Vote for Net Neutrality

[Pixieplumb Flanagan]

2 minutes ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

Hey!  What do you expect from a British colony, anyway?

Well, better table manners and a proper appreciation of the English language, for a start, but otherwise, no, not much.

[Rhonda Huntress]

We speak good English.

That is another point.  English is not a real language as much as "borrowed" pieces from everyone else.  It does fit the theme we seem to have going, tho.
 

[Luna Bliss]

3 minutes ago, Pixieplumb Flanagan said:

Well, better table manners and a proper appreciation of the English language, for a start, but otherwise, no, not much.

British accents are so cute...when talking to someone on the phone from the UK I can't even understand what they're saying...all I can think about is how cute they sound

But cockney....wow people can say several sentences and I can't comprehend anything.

[Pixieplumb Flanagan]

5 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

British accents are so cute...when talking to someone on the phone from the UK I can't even understand what they're saying...all I can think about is how cute they sound

But cockney....wow people can say several sentences and I can't comprehend anything.

Yes, my husband is a proper Cockney and whenever we go to London to visit our daughter (we live in Cornwall) his accent becomes more 'eastenders' with every passing mile.  He says I do a similar thing when we go to Amersham (a small country town in Buckinghamshire) where I'm from; apparently my vowels become so strangled I sound like the queen.  I don't know cute we might sound, but we give each other hours of laughter!

[Rhonda Huntress]

Derail complete.  My work here is done

 

[Luna Bliss]

Just now, Rhonda Huntress said:

Derail complete.  My work here is done

Can't get more back on track than this, happening now:

https://www.fcc.gov/general/live

[Qie Niangao]

11 hours ago, EclecticJohn Niven said:

Actually, Net Neutrality does not go nearly far enough.  No one should be able to buy a car faster than any other!  No one should be able to pay for faster delivery of a package.  USPS, FedEx, and UPS should be forced to have one delivery fee for the SAME delivery time.  As soon as we have that, we can move on to Life Neutrality!

This is a great analogy, instructive specifically for how it falls apart with reference to Net Neutrality.

In the vast majority of US markets, Internet access is a monopoly or duopoly. So the analogy would be that only FedEx could come to your door to deliver anything, except in some markets where UPS can get there but only two days later (DSL sucks, telco fibre rollout is dead in the water, and 5G will be prohibitively expensive).

But where it really goes wrong is that in this analogy, FedEx owns (a junky version of) Amazon (NBCUniversal) and UPS owns (an even junkier version of) WalMart (Oath). So if you want to get anything delivered from anybody else, good luck.

Or if you want to start a company, good luck getting customers without giving all your profit to one or both of those delivery duopolists.

[sirhc DeSantis]

So much fun to watch the Free Market (copyright applied for) try to justify itself after decades of pretending to not be a monopoly. Randian cocktails all round Boys and .. the others.

Sorry. Its a lovely sideshow I watch as real stuff happens.

[Prokofy Neva]

22 hours ago, Skell Dagger said:

I rarely weigh in on posts with a political bent, but - in the 1900s - the only Liberal governments were from 1905 to 1910 (PMs Campbell-Bannerman, Asquith, and the wartime coalition of Lloyd George that went into 1918). The Labour Party didn't come to its first government until 1924, after a year of Conservative government. The only other time since then that the 'Liberal Party' has been in power in any format was the Liberal Democrat/Conservative coalition government (PM David Cameron and DPM Nick Clegg) from 2010 to 2015, and Cameron pretty much called the tune during that time. The Liberal Party itself was disbanded in 1988, at which point they merged with the SDP to become the Liberal Democrats.

I'm aware that, for some Americans, 'socialist' and 'socialism' are dirty words, but the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK is a fine example of socialist principles at their best (and I say that not being anything approaching a socialist myself; if anything I'm mostly independent and may vote differently between government and local elections, depending on who I feel will best serve my local community at grassroots and/or governmental levels). A few years ago I ended up in hospital in the early hours of a Sunday morning, kept in for several nights, underwent multiple tests (including several x-rays and expensive scans) and the final bill for that was.... zero. Nothing at all. Just the taxes that I and other working Brits pay in our wages. The same treatment would be given to anyone else resident in the UK when suffering a medical emergency, be they some homeless guy sleeping rough or a migrant awaiting processing or an American tourist just visiting the country for a couple of weeks.

And I'm quite happy to pay for that.

There are very good reasons for the words "socialism" and "socialist" being dirty words -- there is a long history of manipulation, lying, violence etc around these words, and we have only to look at the folly and vengeance of the Sanders campaign in our country to see this. Liberals were in a coalition, yes -- and for five long years. And that *is* liberalism, different than socialism, so it has been described generically and accurately.

These anecdotes about health care meaningless. I know people who have racked up enormous emergency room and hospital bills and haven't paid them and will never pay them because the hospitals have to treat them, regardless of their ability to pay. It's rare that someone is put out in the street, and yes, you see a few highly-publicized cases from Mexico, for example, that do indeed appear heinous and cruel, but the overwhelming number of cases are about hospitals going broke with people who get care and don't pay, and hospitals struggling to try to create programs where people go to clinics and prevention visits instead of winding up in the more expensive ER.

But more to the point, the homeless guy or the British tourist would get equal care here as well, although they might get a bill for formality's sake and if they couldn't pay it, it would eventually be dropped. That is indeed how it works, so it's a poor place to try to take a stand to prove the "worth" of socialism.

By the same token, I remember when I nearly died of appendicitis in Canada because it was not diagnosed for weeks, and I waited for weeks for attention under socialized medicine. Everybody has a story. There's a reason why countries don't choose socialism, and when they do, there are drives to undo it and endless warfare over it. 

So pay away, but there's also a reason why people in the UK go to other countries for medical care, just as Canadians come down here on regular bus trips because they get tired of waiting in line. 

None of this is remotely relevant to the hysteria around net neutrality, where no one is going to die if they can't play WoW.

[Prokofy Neva]

19 minutes ago, sirhc DeSantis said:

So much fun to watch the Free Market (copyright applied for) try to justify itself after decades of pretending to not be a monopoly. Randian cocktails all round Boys and .. the others.

Sorry. Its a lovely sideshow I watch as real stuff happens.

You *do* realize that free markets in real life are not at all like the caricature in Ayn Rand's novels or your imagination. They have social services and social programs and regulations and the rule of law. No one has proven that the absence of net neutrality (which we didn't have for years) was a negative. It's all hysteria and hate.

[Prokofy Neva]

52 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

This is a great analogy, instructive specifically for how it falls apart with reference to Net Neutrality.

In the vast majority of US markets, Internet access is a monopoly or duopoly. So the analogy would be that only FedEx could come to your door to deliver anything, except in some markets where UPS can get there but only two days later (DSL sucks, telco fibre rollout is dead in the water, and 5G will be prohibitively expensive).

But where it really goes wrong is that in this analogy, FedEx owns (a junky version of) Amazon (NBCUniversal) and UPS owns (an even junkier version of) WalMart (Oath). So if you want to get anything delivered from anybody else, good luck.

Or if you want to start a company, good luck getting customers without giving all your profit to one or both of those delivery duopolists.

But your counter-analogy doesn't work, either. There isn't a case where FedEx gets there, and DSL only gets there 2 days later. Again, this is mostly about San Francisco only having ComCast. We used to only have Verizon in our building, too. Enough people lobbied to have Time Warner and Road Runner come in. It can be done. Also, not having choice is not about having human rights violations, but just not having a very developed market.

[Prokofy Neva]

23 hours ago, Pixieplumb Flanagan said:

Crime? Oh dear, you have got your knickers in a twist.  Do you think I hate you?  Surely not.  You're not of any consequence to me to qualify for that.  You really are just a bit of a sad case, and it's a shame you get teased and wound up like you do, but you'll continue to bring it on yourself because you can't help it.  

I'm just teasing you because you rise to it without fail.  It's the same reason you get griefed in world.  You're just too easy.

Also, anyone who would choose trump over Jeremy Corbyn, who I have met, and who is a man of utter decency and integrity, well, you're beyond parody, frankly.  You just openly supported a paedophile, a rapist, a traitor to your own country. Wow.  Amazing.  No hatred, prokky, but a fair measure of sickened disgust, which I wager is shared quite widely.  What a sad little woman you are.

"who I have met, and who is a man of utter decency and integrity," -- well now, we've taken your measure. Corbyn is a notorious antisemite, a Putin lover, an Assad apologist and much more, as anybody who can read a newspaper has discovered now, so the tankies can't keep it to themselves any more. And it's typical of haters that they project others as being haters, or rising to bait or getting their "knickers in a twist" when it is merely calm and collected reasoning against hysterical, wishful thinking based on socialist ideology. The reason I am griefed is because a) griefers are criminals and do that b) the Lindens snicker and are dilatory, because c) people like you support it socially. That's all. It's not about me being anything, that's not what it is about. Assad, Putin, etc. thrive for the same reasons, the same dynamics, although of course on a wildly different scale. So I'm glad we see what you're about now and once you've got someone saying Corby is a man of "utter decency" then you know it is never worth debating the person. You see, this is why socialism, net neutrality, all of it get a bad name. This. 

 

[Prokofy Neva]

On 12/13/2017 at 11:40 AM, Luna Bliss said:

Why do you dislike Silicon Valley so much?

If you have to ask that question after being inside Second Life for so many years and experiencing many of the negative features of Silicon Valley yourself, I don't know where to start. But read my blog Wired State. I was simply early with my critique, it's now all over the place.

[Phil Deakins]

16 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

And it's typical of haters that they project others as being haters,

You mean like this?

On 13/12/2017 at 9:55 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

Honestly, you're way off course in this discussion merely because of your own seething hatred.

OUTED!

 

 

Edited December 15, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Qie Niangao]

26 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

But your counter-analogy doesn't work, either. There isn't a case where FedEx gets there, and DSL only gets there 2 days later. Again, this is mostly about San Francisco only having ComCast. We used to only have Verizon in our building, too. Enough people lobbied to have Time Warner and Road Runner come in. It can be done. Also, not having choice is not about having human rights violations, but just not having a very developed market.

Yeah. And? I mean, there are a tiny number of US markets with sufficient residential unit density to support more than two even tolerably "broadband" carriers, and in fact the San Francisco Bay area is among the very lucky ones who have a decent alternative (SonicNet) not among the usual cast of duopolists. New York is also relatively well served, including at least some penetration of Verizon's FiOS, the telco fibre service that's no longer being expanded, so that's a viable alternative to TimeWarner cable (which may or may not become part of AT&T). But again, the vast majority of the overall US market is served by one or two of the three same carriers, and in those with two, almost always the incumbent telco has only twisted-pair DSL to the home.

I never approached any "human rights" argument concerning bandwidth. I'm strictly speaking about that "not very developed market" and the economic opportunities squandered by structural anti-competitive deregulation. This action is nothing like true deregulation which would entail revoking all licenses restricting wired and wireless access -- imagine that coming out of Pai's industry-lapdog FCC! -- and instead the terms explicitly forbid state and local governments from offering pro-competition remedies.

[Pixieplumb Flanagan]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

If you have to ask that question after being inside Second Life for so many years and experiencing many of the negative features of Silicon Valley yourself, I don't know where to start. But read my blog Wired State. I was simply early with my critique, it's now all over the place.

I think we (there is a we here, but you're not in it) can see what exactly is all over the place.  And it's not what you think

[Theresa Tennyson]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

But your counter-analogy doesn't work, either. There isn't a case where FedEx gets there, and DSL only gets there 2 days later. Again, this is mostly about San Francisco only having ComCast. We used to only have Verizon in our building, too. Enough people lobbied to have Time Warner and Road Runner come in. It can be done. Also, not having choice is not about having human rights violations, but just not having a very developed market.

Okay, let's try this...

In order to act as an ISP (Internet Service Provider) and provide fast and reliable service (i.e. not wireless - I've been there) you need to have a wire/fiber network connecting your clients' houses to the main "backbone" routing system.

Most houses already have at least one and possibly two suitable networks connected to them -

A telephone service, which was originally laid by a state-sanctioned monopoly and now is owned by a broken-off piece of that monopoly that doesn't compete directly with the other pieces. Telephone service was allowed to be a monopoly because it is heavily regulated.

and

A cable-television service, which was originally laid down by a business as a local monopoly sanctioned by the community, as they didn't want several companies running around ripping up things to lay cables and nobody really cared who provided people with The Real World: Boston anyway. This service is also owned by a single company.

This means that the companies that provide landline telephone service and cable TV (one company each per community) already had the necessary networks (due to more than a little governmental largesse), and any potential competitor would need to invest millions to build a new network before they could even start to compete with one of these companies. This is why most people have no more than two choices of internet provider - as Qie pointed out in many cases it's more like one-and-a-half. I'm lucky because AT&T's wiring where I live is comparatively robust and I'm not stuck with DSL.

Your grand lobbying inspired your landlord to allow Time-Warner to connect your building to their internet-ized cable TV network that was already sitting outside your front door. (Time Warner and RoadRunner are the same company.)

Saying that the lack of choice is due to a "not very developed market" is the equivalent of saying the same thing about the fact that there's only one New York subway system.

[Lucia Nightfire]

Goodbye internet, it was nice knowing you....

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Okay, let's try this...

In order to act as an ISP (Internet Service Provider) and provide fast and reliable service (i.e. not wireless - I've been there) you need to have a wire/fiber network connecting your clients' houses to the main "backbone" routing system.

Most houses already have at least one and possibly two suitable networks connected to them -

A telephone service, which was originally laid by a state-sanctioned monopoly and now is owned by a broken-off piece of that monopoly that doesn't compete directly with the other pieces. Telephone service was allowed to be a monopoly because it is heavily regulated.

and

A cable-television service, which was originally laid down by a business as a local monopoly sanctioned by the community, as they didn't want several companies running around ripping up things to lay cables and nobody really cared who provided people with The Real World: Boston anyway. This service is also owned by a single company.

This means that the companies that provide landline telephone service and cable TV (one company each per community) already had the necessary networks (due to more than a little governmental largesse), and any potential competitor would need to invest millions to build a new network before they could even start to compete with one of these companies. This is why most people have no more than two choices of internet provider - as Qie pointed out in many cases it's more like one-and-a-half. I'm lucky because AT&T's wiring where I live is comparatively robust and I'm not stuck with DSL.

Your grand lobbying inspired your landlord to allow Time-Warner to connect your building to their internet-ized cable TV network that was already sitting outside your front door. (Time Warner and RoadRunner are the same company.)

Saying that the lack of choice is due to a "not very developed market" is the equivalent of saying the same thing about the fact that there's only one New York subway system.

Yes, "let's" *do* "try this". Because it's merely the Google talking points to get other people to pay the last mile for their ad service.

1. You're willing to recall that Bell Telephone was once a monopoly and got broken up -- now will we ever see that with Google? Or Facebook? Well? Why not?

2. The removal of the ideological "net neutrality" socialist program, conceived in a university and lobbied by IT businesses who benefit from it, does not mean "no regulation". There is still a great deal of regulation in place, as you will soon see as all the lawsuits fly.  Here's an article that will help get out of your ideological safe space. The telecoms didn't throttle in the way hysterically imagined, and won't, as it isn't good business -- but it's a flogged talking point because lobbyists can a) scare people b) make, say, congress people feel stupid and worried that they may not understand something technically. It really is the worst kind of hustle. Like the anti-SOPA and anti-CISPA movements with the same interests groups, it really stops progress on making the Internet habitable for all.

3. Cable companies are not local monopolies. What historical year are you stuck in? There are multiple cable companies in most places. But let's say in some remote territory in Maine there's only one. Why does Google get to do this but not Verizon?

4. Let me get this straight. We can't have "government largesse" (horrid "corporate welfare") for telecoms because we hate them because they are not-Google! No porridge for you! Leave aside the actuality that government subsidies of *industry which supply investments and jobs* isn't like the cost sink of welfare for life expenses. It's ok for Google to grab corporate welfare by the entire Net Neutrality scheme because "cool". Net neutrality is of course a subsidy, and a removal of business costs from Google at the end of the day.

5. Actually, Time Warner wasn't sitting outside the door. You know nothing of the circumstances. It had to be laid. You know, the last mile? If Roadrunner is "the same company" it doesn't matter, they're offered as different packages. And it could be some other company. Just because there are "only two" or "only two or three" doesn't mean there isn't competition, just like there was competition when we only had Bell and some new local phone company. It's not a field where you have 30 or 300 like beverages or breakfast cereals.

6. The subway system isn't a good analogy at all, nor are roads. The Internet isn't a highway. It's a complex interactive diverse and varied system which has multiple owners and purposes. It is not to transport your Amazon order from point A to point B -- it's a million other things. The subway is something that people democratically decide should be a public utility, as it were, because the cost is great and the purpose is universal. The Internet is a much more complex beast. How *much* Internet? One hundred fast Second Life sims for everyone? One hundred fast WoW games for everyone? One hundred pirated and torrented movies and songs for everyone? The problem of "how much" is always the problem of socialism, which is why markets tend to naturally occur and socialism doesn't, and has to be forcibly imposed.

A fact that Net Neutrality lobbyists can't defeat is the fall in investment after the Obama-tinkering occurred and net neutrality was forced in. Now you'll see the opposite.

And so yes, it is passed, and only by crazy bullying, terrorizing (going to Pait's home and threatening his children), astro-turfing, etc. trying to "throw it" would it be challenged. 

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Yes, "let's" *do* "try this". Because it's merely the Google talking points to get other people to pay the last mile for their ad service.

1. You're willing to recall that Bell Telephone was once a monopoly and got broken up -- now will we ever see that with Google? Or Facebook? Well? Why not?

2. The removal of the ideological "net neutrality" socialist program, conceived in a university and lobbied by IT businesses who benefit from it, does not mean "no regulation". There is still a great deal of regulation in place, as you will soon see as all the lawsuits fly.  Here's an article that will help get out of your ideological safe space. The telecoms didn't throttle in the way hysterically imagined, and won't, as it isn't good business -- but it's a flogged talking point because lobbyists can a) scare people b) make, say, congress people feel stupid and worried that they may not understand something technically. It really is the worst kind of hustle. Like the anti-SOPA and anti-CISPA movements with the same interests groups, it really stops progress on making the Internet habitable for all.

3. Cable companies are not local monopolies. What historical year are you stuck in? There are multiple cable companies in most places. But let's say in some remote territory in Maine there's only one. Why does Google get to do this but not Verizon?

4. Let me get this straight. We can't have "government largesse" (horrid "corporate welfare") for telecoms because we hate them because they are not-Google! No porridge for you! Leave aside the actuality that government subsidies of *industry which supply investments and jobs* isn't like the cost sink of welfare for life expenses. It's ok for Google to grab corporate welfare by the entire Net Neutrality scheme because "cool". Net neutrality is of course a subsidy, and a removal of business costs from Google at the end of the day.

5. Actually, Time Warner wasn't sitting outside the door. You know nothing of the circumstances. It had to be laid. You know, the last mile? If Roadrunner is "the same company" it doesn't matter, they're offered as different packages. And it could be some other company. Just because there are "only two" or "only two or three" doesn't mean there isn't competition, just like there was competition when we only had Bell and some new local phone company. It's not a field where you have 30 or 300 like beverages or breakfast cereals.

6. The subway system isn't a good analogy at all, nor are roads. The Internet isn't a highway. It's a complex interactive diverse and varied system which has multiple owners and purposes. It is not to transport your Amazon order from point A to point B -- it's a million other things. The subway is something that people democratically decide should be a public utility, as it were, because the cost is great and the purpose is universal. The Internet is a much more complex beast. How *much* Internet? One hundred fast Second Life sims for everyone? One hundred fast WoW games for everyone? One hundred pirated and torrented movies and songs for everyone? The problem of "how much" is always the problem of socialism, which is why markets tend to naturally occur and socialism doesn't, and has to be forcibly imposed.

A fact that Net Neutrality lobbyists can't defeat is the fall in investment after the Obama-tinkering occurred and net neutrality was forced in. Now you'll see the opposite.

And so yes, it is passed, and only by crazy bullying, terrorizing (going to Pait's home and threatening his children), astro-turfing, etc. trying to "throw it" would it be challenged. 

Wow.

Just... wow.

First of all, what did I say in defense of Google? I have no love for Google. I don't generally use them for search. I don't use their web browser. I don't use them for my primary E-mail address, and they don't run on my phone. In fact, I don't particularly like Google. So I avoid them. Because I can.

Which is not something I can say about my ISP.

"Cable companies are not local monopolies." This one had me wondering. I don't think that you're lying, because you're not the type. As far as I can tell it's not Opposite Day. Yet you say something that's completely at odds with what most of us see every day. I live in a very technically oriented college town - some of the earliest founders of the Internet came from here. I literally see ROBOT CARS on the road coming home from work. (And no, they're not Google ROBOT CARS, if that's what you're wondering.) And yet, the only cable television carrier we have here is Xfinity/Comcast.

I suspect the thing that's tripping you up is the fact that most places do have access to more than one form of pay television. However, most of them aren't cable television. Phone companies offer FiOS-type TV offerings over their lines - but I already mentioned The Phone Company. DirectTV and Dish Network offer PAY television packages, but they're not CABLE television - they're picked up by dishes and the technology is teats-on-a-boar-hog for internet use.

Oh, and it sounds like you don't know a lot about the history of the New York subway - it's pretty much a tale of socialism at its fiercest and yet you defend it... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_Subway

All in all, the noise level of your posts here are the sort of thing I usually hear only when someone's ox is being gored. Sooooo.... which of your relatives works for an ISP?

 

 

[Drake1 Nightfire]

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Yes, "let's" *do* "try this". Because it's merely the Google talking points to get other people to pay the last mile for their ad service.

1. You're willing to recall that Bell Telephone was once a monopoly and got broken up -- now will we ever see that with Google? Or Facebook? Well? Why not?

2. The removal of the ideological "net neutrality" socialist program, conceived in a university and lobbied by IT businesses who benefit from it, does not mean "no regulation". There is still a great deal of regulation in place, as you will soon see as all the lawsuits fly.  Here's an article that will help get out of your ideological safe space. The telecoms didn't throttle in the way hysterically imagined, and won't, as it isn't good business -- but it's a flogged talking point because lobbyists can a) scare people b) make, say, congress people feel stupid and worried that they may not understand something technically. It really is the worst kind of hustle. Like the anti-SOPA and anti-CISPA movements with the same interests groups, it really stops progress on making the Internet habitable for all.

3. Cable companies are not local monopolies. What historical year are you stuck in? There are multiple cable companies in most places. But let's say in some remote territory in Maine there's only one. Why does Google get to do this but not Verizon?

4. Let me get this straight. We can't have "government largesse" (horrid "corporate welfare") for telecoms because we hate them because they are not-Google! No porridge for you! Leave aside the actuality that government subsidies of *industry which supply investments and jobs* isn't like the cost sink of welfare for life expenses. It's ok for Google to grab corporate welfare by the entire Net Neutrality scheme because "cool". Net neutrality is of course a subsidy, and a removal of business costs from Google at the end of the day.

5. Actually, Time Warner wasn't sitting outside the door. You know nothing of the circumstances. It had to be laid. You know, the last mile? If Roadrunner is "the same company" it doesn't matter, they're offered as different packages. And it could be some other company. Just because there are "only two" or "only two or three" doesn't mean there isn't competition, just like there was competition when we only had Bell and some new local phone company. It's not a field where you have 30 or 300 like beverages or breakfast cereals.

6. The subway system isn't a good analogy at all, nor are roads. The Internet isn't a highway. It's a complex interactive diverse and varied system which has multiple owners and purposes. It is not to transport your Amazon order from point A to point B -- it's a million other things. The subway is something that people democratically decide should be a public utility, as it were, because the cost is great and the purpose is universal. The Internet is a much more complex beast. How *much* Internet? One hundred fast Second Life sims for everyone? One hundred fast WoW games for everyone? One hundred pirated and torrented movies and songs for everyone? The problem of "how much" is always the problem of socialism, which is why markets tend to naturally occur and socialism doesn't, and has to be forcibly imposed.

A fact that Net Neutrality lobbyists can't defeat is the fall in investment after the Obama-tinkering occurred and net neutrality was forced in. Now you'll see the opposite.

And so yes, it is passed, and only by crazy bullying, terrorizing (going to Pait's home and threatening his children), astro-turfing, etc. trying to "throw it" would it be challenged. 

1. Google and Facebook are not hardware providers, they provide a software... Neither of which is a monopoly.. Dont like Google, use Bing, or Yahoo. Dont like Facebook, use myspace or another chat like service... 

3. They most certainly are. In my county there is only Comcast for landline cable. The only way another service gets in is if they run their own lines. 

 

[Prokofy Neva]

56 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

1. Google and Facebook are not hardware providers, they provide a software... Neither of which is a monopoly.. Dont like Google, use Bing, or Yahoo. Dont like Facebook, use myspace or another chat like service... 

3. They most certainly are. In my county there is only Comcast for landline cable. The only way another service gets in is if they run their own lines. 

 

1. Google and Facebook do not merely "provide a software"; they are not just social media networks but ad agencies that benefit from the Internet, it's their business.

2. Both Google and Facebook monopolize search and social media even if they have rivals.

3. Comcost isn't a monopolist, and there are competitors to it ranging from Verizon to Time Warner. Just because your particular area "only" has Comcast doesn't make it a monopolist.

4. As I've repeatedly said, the minority of people who happen to fall into this category of "only having Comcast in their area" have an outsized influence on this debate and distort the meaning of terms. 

5. Most importantly, they cannot show that in fact their hated Comcast did any of the things they claim net neutrality will save them from. Their content isn't blocked, and their Internet isn't deliberately slowed.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Wow.

Just... wow.

First of all, what did I say in defense of Google? I have no love for Google. I don't generally use them for search. I don't use their web browser. I don't use them for my primary E-mail address, and they don't run on my phone. In fact, I don't particularly like Google. So I avoid them. Because I can.

Which is not something I can say about my ISP.

"Cable companies are not local monopolies." This one had me wondering. I don't think that you're lying, because you're not the type. As far as I can tell it's not Opposite Day. Yet you say something that's completely at odds with what most of us see every day. I live in a very technically oriented college town - some of the earliest founders of the Internet came from here. I literally see ROBOT CARS on the road coming home from work. (And no, they're not Google ROBOT CARS, if that's what you're wondering.) And yet, the only cable television carrier we have here is Xfinity/Comcast.

I suspect the thing that's tripping you up is the fact that most places do have access to more than one form of pay television. However, most of them aren't cable television. Phone companies offer FiOS-type TV offerings over their lines - but I already mentioned The Phone Company. DirectTV and Dish Network offer PAY television packages, but they're not CABLE television - they're picked up by dishes and the technology is teats-on-a-boar-hog for internet use.

Oh, and it sounds like you don't know a lot about the history of the New York subway - it's pretty much a tale of socialism at its fiercest and yet you defend it... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_Subway

All in all, the noise level of your posts here are the sort of thing I usually hear only when someone's ox is being gored. Sooooo.... which of your relatives works for an ISP?

 

 

Yes, heaven forfend that someone disagree with the geek mob's view on net neutrality!

Again, just because you happen to live in an area with only Comcast doesn't make it a monopolist. Meanwhile, Google bleeds into many areas of life and will do so more in the future unless it is curbed. The comparison of use of Google and Bing just don't even bare discussion.

Cable companies are not monopolies, and not even local monopolies. The minority of use cases where they may be doesn't make them so.  BTW, again, the telecoms co-exist and interact with the Internet and therefore create diversity; the IT companies like Google only wish to kill the telecoms and take over their function, i.e. on phone calls. That's what this is about.

The history of the New York City subway being "socialist" or not -- creating public goods and utilities in capitalist society isn't "socialism" but whatever -- isn't relevant because it's a utility that has a single purpose and it is in the public interest to make it a utility. Even so, it has competition in the form of Uber or Via.

Meanwhile, the Internet is a complex entity with many purposes and owners, so trying to turn it into a "utility" cannot work -- and is not working -- in the same way.

Er, my "ox"? Having a different opinion -- perish the thought! -- isn't noise, it's just a different opinion. And the net neutrality vote passed, because at the end of the day, Google and crypto anarchists are not persuasive and business has to move forward. The howling going on right now is from those who lost the vote.

[Paul Hexem]

Challenge creates innovation. 

[Innula Zenovka]

I've not read the whole thread, I confess, but I've skimmed it and I have to say that it strikes me as a tad ironic that in Europe EU regulations (agreed by member governments) dictate a somewhat laxer approach to net neutrality than the one that prevailed, at least until today's decision, than that in the USA, and one of the main reasons this lax approach works is that, in the UK and most other European countries is that we by and large have a functioning free market when it comes to choosing an ISP.     

Like the vast majority of people in the UK, if I'm unhappy with my ISP, I've got three other major national high-speed broadband companies so anxious for my business that, if anything, it will pay me to break my contract with existing ISP, should I become unhappy with the service I receive,  and take up an  introductory offer from one of them. 

Our current regulatory regime, with which the ISPs seem quite content, prohibits any sort of traffic management for commercial advantage and any sort of artificial throttling (or blocking sites) other what is necessary to comply with legal requirements, network security, or as a short-term measure to deal with unusual circumstances.    It does, though, permit offering (for example) access to particular sites without it counting against any download limits (so, if I wanted, I could buy a package from the ISP I use for my mobile that allowed me to watch as much  Netflix on my tablet as I liked, without incurring any extra data charges).     

On a general point, though, I cannot see how it's acceptable for an ISP to mess around with how I use the service for which I pay.   I pay Virgin Media for a bundle of services (broadband, cable and landline) which includes unlimited broadband with a download speed of 100Mbps (the starter package with a couple of free loyalty bonuses thrown in).   I expect to be able to use the broadband access for which I pay as I want to, and the idea that Virgin could mess about with it to try to steer me to their preferred products seems quite absurd.   I've paid for it and I'll use at as I want to.