Gummint bad!
Checkmate, Timex.
Not completely true, I was opposed to net neutrality for a fairly long time on technocractic grounds. I felt that just saying “treat all traffic equal” was too simplistic a regulatory framework and more nuance was needed to do things like, say, give 911 calls higher network priority. But since it seems like the current choice is “Business can do whatever they want” or “Net Neutrality” I’ll support the latter.
I mean, I understand @Tortilla 's viewpoint. Government regulation isn’t always the best way to handle things. But, with what we have seen ISP’s do with their current freedom, coupled with the continued homogenization of the market, where you have a large portion of Americans with little to no choice in what their ISP is, net neutrality is the only way to ensure an open internet.
Like, in a perfect world, we would have all of the tubes set up and multiple service providers competing for our dollar, driving innovation, and allowing the competition in the market drive the product. But right now, the market is so noncompetitive that ISPs aren’t going to use this for any sort of customer benefit, as they can change their product basically without fear of losing subscribers.
I mean, heck, in a perfect world, other utilities would work this way. I could shop around for the best power company, maybe choose a provider with green technologies. That would be nice, but like the phone lines and power lines, they are owned an maintained by local monopolies, so regulation has to exist to prevent anti-consumer practices.
This is less net neutrality and more lack of competition, but it’s the same root…telecoms building up their oligarchy and rent-seeking instead of investing in improvements.
Ajit Pai’s latest anti-consumer, anti-competition fuckery:
So good news/bad news today.
Bad news is that an appeals court said that the FCC can repeal Net Neutrality rules.
The good news is that the court also said that states are within their rights to pass their own net neutrality laws.
This will certainly get appealed, and I think there’s still a lawsuit against California for doing just that, but maybe there’s hope.
So sick of this country being gutted for the ultra rich.
A-frakking-men.
We’re going to need to go to the Wall of China to have room to put all these cretins up against the wall.
That’s a Wall I can get behind!
This isn’t Net Neutrality exactly, but this seems to be our general FCC fuckery thread, so here’s some more:
Big court fight over whether the FCC can force localities to remove fees on cable broadband networks. Kills a bunch of local content if it happens.
And this is Republican rule in a nutshell. Make laws so that corporations can literally steal money from citizens, and they get rich by being their mules.
In National Cable & Telecommunications Association v. Brand X Internet Services , better known as Brand X , Thomas wrote the 6-3 majority opinion that upheld a Federal Communications Commission decision to classify cable broadband as an information service. But in a dissent on a new case, released Monday, Thomas wrote that he got Brand X wrong. Thomas regrets that Brand X gave federal agencies extensive power to interpret US law, a power generally reserved for judges.
“Regrettably, Brand X has taken this Court to the precipice of administrative absolutism,” Thomas wrote. “Under its rule of deference, agencies are free to invent new (purported) interpretations of statutes and then require courts to reject their own prior interpretations.”
Get bent you idiot.
Original intent doesn’t even work for shit he says apparently.
Fairly minor in the grand scheme of things, but this is a sign of the direction we’re headed.
I can’t really get mad at this. It’s a bonus for AT&T subscribers. Nobody is being punished for using Netflix, the situation today is the same as it was yesterday.
There’s also pretty decent competition in the wireless space, so if the HBO Max benefit bothers someone, they can go to Verizon and forgo it.
Data caps are garbage, and it’s going to lead to more preferential treatment. I am not okay with this at all.
The problem here is that content providers essentially are being forced to pay the ISP for preferential treatment, gaining a competitive edge.
The same of this is that it gives existing content providers (large companies who can afford to pay for such deals) a competitive advantage over small new startups.
And this degradation of open competition And additional favoring of existing large companies, does in fact pose a threat to you as the consumer.
AT&T owns HBO Max. They’re not being forced to pay anyone.