they taste to human beings. This means that a Tomato is a vegetable and not a fruit (irrespective of it's biological function), because of its flavour and use in cooking.

So, no matter the context, it is correct to describe a tomato as a vegetable.

[Labster]

Tomatoes are legally not fruits but vegetables in the United States. Say what you will about biology -- the law is the law.

[classicdrogn]

Indeed, and that law is something that has mostly been set by very similar processes as we were previously discussing - tomatoes got classed as vegetables rather than fruits to dodge regulations on the import and export of fruits, and the iconic tomato-shaped pincushion is designed that way because an imitation vegetable was not regulated while imitation fruit were.

[SilverFang01]

Documents show that bail bond companies used a secret phone tracking service to make tens of thousands of location requests.https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/artic...data-years


So, why is deregulation considered good again? Because it actually isn't. As this and other cases have shown, whenever deregulation occurs, private industry will gorge itself until everything comes crashing down.

[hazard]

Because it means private industry can gorge itself and offer more campaign contributions pay more taxes.

[Black Aeronaut]

Because it means private industry can gorge itself and offer more campaign contributions pay more taxes.

You mean hire lawyers and accountants tro find tax loopholes?  :V

(... We really need a pacman emoji)

[Labster]

(... We really need a pacman emoji)

ミᗣ       ᗧ  ∙ ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙ ∙ ┃

[robkelk]

The Register: It's OK, everyone – Congress's smart-cookie Republicans have the answer to America's net neutrality quandary

Data streams from drones that provide information on drug smuggling and human trafficking have to be allowed to get that data out as fast as possible. Wouldn't net neutrality risk upsetting that, he asked.

The answer is no, as former FCC chair Tom Wheeler pointed out, because there was already a "public safety" clause in the previous rules. But that wasn't the point in the question of course because this is Washington DC.

The other former FCC chair Michael Powell – who is now head of an ISP industry lobbying organization – felt it was a good point. Border security was in fact "a perfect example of why we should be careful about what we mean about 'no prioritization.' There are societal uses that we will all agree should enjoy a higher priority over other uses."

And then we were off about that damn wall again.

[robkelk]

The Register: Tired of smashing your face into the brick wall that is US net neutrality? Too bad. There's a long way to go yet, friends

The Dems even called it the Save the Internet Act of 2019 [PDF].

The draft legislation has a very slim chance of passing unless Democrats persuade Republicans to support it, ...

But at no point will the lack of net neutrality rules result in the end of the internet; it just means a more controlled, expensive internet. All that is happening is that cable companies are trying to impose their existing cable business model onto the internet, particularly since companies like Google and Facebook are using the network to become as rich and powerful as they are.

The more cable companies are forced to simply supply data at fast speeds, rather than apply control over that data, the more they become utility providers. The internet can enable content providers to go direct to the consumer - get an HBO app rather than a subscription through your cable provider.

It's a fundamental shift in power and money but it's not the end of the internet – and pretending otherwise only makes things worse, in the same way that gun control is painted as an effort to take away people's fundamental rights, and abortion is painted as the murder of babies.

[LynnInDenver]

Yeah, I've never quite liked the way neutrality proponents have framed the argument at the extreme end, that we'll be forced to pay for tiered service. Because that's too "in your face" and not how the big boys have learned to play. Better to make the big fish pay to get better pipes to you, and it's much more invisible to the end consumer then; you wind up paying more for the same streaming services, and free services become less free, so to speak, like an increase in "pay to win" in freemium games, and any service that won't play ball under that system becomes less able to compete.

[Black Aeronaut]

You DO recall the incidents involving people in disaster areas getting their bandwidth throttled, right?

[LynnInDenver]

Yeah, I do recall the emergency response getting their bandwidth throttled to the point the service was past useless. Thankfully, that gives us something factual to replace that awful graphic of "paid tiers for everything from social media to shopping to online gaming".

[Black Aeronaut]

*sighs* Well, regardless, the way I feel about it is that the Internet is such an important piece of infrastructure that now commerce and trade is crippled without it, ISPs SHOULD be treated as utilities, QED.

[LynnInDenver]

Yeah, I do feel the same way. It's now a utility, and should be treated as such, unfortunately that requires the Republicans to admit that regulation of it as such is actually needed.

Do note that the government could do well by starting to look at cable companies in a way that trying to shore up their old model of content delivery when clearly the new model of communication delivery is taking over is an explicit conflict of interest that violates both letter and spirit of antitrust, particularly in areas where there is literally only one choice, and I'd love it if it would extend to areas where there's only two choices.

[Black Aeronaut]

Pfft. Yeah. If only we could get them to see it that way. Fat chance given how the ISPs are buying off Republicans like its going out of style.

[robkelk]

To nobody's surprise, the "Save The Internet Act" narrowly passed the House vote, with only one representative voting opposite the party line. The Senate majority leader has already said that the bill is "Dead on arrival in the Senate".

You may as well forget about Net Neutrality being anything other than a political position, just like health care.

You people really need a third party (and maybe a fourth and a fifth), like every other Western nation has.

[hazard]

Only way the USA is going to get that is if they shift to a completely different election system than First Past the Post. And they aren't going to, despite everything this works just fine for the people in power.

[classicdrogn]

Why, with more than two viable parties people might have to actually compromise and agree, and form coalitions! How ever would we manage without a strong "Us versus THEM" line to draw? /sarcasm