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 Galas wrote:

Here you have an example of a Portuguese internet company offering "add-ons" to have access to specific apps on the internet.

This is alarming and this picture should be spread to soccer moms and the elderly as much as possible. They're the only ones that vote in the US, anyway.

 kronk wrote:

This is alarming and this picture should be spread to soccer moms and the elderly as much as possible. They're the only ones that vote in the US, anyway.

"What do your little squiggles mean? That's, like, Mexican, right? I'm too busy (needing to work a job to support my kids / buying cat food to eat because I can't afford groceries) to figure out why you're angry about a picture I won't see because I (only use the internet for a means to shut my 2.4 little monsters up for 5 minutes / have aol, but no computer)." Pick whichever phrase in parenthesis feels appropriate to either category of person.

:(

Explain to the old people that it will make watching Matlock on Netflix more expensive.

A Verizon ,telecom ex-lawyer being the cheif of the office that needs to regulate Telecoms... it is wonderfull how the world works.



The problem with this is... if they won, we are screwed. But if they lost, they'll try again, and again, and again, until they achieve what they want.

 Galas wrote:
A Verizon ,telecom ex-lawyer being the cheif of the office that needs to regulate Telecoms... it is wonderfull how the world works.

Spoiler:

The problem with this is... if they won, we are screwed. But if they lost, they'll try again, and again, and again, until they achieve what they want.

They tried it last time with what was his name... wheeler?

 Desubot wrote:

 Galas wrote:
A Verizon ,telecom ex-lawyer being the cheif of the office that needs to regulate Telecoms... it is wonderfull how the world works.

Spoiler:

The problem with this is... if they won, we are screwed. But if they lost, they'll try again, and again, and again, until they achieve what they want.

They tried it last time with what was his name... wheeler?

Wheeler walker jr. country mega star and all around good guy

In all seriousness I think you are right

Here'a hoping the NYAG's investigation turns up something. Killing net neutrality is going to be one of the worst things to happen to the US in economic, cultural, and social terms.

Pai is also among the most transparently bought-and-paid-for sock puppets I've ever seen in my life.

I'd be interested in reading a defense of the FCC's attempt here. There's gotta be someone who thinks this is a good idea.

Any free market, de-regulator champions?

 feeder wrote:
I'd be interested in reading a defense of the FCC's attempt here. There's gotta be someone who thinks this is a good idea.

Any free market, de-regulator champions?

I think one of the great ironies of the anti-NN camp is the argument that NN is anti-free speech. Its really quite hilarious how the narrative has formed and spread. A picture perfect example of the base rallying behind the flag for no reason other than being told to, drinking monumental amounts of kool-aid along the way.

And FYI, DakkaDakka should care because these changes to internet regulation could make it much harder for independent website to operate at all. At first this probably won't bite consumers at the end of the data line that much. The first victims are going to be service providers who will be price gouged (because it'll be legal as feth for some reason) just to get hooked up. High traffic lanes will likely be accompanied by data caps on low traffic lanes, and by high I mean fast and by low I mean slow. Independent websites could vanish completely worse case scenario as their hosts will be unable to pay fees without the support of a major webhost.

EDIT: Not to mention this will be a huge blow to the US tech industry, one of the fastest growing and most expansive economic sectors in the country.

The free and open internet dies with net neutrality.

In a way, the worst case scenario almost looks like a return of the early online days of AOL, Prodigy, etc. The service provider you choose also determines the content you get.

Best case is probably something like AT&T making Google take a few extra seconds to load while Yahoo loads instantly, because AT&T is partnered with Yahoo.

Europe falling for it... not a hope in hell, could you imagine France putting up with this crap, a lot of eastern Euro countries would not tolerate it and the UK would rage at this, so no, this seems like a standard US problem.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
In a way, the worst case scenario almost looks like a return of the early online days of AOL, Prodigy, etc. The service provider you choose also determines the content you get.

For consumers, it's a lot like your phone bill because boy would ISP's love to charge you for internet like they charge you for phone service that still sucks. $50 for every computer in your house, plus $100 for unlimited streaming and another $50 for no data caps on your downloads. Bills could easily triple for the same or worse service and people will still pay them because they won't have any choice.

in fact.... they tried and failed

https://savetheinternet.eu/?sample_rate=0.1&snippet_name=5632#send-a-message

Net Neutrality allows the Free Market. Without it, the market has no chance of being free.

This isn't as bad as it seems because it will be reversed as soon as a democrat administration hits. Just put up without net neutrality for a few years and it will come back, probably stronger for the absence.

I wouldn't be so sure. The Democrats seem kind of ambivalent on the issue to me.

Well, I guess now we have to go through Congress to get the Title II to apply to ISPs now?

It's really hard for me to talk about this because it makes me so mad, so scared.

My wife and I have our own business that has a big reliance on the freedom the internet has right at this moment.

Our business is a dance studio, small, but doing well. Without Net Neutrality we would lose the ability to advertise our events to a broader audience. We would lose the ability to scout out potential dancers to come be special instructors, and have gala shows were participants can showcase their own abilities.

The strength of our signal would be reduced and so would the abilities of our community members.

This will take out the legs of small businesses. You will either have the money to survive this or you won't.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
In a way, the worst case scenario almost looks like a return of the early online days of AOL, Prodigy, etc. The service provider you choose also determines the content you get.

Ugh. Imagine getting billed for usage minutes again. That's a hell I don't miss, and I didn't pay the bills back then.

Best case is probably something like AT&T making Google take a few extra seconds to load while Yahoo loads instantly, because AT&T is partnered with Yahoo.

Frankly, at this point, I'm considering just setting up my router to default to VPN everything through Canada or something. I know DD-WRT supports it. And I'm sure it's only going to become more commonplace.

...At least, until that becomes illegal.

 ProtoClone wrote:
It's really hard for me to talk about this because it makes me so mad, so scared.

My wife and I have our own business that has a big reliance on the freedom the internet has right at this moment.

Our business is a dance studio, small, but doing well. Without Net Neutrality we would lose the ability to advertise our events to a broader audience. We would lose the ability to scout out potential dancers to come be special instructors, and have gala shows were participants can showcase their own abilities.

The strength of our signal would be reduced and so would the abilities of our community members.

This will take out the legs of small businesses. You will either have the money to survive this or you won't.

Maybe, but I wouldn't be so sure.

Net Neutrality being gone doesn't necessarily give big businesses the incentive to squeeze small business websites. It gives them incentive to squeeze their real competitors. Google would have no benefit to forcing your dance studio to pay extra to load your website a few milliseconds faster, since what you are talking about doesn't really rely on instant fast internet. A little lag in streaming a video isn't going to sink your business. And if its not a live video you wouldn't even really notice the difference.

Only a larger business which relies on fast live streaming of data would be affected in an appreciable way, because as mentioned earlier if the providers really clamp down they'll alienate their customers and be forced to ease off(either by legislated regulation OR simple market pressure). And a business which really relies on having truly fast data will simply pony up the money.

From what it sounds like, your business relies on free-ish advertising. The truth is any growing business will eventually have to start paying for adds, or allowing other ads to be placed on your website. Irregardless of Net Neutrality.

Utility Monopolies aren't affected that much by market pressure. And net neutrality being gone makes it harder to challenge that monopoly.

 ProtoClone wrote:
It's really hard for me to talk about this because it makes me so mad, so scared.

My wife and I have our own business that has a big reliance on the freedom the internet has right at this moment.

Our business is a dance studio, small, but doing well. Without Net Neutrality we would lose the ability to advertise our events to a broader audience. We would lose the ability to scout out potential dancers to come be special instructors, and have gala shows were participants can showcase their own abilities.

The strength of our signal would be reduced and so would the abilities of our community members.

This will take out the legs of small businesses. You will either have the money to survive this or you won't.

I am there with you with my two businesses as well.

Facebook all ready plays this game to some extent now.

Meanwhile those fethers at Charter are, even now, sending me emails offering me "WiFi" for a mere introductory additional $9.95/month.

I'm picturing our grimdark future to come. Part of me suspects that Shadowrun is optimistic.

 KingCracker wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
"Just need to be upfront about it"

Which will be great when they all hold hands and enact horrible restrictions in unison so you don't have an alternative. I live out in the sticks and there's not a lot of choices, this means I'm at the whim of whatever company wants to push me around. If this is allowed to happen it will be bad for everyone save a few POS executives who already milk us for every penny as is.

Absolutely ridiculous, does anyone know a way to protest this or call in? From the sound of it this isn't a traditional situation where you can call your senator and complain. I mean I'm going to do it anyways, if we raise enough of a stink to our representatives we might be able to get congress to step in, but I'm not holding my breath.

Shoot I live near the city in a populated area and we really only have 2 options for cable. This sucks BAD

The sad thing is, you're lucky. There are huge areas of the country that have zero options. If you want cable/internet, you pay for the one service in the area.

Yeah, I live in the biggest city around me for roughly 5 hours in any direction, minimum, and here it's Charter if you want fast, AT&T or DirectTV if you want slow, and of course if you don't want the option that uses your money to lobby against your best interests, you can always choose nothing and live like a second class citizen.

Well, the first thing people should do is agitate for Municipal Broadband. Talk to your local politician and try to cut the Cable Provider out!

If you're able to find one, buy from a provider that still supports net neutrality. Even if it costs more, vote with your $$$.

The most likely thing that will happen is throttling bandwidth unless you buy the 'premium access' channels. You'll probably need this is you Netflix. The average web surfer probably won't be affected too much.

Finally, consider using a VPN, possibly one situated outside of the USA, and get your bandwidth boosted only to that VPN, which browses from a place that supports net neutrality. You probably want to encrypt traffic while you're at it so the local provider can't sniff out what you're doing.

Honestly I don't expect Netflix's streaming service to survive. Why would the cable companies, who have financial stakes in the television broadcasters, want to compete with an upstart putting out universally acclaimed shows? And why would the television boradcasters want the competition? They're already pulling their shows from Netflix to start their own streaming services. Netflix is going to be hammered with fees, because its now legal for the cable companies to show favoritism, to force them off the streaming market and what'll happen? Lots of complaints but the cable companies are a monopoly so what do they care?

Welcome to the future. It's worse than the present but hey millionaires got another couple million in their pockets. The American Dream is real!

Removing Net Neutrality=BAD.


They've been trying for years, and now the corporate fat cats and politicos are going to get their way. Let's see how long that lasts when the word gets around, and voters start putting the pressure on.

Honestly part of me kind of wants it to go, simply because certain parties will have no choice but to eat it. It's easy to shrug off responsibility for disastrous drug policies and crank economics. It's a lot harder to explain to voters why something they love is worse than ever and more expensive than they ever dreamed.

I think this is one of those issues where people should forgot who is from team red and who from team blue and try to cooperate to avoid this kind of dick move from the Telecom monopolys to the customers.