Red Alert: internet freedom under attack this Thanksgiving

[Len Hyet]

Sadly yes.
1. The american market is by far the largest open internet market in the world. China and Russia are both competitors for size but content from those region tends to be far more localized. As a result, the vast majority of content and more crucially content hosting services tend to be centered on catering to america. And thus any anti competitive practices that will inevitably arise from this will tend to effect the western world disproportionately.

In simple terms things like a viable alternative to youtube and google for the west will wither and die because they are being sabotaged by youtube and google on the american market and the rest of the west is not a large enough market to keep them competitive.

2. It sets a dangerous legal precedent that will, like all disgusting free market things, metastasize into the rest of the western world as well. Corporations, after all are a global evil and not an american one. And once they get a taste for american blood you can bet they will try and bleed the rest of us dry as well.

So why can't we have a revolt to stop this? Every one who cares about this are explaining why this is so awful yet people prefer to just let it happen thinking we'll get it back one day. What if that day never comes? What is so wrong about actually fighting this literal tooth and nail?

"We might have sucky internet for a bit"

"We should violently rebel against the US government"

Alright, let's all just calm the hell down.

[The Flutterlands]

This does seem like a bad thing, but I don't know what the answer is.

Violent revolution won't help anybody though.

Well I hope that Ajit Pai burns in hell for opening this can of worms upon us ..

[Grinning Dragon]

Sadly yes.
1. The american market is by far the largest open internet market in the world. China and Russia are both competitors for size but content from those region tends to be far more localized. As a result, the vast majority of content and more crucially content hosting services tend to be centered on catering to america. And thus any anti competitive practices that will inevitably arise from this will tend to effect the western world disproportionately.

In simple terms things like a viable alternative to youtube and google for the west will wither and die because they are being sabotaged by youtube and google on the american market and the rest of the west is not a large enough market to keep them competitive.

2. It sets a dangerous legal precedent that will, like all disgusting free market things, metastasize into the rest of the western world as well. Corporations, after all are a global evil and not an american one. And once they get a taste for american blood you can bet they will try and bleed the rest of us dry as well.

So why can't we have a revolt to stop this? Every one who cares about this are explaining why this is so awful yet people prefer to just let it happen thinking we'll get it back one day. What if that day never comes? What is so wrong about actually fighting this literal tooth and nail?

You want to have a revolt over the internet? Out of all the things in this world to revolt over, this would be damn near at the bottom of my list.
Honestly, reading these posts of yours, I get the sound of a Klaxon going off

[The Flutterlands]

So why can't we have a revolt to stop this? Every one who cares about this are explaining why this is so awful yet people prefer to just let it happen thinking we'll get it back one day. What if that day never comes? What is so wrong about actually fighting this literal tooth and nail?

"We might have sucky internet for a bit"

"We should violently rebel against the US government"

Alright, let's all just calm the hell down.

Sucky internet?

For a bit?

You clearly don't know what hell is upon us in 2018 should they succeed.

[Len Hyet]

"We might have sucky internet for a bit"

"We should violently rebel against the US government"

Alright, let's all just calm the hell down.

Sucky internet?

For a bit?

You clearly don't know what hell is upon us in 2018 should they succeed.

You're clearly in near-hysterics.

Look, I'm pro net-neutrality, but come on. Being able to watch Netflix without paying an additional $5 a month isn't worth violent revolution.

[Purpelia]

You want to have a revolt over the internet? Out of all the things in this world to revolt over, this would be damn near at the bottom of my list.
Honestly, reading these posts of yours, I get the sound of a Klaxon going off

It really shouldn't be. The issue here is not about users having different internet speeds. It's about giving the power to manipulate these speeds to profit driven entities. Entities which can than legitimately and legally use them in what would by today's standards be counter competitive practices.

Like say for example your ISP has a deal with google to sell you, the end user faster speeds for watching youtube videos. In that scenario you not only do not lose, indeed you appear to win! You get faster youtube! That is great for you. Right?

Wrong.

By making youtube run faster for you every other video hosting site now runs slower. And not just by comparison either. That speed has to come from somewhere. And it's coming from the ISP slowing down internet for everyone else sharing your wire who is not using youtube at the time. And that basically gives youtube a monopoly on high quality high speed video streaming.

Before you know it netflix is dead. Vidme dies as well. Same story with Twitch. All dead not because they are worse products but because they can't pay your ISP enough money to keep their speeds up with youtube. And it only gets disproportionately worse the smaller a service is. The big ones I mentioned might survive, but new startups, businesses with a genuinely fresh and better model and service that are being developed right as we speak? They newer get off the ground.

So you are stuck in a perpetual oligopoly of what ever is big on the market today which in turn lets them do what ever the F they want because they know you have nobody else to turn to and newer will.

That's the problem here.

[The Flutterlands]

Sucky internet?

For a bit?

You clearly don't know what hell is upon us in 2018 should they succeed.

You're clearly in near-hysterics.

Look, I'm pro net-neutrality, but come on. Being able to watch Netflix without paying an additional $5 a month isn't worth violent revolution.

People are calling the repeal of Net Neutrality the end of the internet as we know it, including It's creator.

[Independant Nations and Guilds]

People are calling the repeal of Net Neutrality the end of the internet as we know it, including It's creator.

Sorry I'm late.

I agree with Flutterlands here. This is seriously bad.

[Len Hyet]

You're clearly in near-hysterics.

Look, I'm pro net-neutrality, but come on. Being able to watch Netflix without paying an additional $5 a month isn't worth violent revolution.

People are calling the repeal of Net Neutrality the end of the internet as we know it, including It's creator.

We've had Net Neutrality for all of two years. I remember the internet circa 2005-2015 and it wasn't some online-hellhole.

[The Flutterlands]

People are calling the repeal of Net Neutrality the end of the internet as we know it, including It's creator.

We've had Net Neutrality for all of two years. I remember the internet circa 2005-2015 and it wasn't some online-hellhole.

That was because they were unwritten rules... A gentlemen's agreement. Getting rid of the rules now gives the green light to unspeakable corporate evil to destroy the internet.

[Purpelia]

People are calling the repeal of Net Neutrality the end of the internet as we know it, including It's creator.

We've had Net Neutrality for all of two years. I remember the internet circa 2005-2015 and it wasn't some online-hellhole.

The early internet was a blissful time when speeds were low enough and the technology and businesses immature enough not to have grasped its true potential for evil.
Someone in 2005 could not have envisioned the evil we speak of, that is true. But could they have envisioned Twitch streams? High speed torrenting? The meteoric rise of youtube? Or the united states of america electing a president not because he is qualified and established but because he knows how to manipulate Twitter?!

The internet back than was simply not profitable or important enough for a long enough time for business practices to be developed for it sufficiently for such rules to become required.

[Len Hyet]

We've had Net Neutrality for all of two years. I remember the internet circa 2005-2015 and it wasn't some online-hellhole.

That was because they were unwritten rules... A gentlemen's agreement. Getting rid of the rules now gives the green light to unspeakable corporate evil to destroy the internet.

Corporations do not now, nor have they in recent history, operated under "unwritten rules" or "gentlemen's agreements". Corporations routinely flout the law, violate basic human morality, and commit acts that if perpetrated by a government could easily be classified as war crimes.

[The Flutterlands]

You want to have a revolt over the internet? Out of all the things in this world to revolt over, this would be damn near at the bottom of my list.
Honestly, reading these posts of yours, I get the sound of a Klaxon going off

It really shouldn't be. The issue here is not about users having different internet speeds. It's about giving the power to manipulate these speeds to profit driven entities. Entities which can than legitimately and legally use them in what would by today's standards be counter competitive practices.

Like say for example your ISP has a deal with google to sell you, the end user faster speeds for watching youtube videos. In that scenario you not only do not lose, indeed you appear to win! You get faster youtube! That is great for you. Right?

Wrong.

By making youtube run faster for you every other video hosting site now runs slower. And not just by comparison either. That speed has to come from somewhere. And it's coming from the ISP slowing down internet for everyone else sharing your wire who is not using youtube at the time. And that basically gives youtube a monopoly on high quality high speed video streaming.

Before you know it netflix is dead. Vidme dies as well. Same story with Twitch. All dead not because they are worse products but because they can't pay your ISP enough money to keep their speeds up with youtube. And it only gets disproportionately worse the smaller a service is. The big ones I mentioned might survive, but new startups, businesses with a genuinely fresh and better model and service that are being developed right as we speak? They newer get off the ground.

So you are stuck in a perpetual oligopoly of what ever is big on the market today which in turn lets them do what ever the F they want because they know you have nobody else to turn to and newer will.

That's the problem here.

This! This! We can't let this fucking happen! You guys are all blind if you think life will continue to be normal without net neutrality! You are taking it for fucking granted! This is corporate fascism we are talking about! This is the end of everything we loved about the internet. Our freedom of speech and expression!. This is a red alert, all hands on deck, disaster!

[Grinning Dragon]

You want to have a revolt over the internet? Out of all the things in this world to revolt over, this would be damn near at the bottom of my list.
Honestly, reading these posts of yours, I get the sound of a Klaxon going off

It really shouldn't be. The issue here is not about users having different internet speeds. It's about giving the power to manipulate these speeds to profit driven entities. Entities which can than legitimately and legally use them in what would by today's standards be counter competitive practices.

Like say for example your ISP has a deal with google to sell you, the end user faster speeds for watching youtube videos. In that scenario you not only do not lose, indeed you appear to win! You get faster youtube! That is great for you. Right?

Wrong.

By making youtube run faster for you every other video hosting site now runs slower. And not just by comparison either. That speed has to come from somewhere. And it's coming from the ISP slowing down internet for everyone else sharing your wire who is not using youtube at the time. And that basically gives youtube a monopoly on high quality high speed video streaming.

Before you know it netflix is dead. Vidme dies as well. Same story with Twitch. All dead not because they are worse products but because they can't pay your ISP enough money to keep their speeds up with youtube. And it only gets disproportionately worse the smaller a service is. The big ones I mentioned might survive, but new startups, businesses with a genuinely fresh and better model and service that are being developed right as we speak? They newer get off the ground.

So you are stuck in a perpetual oligopoly of what ever is big on the market today which in turn lets them do what ever the F they want because they know you have nobody else to turn to and newer will.

That's the problem here.

I understand the problem, and I just don't see all the reason for the "sky is falling, the sky is falling" whining. The internet worked just fine for many years before net neutrality, and the fact that the internet just isn't really all that important to me, so if it got to the point where it would be cost prohibitive for me to have, meh, I'd just let it go.

[Naval Monte]

I just found another site that uses different methods to contact representatives.
https://www.house.gov/representatives/f ... esentative

[Purpelia]

That was because they were unwritten rules... A gentlemen's agreement. Getting rid of the rules now gives the green light to unspeakable corporate evil to destroy the internet.

Corporations do not now, nor have they in recent history, operated under "unwritten rules" or "gentlemen's agreements". Corporations routinely flout the law, violate basic human morality, and commit acts that if perpetrated by a government could easily be classified as war crimes.

Yea, that argument of his is weak. Fundamentally it boils down to as I said the technology maturing and the passage of time required for it to not just be recognized not just as massively profitable but to allow big business to develop tools to reap that profit as ruthlessly as they do in other fields.

I too remember the world of 2005 and frankly if I was told back than what the internet would become today I would consider the person telling me a lunatic, dreamer or both. And I certainly would not spend a decade paying people to figure out the best way to rape that internet for money in its proposed future state. Right now, we have that state. And for a rare time in human history you have anti rape laws in place BEFORE a rape actually occurs.

[The Flutterlands]

It really shouldn't be. The issue here is not about users having different internet speeds. It's about giving the power to manipulate these speeds to profit driven entities. Entities which can than legitimately and legally use them in what would by today's standards be counter competitive practices.

Like say for example your ISP has a deal with google to sell you, the end user faster speeds for watching youtube videos. In that scenario you not only do not lose, indeed you appear to win! You get faster youtube! That is great for you. Right?

Wrong.

By making youtube run faster for you every other video hosting site now runs slower. And not just by comparison either. That speed has to come from somewhere. And it's coming from the ISP slowing down internet for everyone else sharing your wire who is not using youtube at the time. And that basically gives youtube a monopoly on high quality high speed video streaming.

Before you know it netflix is dead. Vidme dies as well. Same story with Twitch. All dead not because they are worse products but because they can't pay your ISP enough money to keep their speeds up with youtube. And it only gets disproportionately worse the smaller a service is. The big ones I mentioned might survive, but new startups, businesses with a genuinely fresh and better model and service that are being developed right as we speak? They newer get off the ground.

So you are stuck in a perpetual oligopoly of what ever is big on the market today which in turn lets them do what ever the F they want because they know you have nobody else to turn to and newer will.

That's the problem here.

I understand the problem, and I just don't see all the reason for the "sky is falling, the sky is falling" whining. The internet worked just fine for many years before net neutrality, and the fact that the internet just isn't really all that important to me, so if it got to the point where it would be cost prohibitive for me to have, meh, I'd just let it go.

Fuck that shit. They can go burn in hell before I give up or give in

[Engleberg]

ISPs in the South are already the shittiest that can be found on the East Coast. No matter what you're paying for, you're gonna get 50 mbps. Hell, they even charged me for services that didn't exist for houses I haven't lived in for months saying that I wanted to "keep the services on for the next owners" through a call that "we made" and on top of that charged for services that weren't operational for weeks.

Neutrality or not, it's always been and always will be shit.

[Saiwania]

The Portugal example has failed to convince me, I need more context for the history of internet service in that country. My take on this is that if people like net neutrality enough, why not vote in Justice Democrats in 2018 and onward? Chances are, the internet will be just fine. The worst can be undone.

[Purpelia]

I understand the problem, and I just don't see all the reason for the "sky is falling, the sky is falling" whining. The internet worked just fine for many years before net neutrality, and the fact that the internet just isn't really all that important to me, so if it got to the point where it would be cost prohibitive for me to have, meh, I'd just let it go.

Fundamentally it's because even if you think you can do without the internet you really can't. The internet is not just something you use or not use it's THE highway for information that gets used around you. So anything that effects it effects you like it or not.
So even if you absolutely do not use it at all and newer will it still pays to now allow a selfish amoral profit driven entity control over that information flow.

It's kind of like light in a way. Even if you are blind everyone around you isn't. And therefore you don't want to let just anyone control all the lamps.

[Engleberg]

The Portugal example has failed to convince me, I need more context for the history of internet service in that country. My take on this is that if people like net neutrality enough, why not vote in Justice Democrats in 2018 and onward? Chances are, the internet will be just fine. The worst can be undone.

Because some of us like the republican party.

[The Flutterlands]

The Portugal example has failed to convince me, I need more context for the history of internet service in that country. My take on this is that if people like net neutrality enough, why not vote in Justice Democrats in 2018 and onward? Chances are, the internet will be just fine. The worst can be undone.

Not in a decade or so...

[Len Hyet]

Corporations do not now, nor have they in recent history, operated under "unwritten rules" or "gentlemen's agreements". Corporations routinely flout the law, violate basic human morality, and commit acts that if perpetrated by a government could easily be classified as war crimes.

Yea, that argument of his is weak. Fundamentally it boils down to as I said the technology maturing and the passage of time required for it to not just be recognized not just as massively profitable but to allow big business to develop tools to reap that profit as ruthlessly as they do in other fields.

I too remember the world of 2005 and frankly if I was told back than what the internet would become today I would consider the person telling me a lunatic, dreamer or both. And I certainly would not spend a decade paying people to figure out the best way to rape that internet for money in its proposed future state. Right now, we have that state. And for a rare time in human history you have anti rape laws in place BEFORE a rape actually occurs.

I'm not saying net neutrality is bad or unnecessary, but it sure as shit isn't the end of the world.

To use their example, if you don't like not having crystal clear Netflix, switch to a different ISP. Something like 90% of Americans have more than two options for ISPs.

[Saiwania]

Because some of us like the republican party.

Being against Net Neutrality is apart of the Republican party platform for the time being, so people will have to make a decision on what priorities are important for them. If pro-Net Neutrality is issue #1 for you, then it makes sense to maybe go Democrat; might as well.

The reason I'm skeptical of net neutrality is because in the US' case, it simply isn't true that network traffic is truly neutral. All of the major infrastructure that carries data is owned by 4 or so major carriers. With or without net neutrality, the internet service situation is much worse in the US than in say, South Korea or Europe. Net Neutrality for me, is something that isn't obvious so far as its actual impact.

[The Flutterlands]

Yea, that argument of his is weak. Fundamentally it boils down to as I said the technology maturing and the passage of time required for it to not just be recognized not just as massively profitable but to allow big business to develop tools to reap that profit as ruthlessly as they do in other fields.

I too remember the world of 2005 and frankly if I was told back than what the internet would become today I would consider the person telling me a lunatic, dreamer or both. And I certainly would not spend a decade paying people to figure out the best way to rape that internet for money in its proposed future state. Right now, we have that state. And for a rare time in human history you have anti rape laws in place BEFORE a rape actually occurs.

I'm not saying net neutrality is bad or unnecessary, but it sure as shit isn't the end of the world.

To use their example, if you don't like not having crystal clear Netflix, switch to a different ISP. Something like 90% of Americans have more than two options for ISPs.

It is though.