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The End of Net Neutrality = the Beginning of the Fragmented Web
121 points by dontFartInSpace on Nov 22, 2017 | hide | past | favorite | 92 comments
The internet as we know it today is the result of years of technological evolution. Now we have the hardware and the benefit of hindsight to make creating networks much easier than it was the first time around. I am suggesting that once NN is dead, alternative networks of free information exchange are going to start popping up. The internet will fragment as necessary for free information exchange.

When discussing this ideas, people often get hung up on infrastructure. Remember that Puerto Rico is enjoying wireless internet infrastructure right now.

And keep in mind that a computer network does not need to support high speed communication to be a valid means of exchanging free ideas- which is what is really at stake with NN.



All this fighting for trying to convince the FCC not to dismantle net neutrality. This cause is lost. It was lost a year ago when Trump got elected. Fight in your state legislature to repeal any laws blocking municipal broadband then get it built locally. Bankrupt the big ISPs by providing better alternatives everywhere. Do it from the ground up. Two phone calls won't save you now. That's the road forward. No other way.


Seems like a strawman.

The media landscape's merging and anti-competitiveness started way back in the Clinton years and textbook revolving doors continued right up to Trump with Tom Wheeler being a textbook regulated becoming a regulator.

Nothing changed with Trump. He's just not (and probably not capable of) making an increased effort to reduce the permanence of power among money elites.

Having his personal net worth reduced pre vs post election as opposed to an increase for Clinton and Obama is probably as big a step in the right direction in favor of net neutrality than anything. A proper publicly funded election for the legislature is the next ultimate solution that will solve all this. The next best possibility is a self-funded election. An elite-funded election which is the state of the US is the worst option and the root cause of this.


Get out of here with that both sides the same bullshit. Wheeler was an industry man, but the the Obama administration fought to preserve net neutrality and Obama supported classifying ISPs as utilities.

Campaign donations and lobbying are a systematic problem, but laying the blame there and only there ignores the fact that there there are degrees of complicitness within a corrupt system, as well as degrees of the impact imposed by the corruption itself. Ultimately only one side of the aisle seems so eager to get in bed with ISPs to destroy the internet, to deny climate change in support of their fossil fuel benefactors, and to dismantle the healthcare system for the benefit of the rich.

Also, ask yourself which party supports citizen United, and which party obstructed any progress on legislative efforts to address it?


Identity politics is just today's means of mass control as an evolution on the use of violence or religion or some such. Classic Orwell vs Huxley.

Getting the oppressed to self-drain oxygen by subdividing everyone into every which way to stop conversation about their self interest is the success the elites are seeking. The only meaningful distinction in today's america's social struggles is the class distinction between the common and the elite.

The (CNN approved) examples you're giving are right. Though there are tons of non corporate news reported 'republican' things democrats have more success doing like making Bush elite tax cuts permanent, more wars of invasion, banking deregulation, social security privatization.

> but laying the blame there and only there ignores the fact that there there are degrees of complicitness within a corrupt system, as well as degrees of the impact imposed by the corruption itself

Sounds circular. Or maybe I misunderstood what you meant. Can you rephrase?


What a load of complete waffling nonsense. You admit that the OP was correct that things were different under the Obama administration, then say it doesn't matter because Democrats get the country involved in wars? Please.

"The only way to fix anything is to fix everything" is deeply intellectually lazy and allows you to disengage from any politics until it meets your idealised standard of what politics should be. Lets you feel great while you achieve absolutely nothing. We can all do better than that.


Are we on the same thread? Your comments seem unrelated to the post you're responding to.

> You admit that the OP was correct that things were different under the Obama administration

What are you referring to?

> "The only way to fix anything is to fix everything"

What are you referring to? I'm saying let's fix the problem instead of being dragged into beating each other over unrelated bikeshedding while the beneficiaries of the problem continue to benefit. How did that translate into "The only way to fix anything is to fix everything"?


Tom Wheeler was very different from Ajit Pai. The optics may look the same, but Wheeler took a very critical stance on the telco perspective on multiple issues. If anything his background as a lobbyist let him navigate the inevitable moral hazards better.


As I understand it, Wheeler was a cable lobbyist back when cable was the upstart against the broadcast incumbents. So it may have been easier for him to appreciate the upstart perspective as well as that of the incumbent.


> The media landscape's merging and anti-competitiveness started way back in the Clinton years

No, it was well underway in the early 1980s; I think it started in the 1970s. The impact it was having on reporting was already a major discussion point before Clinton was elected.


I agree. I'd opine the most impactful and negative aspect that impacts today's social landscape though is still the telecommunication act of 1996.


Lets cut through all the noise and look at the President's uncut opinion on net neutrality.

>Donald J. Trump‏ Verified account

>@realDonaldTrump

>Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/53260835850816716...


The FTC is taking over and will uphold net neutrality, the FCC is giving it to the FTC who can run it better for consumer protections. The rules for the last 2 years and the 300+ page document will go away under the FCC, but that doesnt mean the FTC will not do anything. This will change the classification from title-2 regulation to title-1 regulation, and enforce privacy protections and access/censorship restrictions.

The end of the world it is not, and the hyperbole is at an alltime absurd level.

As for access, 5 years, LTE 5, Viasat3/4 will provide coverage around the world. FCC guidelines for internet access at the pole will go into communities to allow the breaking up of limited choice ISP for some communities. Google fiber and Facebook internet already helped promote the change.


Wrong. They say the FTC will be responsible for enforcing consumer protections, but then they went right ahead and eliminated most of them, while giving some BS reasons for doing so:

> "We eliminate the formal complaint procedures because the informal complaint procedure, in conjunction with other redress options including consumer protection laws, will sufficiently protect consumers.

> Additionally, we eliminate the position of Open Internet Ombudsperson because the staff from the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau—other than the Ombudsperson—have been performing the Ombudsperson functions envisioned by the Title II Order.

> We also eliminate the issuance of enforcement advisory opinions, because enforcement advisory opinions do not diminish regulatory uncertainty, particularly for small providers. Instead, they add costs and uncertain timelines since there is no specific timeframe within which to act, which can also inhibit innovation."

Also, I don't think any other "consumer protection" ever upheld the idea that ISPs shouldn't be nickle and diming consumers by splitting the internet into service packages, like what's happening in Portugal.

The net neutrality rules were those consumer protections, and the ones the ISPs wanted most to eliminate.

Oh, and as a bonus, they also eliminated the rules that said there shouldn't be any interconnection fees - like the stuff that got Verizon and Comcast to drastically slow-down Netflix and YouTube the last time around (before net neutrality passed), until the two companies had to pay up.

> "We believe that applying Title II to Internet traffic exchange arrangements was unnecessary and is likely to inhibit competition and innovation. We find that freeing Internet traffic exchange arrangements from burdensome government regulation, and allowing market forces to discipline this emerging market is the better course. Indeed, the cost of Internet transit fell over 99 percent on a cost-per-megabit basis from 2005 to 2015.

Google and Netflix didn't fight the net neutrality repeal this time around because they thought they were safe. I think they will regret not fighting the repeal very soon.


Brilliantly put.

Just to add one more point: many of us are now bound by forced arbitration agreements with our ISPs. That more or less eliminates the courts as an option for class or individual action. It's convenient that Pai glossed over this little fact.

That means we're stuck with the FTC, and only the FTC. And if they don't do anything for you, that's too bad.

This will be devastating, mark my words.


Reclassification from title-2 to title-1 is the only thing preventing ISP providers from ending Net Neutrality. I disagree with your statement. This change would have serious consequences.


My belief is that the hyperbole is far too little, far too late. This will be as bad as people say, and the only thing that looks like it might save us is the courts.


> The FTC is taking over

No, they aren't. Unless the FTC v. AT&T 9th Circuit decision gets reversed, they can't do anything in this area, unless the FCC also reverses the Title II classification of telephone service, since that decision blocks much FTC action involving firms that are common carriers, even when the action concerns non-common-carrier operations of the firm. And many ISPs are telcos that would be protected from FTC regulation by that ruling.


OK Dr. Pangloss


Unless I'm horribly mistaken, switching to your small local ISP won't change things, either. Because they don't own the pipes. They lease them from (you guessed it) AT&T, et al.

And as a non-American, this still terrifies me, because the U.S. is the nucleus that holds the web together. It's darn near impossible to overstate how much decisions in the U.S. will impact the whole world.

This is not an issue that a free market can solve, because when it comes to main lines that connect the whole Web, it's practically a monopoly of the big boys. It's their sandbox.

Net Neutrality hid the consequences of this from us by forcing them to play nice. Scrap it and they have way too much power.


I have wireless Internet from a local ISP delivered to my building by point-to-point microwave. They have to get a license from the FCC but they effectively "own" their own pipes all they way up to the ISPs that they peer with.

Hopefully the silver lining in this is this will result in more wireless ISPs popping up since they can bypass the incumbent wired phone/cable providers.


That's the point, I think. CDNs are all tier one, and tier one is where the bandwidth shaping will happen?


True, maybe we will see more content providers following the Netflix model. They basically are their own CDN and will give ISPs free caching appliances/settlement free peering.

https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/

Unfortunately, ISPs such as Comcast have already perverted this model and demanded Netflix to pay up for access to their network despite throwing in free hardware and peering.

https://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix-came-t...


As someone outside of the US, I expect there would be such an uproar over here if we had to start waiting longer and longer for fb/twitter/youtube/etc pages to load, that people will just switch to a European business instead. Currently no one over here even talks about NN, but as soon as page loads increase dramatically and actually affect people in their day to day lives you can bet they'll switch. I imagine European businesses are scrambling right now in order to be the next big social network.


Remember the experiment from 2009 where net neutrality was thought to be implemented through competition in the EU? Horrible failure and definitely did not results in NN being maintained, EU had to intervene with legislation to stop the drift away from NN.


Do you mean this proposal?

https://euobserver.com/creative/27859 (from 2009)


Yup

> This approach is backed by the European Commission, which argues that if consumers feel their content is somehow being compromised, they will switch to other providers.

So if anyone comes up with free-market will invisibly push for NN argument, slap them with this and see how they respond ;-)


Would this really happen?

I think the global players will just serve content from outside the US (they've all got datacenters in the EU anyway).


And the argument that Chairman Pai made that this is what is holding back innovation, we will really see what that looks like when people have to pay for Facebook wonder how that might affect them...


I think the fight is mostly over the last mile, not the backbone that connects DCs to intercontinental cables.


It's not that Facebook (or whoever) will suffer, it's that competition with Facebook will suffer.


Why wouldn't market pressures force some ISPs to provide unfettered access to the internet? As a consumer, you might choose an ISP that prioritises say Netflix above everything else to guarantee a good experience. For someone who prefers diversity of content, might pick an ISP that does not prioritise in the same way.


In many places there is no market to speak of that would provide pressure. In the building I live in I have exactly one reasonable way to get on the net, and that is through AT&T. Market solutions do not exist when monopolies are present.


The vast majority of Americans have one or two ISP choices for broadband. Where I am in Denver, it is only Xfinity. Some friends can choose between Xfinity and Century Link.


I don't know if you are aware or not, but Boulder is in the process of 'municipalizing' the electrical grid and will be moving on to broadband once complete. It will be interesting to observe the process, though it will not happen overnight.


This is a good point. It's why the federal government should prohibit local monopolies for the provision of internet services. A major problem is that for years localities allowed/encourage monopolies for telephone and cable and now we are stuck with local monopolies.


Lack of net neutrality regulations for 25 years didn’t cause any problems. Why is this now the end of the world?


Sigh, net neutrality became a topic of conversation when it became apparent that ISP's were interfering with content they didn't like.

https://www.eff.org/wp/packet-forgery-isps-report-comcast-af...

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/186576-verizon-caught-...

These network operators are easily swayed by organizations willing to wave money at them. With the repeal everyone expects this kind of behavior to return, and extend as ISP's come up with more creative ways to leverage their networks for financial gain. I don't think anyone would mind, if the results were better networks, but the telecom industry in the US has repeatedly demonstrated that their absolute last priority when it comes to spending their profits is network upgrades. Literally everything else comes first.


See this[1] thread for some examples of where lack of neutrality can be anti-competitive and anti-consumer.

[1] https://np.reddit.com/r/KeepOurNetFree/comments/7ej1nd/fcc_u...


Lots of people are really emotionally attached to this issue, and kind of ignore this simple fact. "Net neutrality" has never been a thing and it has never prevented any of the nefarious nonsense people are imagining.


It just makes all of this self-righteous outrage worth keeping in mind in a few years when the issue comes back up again. If the world is still spinning, perhaps we can all re-evaluate whether future doomsday predictions are worth taking seriously.


The world always keeps spinning. Just in one future you have Star Trek, and in the other, Blade Runner. Once dystopia becomes fait accompli, the beneficiaries of the status quo also benefit from the difficulty of arguing for counterfactual histories without access to a world with those histories.

But that doesn't mean nothing was lost, or that some huge chunk of human potential wasn't sacrificed. In that regard, for the people who see how things could have been, the predictions of doom were accurate.


Well no--proponents are making very falsifiable claims about what will happen without Net Neutrality. Freedom of speech on the net is at stake! Tiered Internet access! Slower speeds for small business web sites. Those will be easily verifiable.

For the rest, you're right. It's just like how we can't calculate the "huge chunk of human potential" we missed out on as a result of decreased competition and investment since the regulation was created in 2015. All we can do is guess. Who knows--maybe we would have had the Enterprise!

Do you have any other colorful ways of "crying wolf?"


Friendly reminder: it was just a couple of weeks ago when 3-4 lawyers could go to congress and talk with serious faces about what they should do to control speech posted on the internet without being laughed out of the room due to the absurdity of the proposition.

We're already one foot in the dystopia, I'm afraid. Decentralization of these services can't come fast enough.


Much like the uproar over that ISP privacy law that was never in effect, I feel like this battle was lost 10 years ago and nobody cared until Trump did something.


Do you think the internet is the same as it ever was? I think the internet, it's uses, and the ISPs, have all changed and that it's worth revisiting regulations applied. There are valid arguments, but the fact that we were fine without regulations previously does not mean we will continue to be as companies grow to the point where they can't be competed with anymore.


> Lack of net neutrality regulations for 25 years didn’t cause any problems

We've had net neutrality as FCC policy with different enforcement mechanisms (changing based on court actions closing off the earlier approaches) continuosly since 2004. What 25 year period are you talking about?


25 years ago people/corporations had morals, now not so much.


Citation needed?


> a computer network does not need to support high speed communication to be a valid means of exchanging free ideas

this ^^ a thousand times. the frequent focus on streaming media in the discussion about net neutrality is disconcerting, to me. I've previously gotten pushback for looking down my nose at the gems of modern creative storytelling, but I still think the collective human experience would be better served seeking fewer unidirectional modes of entertainment / more cooperative & collaborative types of entertainment for ourselves.

taking this opportunity to plug https://scuttlebutt.nz which is where I get the majority of my social media these days.


This is somewhat true. It's a fact that a lot of the bandwidth on the web at present is unwanted garbage - perhaps Sturgeon's law (that 90% of everything is crap) is inevitable and innovations are just temporary departures from that mean. I'm regularly horrified by the amount of bandwidth employed to deliver me a tiny little bit of information in text form like a news story.

Anyone remember Hotline? it was sort of like a last-gasp implementation of BBS culture across IP for a time when the web was small but heavily curated, and people needed a simple, user-friendly, but unregulated channel to exchange content in private, though from what I remember a lot of that inevitably ended up being porn and other stuff which you now get on the dark web. It was not unlike Facebook in terms of the actual UX (eg easy to send text, very limited markup options), but distributed and client-centric.

Nothing would make me happier than a resurgence of Usenet, or a deployment of the web annotation protocol (anyone know of activity in this area?) that was scriptable and could allow federations of affinity groups to cooperatively filter and trackback bullshit on the web, as a step towards the eventual realization of the Infosphere.


People have been suggesting this for 20 years. Unless you think there has been some major change in how to achieve this it's not likely to happen. In fact it will probably be even harder now when people might get facebook (etc.) for free.


Until Google has another BGP "accident" and takes down Facebook for 6 hours. Think of the rise in GDP we might see from that!


I'd love to see IPFS take off https://ipfs.io


I’m a big fan of IPFS, but I’m disappointed to see it mentioned in this thread. It only serves to distract from the issue of net neutrality.

As great as IPFS is, it won’t help if the price for general-purpose internet skyrockets. Access to YouTube, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter will continue to have competitive prices, but the rates for out-of-band networking like IPFS and VPNs may skyrocket without the average consumer even noticing.


I agree we need to be fighting on the NN front still, but what do you mean by "out-of-band" in reference to IPFS? I take out-of-band in this context to refer to host names, essentially, but isn't IPFS (or any other content-addressed protocol) designed to not need names to begin with?


By out-of-band in this case, I mean out of the mainstream consumption of the internet (web browsers, https, ssl certs). ISPs could block everything other than this, and most internet users wouldn’t notice or care.

I think tools like IPFS will always need something like host names. Content-addressability helps you access the data once you have the address, but how can you know the latest ID of the thing you are looking for? In the IPFS world, you’d use IPNS (interplanetary name service) for this, but I’m not sure how it actually works in a distributed fashion.


While I am a fan of the project, what's stopping your ISP from disabling or crippling all IPFS/P2P traffic?


Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The only solution to this is to organize and fight for NN in legislation at this point. All of these alternative internet systems are a complete waste of time until someone tells me how they're going to get around traffic shaping at the backbone level. There's not going to be a continent-wide wireless mesh network either.

I know regulations can be anathema to many HN readers, but if there was ever a justification for one, it's the 2015 Open Internet Order.


this is absolutely not what you think it is.


Elaborate please.


solution to the problem is a physical efficient mesh network.

this is a file sharing p2p based on artificial incentives that is extremely inefficient and runs on top of an assumed network.

it is actually akin to removing net neutrality from internet caches! "want you content cached, pay with this cryptocoin"


This is too excellent for me to have missed! Thanks


Your last point is one that I find the most troubling. That NN would mean that the freedom of data is being subverted. Imagine the company (YC:2020!!) that could position themselves to be junctions on those disparate networks. I am sure there is a YC app being completed right now!


A problem with the fragmented internet is at the current stage it wont be able to match the speeds. So some sort of non-neutrality would have to be possible anyway, otherwise people watching netflix would render the network unusable for everyone.


Does anyone know how to skip an ISP and plug directly into the internet?


Become an ISP

https://hackaday.com/2017/11/18/becoming-your-own-isp-just-f...


Pai won't get away with it - he will likely lose in court. The problem is, that this will shift to the Congress, which is plagued by the same corruption.


> I am suggesting that once NN is dead, alternative networks of free information exchange are going to start popping up.

I don't think they would allow that.


That is the beautiful part implemented correctly, they wont have the chance to object. Heaven help all of us should it come to that.


You don't need NN if you just pay per byte.


That's a separate issue. Even if you pay per byte, the ISP can charge more for bytes from one domain than from another, or refuse to transmit some bytes.


That's true, but when you're paying per byte its in the ISPs' best interest to get you as many bytes as possible. I firmly believe that the reason most ISPs want to be able to throttle isn't some nefarious plan to prioritise friendly providers, but simply to advertise more bandwidth than they have - in the past that's been fine because most customers didn't use much. But now that IP has replaced dedicated video bandwidth in the form of cable and FTA, the usage patterns no longer support that, because most customers are using shitloads of bandwidth- and more importantly, they're all doing it at the same time when they get home from work and sit down to watch some telly.


> when you're paying per byte its in the ISPs' best interest to get you as many bytes as possible

Yes, all other things being equal. But if the ISP owns a video streaming service, all other things aren't equal. Bytes from their own service bring them more revenue.

> I firmly believe that the reason most ISPs want to be able to throttle isn't some nefarious plan to prioritise friendly providers, but simply to advertise more bandwidth than they have

This would also be nefarious.

"We said we can deliver X but we can't, so let's selectively degrade our service to make it seem like we can" is a nefarious plan.

An honest plan would be to advertise "up to X Mbps, minimum of Y Mbps, charges prorated by available speed" and deliver on it.


How would this affect crypto currencies?


Consider that there is no way to inject ads or snoop on the sites you visit. There is no way they can productize crypto currencies. Unless they can steal it, or make you mine them on your machines for the ISP. So they'll probably cut them off to reduce the load on the network so they can spend less on infrastructure and stop any needed upgrades.


I was referring from the perspective of:

- how the network would respond to degraded connectivity.

- which protocol is more resilient? bitcoin, ethereum, etc.


Probably take forever to verify something.


Good question. This is a concern of mine


This is one of the main reasons I am not panicked about net neutrality. Net neutrality favors giant, centralized entities that have more than enough issues of their own. Net neutrality is, in effect, designed to preserve the status quo of the Internet, as it is ideally beneficial to net neutrality's primary sponsors: Google and Netflix.

I think there are ISP options that net neutrality prohibits which are worth exploring for some people, and if repealing net neutrality benefits decentralization or creates a radical shift in the Internet design instead, I won't consider that a catastrophic outcome.

Fragmentation, in this context, is the negative connotation of the word decentralization.


"Net neutrality favors giant, centralized entities that have more than enough issues of their own. Net neutrality is, in effect, designed to preserve the status quo of the Internet, as it is ideally beneficial to net neutrality's primary sponsors: Google and Netflix."

You clearly don't understand how any of this works. Not having NN is much closer to what you're describing, as it will stop new competitors from being able to compete, because the big guys can pay to always be faster/cheaper/more accessible/free.


I heavily disagree. Google and Netflix together account for approximately 70-80% of all Internet traffic. All of the rest of the Internet is a footnote from the standpoint of traffic management.

The understanding that is so often missed here, is that Google and Netflix are large enough that ISPs want to negotiate those arrangements individually, because it's a significant part of their business. None of their competitors, none of the startups, even make a blip on the radar of an ISP.

If ISPs start billing websites, they will be sending out bills to two companies, and only those two companies.


"I think there are ISP options that net neutrality prohibits which are worth exploring for some people, and if repealing net neutrality benefits decentralization or creates a radical shift in the Internet design instead, I won't consider that a catastrophic outcome."

Like what? Any examples? Also the word "innovation" is not an example, even if it's the example I hear most. "You can't possibly understand because it's complicated" isn't an example either. If not I'm fine with the status quo.


Example from the most extreme end of what people hate about what the repeal might mean: I have no problem if an ISP wants to offer an extremely affordable Internet plan that explicitly doesn't work with streaming video for low income families. I'd rather ISPs gate the content by type than cripple them with a 5 Mbps or 10 Mbps throttle like a general low cost Internet line today.

I really hate the current speed tiering model used by most landline providers, because it means ISPs have the capacity available but are intentionally reducing your service quality because you haven't paid them enough to justify providing the best quality they can offer.

I understand why Google and Netflix would be strongly against something like that though, it reduces their customer base for YouTube and Netflix.


Except Netflix has formally stated they don't care about Net Neutrality anymore. If they get throttled, they can tell their customers the ISP is doing it, and the ISP will face massive backlash. Netflix is now a big incumbent force that benefits from unequal service. Netflix DID support it in 2014, when they were smaller, not so much anymore.


This is classic propaganda. When a company explicitly states they don't care about something, but that you should care about it... doesn't the very fact they're posting about it indicate they care?

Also, this is Netflix caring, today: https://twitter.com/netflix/status/933042368156123136


>Net neutrality favors giant, centralized entities that have more than enough issues of their own...Google and Netflix

What about the next level up, the ISP? Doesn't repealing NN favor those giant centralized entities such as AT&T and Comcast?


If you look at one of my other responses in this thread, you'll see I am largely in favor of ISPs being able to experiment with alternative models of billing for Internet usage. Bear in mind, the whole "you'll suddenly have to pay extra to see this website" nonsense is just that... nonsense.

Also, bear in mind, ISPs are a tiny threat compared to Google. None of the ISPs we're talking about have a scope outscaling the United States, but Google is a global threat that has the influence and power to bully individual countries into compliance with what they want. Suffice to say, the ISPs are not the giant entity here, relatively speaking.

ISPs can and should be fought by the FTC when they engage in unfair business practices or collusion. Ajit Pai's plan includes granting the FTC additional authority to do just that.

Also, we've already started to see wireless home Internet plans in the 4G space, and that's likely to continue to grow when 5G launches. A lot of households are mobile only at this point, which presents a very different avenue of competition. I have and will always have a wired landline, but the wireless competition with wireline providers will likely help keep things moving on a competition front.


I agree Google is a definite global threat, but how are you so sure that ISPs won't begin charging for access to internet content like they do for cable content?


Well, first of all, bear in mind that cable content involves partnerships between the provider and the content. And even when T-Mobile offers it's Binge On-type services, that's through an agreement as well.

The idea that an ISP could just arbitrarily block a given site without being paid a fee and without getting sued to oblivion is silly. Most of what Netflix and stuff is upset about is being asked to pay for specific peering agreements, which is, IMHO, perfectly fine. If Netflix wants optimized networking just for them, they may have to pay extra for it.


>The idea that an ISP could just arbitrarily block a given site without being paid a fee and without getting sued to oblivion is silly.

From the summary items listed here[1], NN explicitly bans blocking of websites.

If NN is repealed, wouldn't that make it legal? And if it is legal, wouldn't that make any lawsuits against it frovolous?

[1]https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/03/12/392544534...


The fact that an extraneous law is removed doesn't make everything explicitly banned by it legal. There's already a litany of laws regarding unfair and anticompetitive business practices which have been and will continue to be illegal. I find most net neutrality advocates seem to ignore this entirely.

We have existing laws that, appropriately applied by regulations, already would prohibit an ISP from barring access to a competitor's content services.


So it's a redundant fail safe then? Why remove a failsafe?




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