Bill Would Ban Paid Prioritization By ISPs 216
jfruh writes In the opening days of the new U.S. Congress, a bill has been introduced in both the House and Senate enforcing Net neutrality, making it illegal for ISPs to accept payment to prioritize some traffic packets over others. But the sponsors are all Democrats, and with Republicans now in charge of both house of Congress, the chances of it passing seem slim.
Yay partisanship! (Score:2, Insightful)
But the sponsors are all Democrats, and with Republicans now in charge of both house of Congress, the chances of it passing seem slim.
WooHoo!
On another note, whenever those assholes work together, Watch out! Like when the PATRIOT act was passed. Or when the criminal Wall Street crooks were given a free ride and bonuses to boot at taxpayer expense.
And where were the Teabaggers then? Nowhere.
But there was plenty of those people condemning the Occupy Wall Street kids! Who were protesting against taxpayer money waste!
Fox News watching morons.
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Incorrect. The Tea Party was formed in 1986 by the Heritage Foundation and Phillip Morris as an astroturf effort. It just got popular enough to be noteworthy in the 2004 elections, and really took off in 2008.
All revealed in the documents obtained from heritage and Phillip Morris in the tobacco trials.
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/... [bmj.com]
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If only the democrats had proposed this bill when they had a majority. They waited till now because they want it to fail but prefer that the Rs hold the bag. Much like the Rs putting bills they don't want before congress when the Ds are the majority.
Re:Yay partisanship! (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right, failing to uphold net neutrality and reform immigration is not what we should be upset about. Failing to punish NSA treason, close Gitmo and protect the environment (all issues that did exist during the Democrat supermajority) is what we should be upset about!
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You're right, failing to uphold net neutrality and reform immigration is not what we should be upset about. Failing to punish NSA treason, close Gitmo and protect the environment (all issues that did exist during the Democrat supermajority) is what we should be upset about!
If you think the Dems would be able to do that...well, I got a bridge to sell you.
Closing Gitmo was never feasible. Obama ran on it because he didn't know any better and it sounded good. But once you learn the details, it neigh impossible without letting everyone loose, and most of the people in there are people no one wants let loose.
As far as the NSA is concerned, the liberals/Dems are far more likely to support what the NSA was doing since they are in favor of a "Nanny State" to start with; and the
Better bill than the other net neutrality bills (Score:2)
Re:Better bill than the other net neutrality bills (Score:5, Insightful)
This still doesn't address the real problem, when an ISP degrades traffic which competes with their other revenue streams. I.E. a cable company degrading netflix traffic or a telephone company degrading skype.
Gloriously Short Bill (Score:5, Interesting)
(A) any content, application, or service over the Internet; or
(B) a device used for accessing any content, application, or service over the Internet.
Maybe someone with a bit more knowledge can poke a hole in it, but in this age of 1000+ page bills that no-one seems to have the will to read it's a nice change.
Re:Gloriously Short Bill (Score:5, Interesting)
It's short only because it's telling the FCC to do the real work. The key bit is:
Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall promulgate regulations that...
A lot of major laws are like that. The law itself grants some kind of authority to an executive branch department, and they come up with the regulations that implement that authority. That can often run into many thousands of pages, and they can change literally every single day. Regulated industries often have employees whose sole job it is to ensure that they're in compliance with the regulations.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Congress aren't experts in the domain. The executive branch employees are (or at least, are supposed to be). They work with the industry experts to clarify all of the corner cases and vaguenesses that make up any complex issue. And the issues are complex; they often seem simple to outsiders but only because they don't know what they're looking at. The same thing probably happens in your job.
The departments aren't completely unsupervised. They report, ultimately, to Presidential appointees, who have to be approved by Congress and produce regular reports to the Congress. And when things go wrong, they get hauled in front of Congress to explain themselves.
Er, digression aside... what would have happened were the bill to pass (it won't) is that the FCC would produce a lengthy set of regulations, which would surely provoke all kinds of outrage as the actual nitty-gritty details are less pleasant than the overall sentiment. In fact, I'd say that they're aware that it won't pass, which is why they get to make it so vague. Real bills, the kind where they want to strictly limit the authority of the departments to get exactly what they want, are the result of compromises within the legislature and are usually much more detailed. You can get the details in legislation or in regulation; the former is more permanent and the latter is more flexible, which can be good or bad depending on your point of view of the matter at hand. But there will be details, and they're going to be voluminous.
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And when you have thousands of pages of regulations, so many that you need compliance experts, that drives up costs for the business and ultimately the end consumer. It raises the barrier of entry for new comp
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Hear hear!
When are you running?
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Microsoft controls everything (Score:2)
I didn't know Bill Gates had the ability to control ISPs in this way.
Proper Net Neutrality (Score:5, Insightful)
I've not been a fan of previous "Net Neutrality" efforts, because they didn't seem likely to fix the problem. This, however, is great. It totally undercuts the ISP extortion racket, without trying to fix a technical problem.
The big ISPs can always find a loophole in any law that tries to prevent throttling by some technical rules - that's what engineers do: we game a system to maximize some value. Bad approach. By instead saying "do whatever, but you can't charge money for priority access simply removes the incentive to do it in the first place. Good approach.
Express Lane? (Score:2)
Our state allows wealthy drivers to pay extra for the convenience and speed of the Express Lane. How is paid prioritization of Internet bandwidth any different?
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Our state allows wealthy drivers to pay extra for the convenience and speed of the Express Lane.
When your state installed this "Express Lane" did it actually add a new lane, or did they wall off existing lanes, forcing everyone who doesn't pay up into fewer lanes than they had before, making the traffic for everyone else worse?
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What would be nice would be some real politics in Washington. Say, the Republicans support this (some already do btw), in exchange for Keystone.
Heh. I know, I was dreaming...
Democrats don't want this to pass (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Democrats wanted this to pass, they would have brought the bill to floor when they had a chance of it actually passing. Far too many in the Democratic party are in the pockets of those that won't let this pass, but by bringing it up now, it can look like the Republicans are the bad guys.
Which, they are. Both parties are opposed to net neutrality. But this bill is just there for grandstanding. The Democrats could have made net neutrality happen MANY times in the last few years, so this is just to try to smear team red, even though team blue agrees with them totally on this issue.
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Who would the Democrats win points with? No one knows what Net Neutrality is and nobody cares.
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Yep, that's why nobody submitted anything to the FCC comment filing.
Oh wait: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]
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i bet 99% of the comments were i hate my isp, i want 100mbps down 24x7 for $35 a month, i want my precious netflix, etc
Re:Democrats don't want this to pass (Score:5, Insightful)
That's actually a fairly reasonable thing to ask, from a technological and price standpoint.
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Every company with smart CIO should know by know exactly what net neutrality is and how it will advantage 99.99% of them. The total campaigns contribution that would be favoured by net neutrality far exceed the campaign contributions of those who favour an internet they can censor, which implies being able to intercept and analyse all communications. Without net neutrality corporate and industrial espionage will explode, there is simply far too much money to be made by doing it for those who oppose net neu
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Re:Democrats don't want this to pass (Score:5, Informative)
It was introduced in the middle of last year [loc.gov] in the House, where it was summarily sent to a subcommittee to die. It had no chance as a bill with zero Republican sponsors ever passing the House, just as it will quickly die in this Congress.
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The Dems haven't had a majority in the House for the past 4 years. This wasn't a bit enough deal for others to rise to the level of legislation until the past..maybe 18 months.
As for the Senate, well, requiring 60 votes to get anything done put a damper on that.
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I'm quickly losing hope with this Congress, day 2 and we're already doing the present a bill partisan BS.
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If the Democrats wanted this to pass, they would have brought the bill to floor when they had a chance of it actually passing.
When was that, exactly? The Democrats haven't had control of the House since 2010. They did have a brief period where they had a veto-proof majority, back in 2009, but that only lasted a couple of months (after the Minnesota election was finally resolved, and before Ted Kennedy died and was replaced by a Republican). They devoted that time to health care. They didn't expect to maintain that advantage long, though they didn't expect it to end quite so soon.
Since then, there has been no chance of anything pas
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Since then, there has been no chance of anything passing. Nothing has passed since then, aside from naming a few post offices and re-authorizing existing laws. I agree that the Democrats don't expect this bill to pass, and that this is more publicity stunt than serious attempt at legislation, but they might well be willing to pass it (or something like it) if they could. But they can't; the last Congress was the least productive in history and this Congress may manage to be even worse.
Nothing has passed since then b/c Democrat controlled Senate brought only the minimal it had to to a vote; anything they didn't like they didn't bring to a vote; saving Obama from having to veto anything; and then blaming it on the Republicans and the House for not giving them what they wanted.
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I'm old enough to remember that in a bygone era this was how legislation was made. You float a few trial balloons, and then see what happens politically to those who shoot them down. If the people who shoot that balloon down take enough crap, they won't be so quick to do it next time. If the idea is popular enough, eventually, some people in both parties will start signing onto the bills, and one will pass.
So if you care about this issue, play your part. If you don't, go ahead and say nasty things about bo
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Hate to break this to you, but you don't know what the h*ll you are talking about. Bills can be introduced in the House at pretty much any time by any representative.
Quoting from http://www.house.gov/content/l... [house.gov]
"Any member in the House of Representatives may introduce a bill at any time while the House is in session by simply placing it in the “hopper” at the side of the Clerk's desk in the House Chamber."
It's also quite easy to introduce a bill into the Senate.
BTW, the previous Senate voted o
This is what's wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
and with Republicans now in charge of both house of Congress, the chances of it passing seem slim.
To preface, this is not a partisan-based slam. This is a slam on our entire system. The fact that we accept something won't pass despite it being universally wanted by "the people" (not pronounced "corporations") shows our biggest hurdle that we as a country need to overcome. Not race/gender equality or financial disparity, but the ability of this country to be propelled forward by a system that is representative to the needs of the many, not the powerful.
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To preface, this is not a partisan-based slam. This is a slam on our entire system. The fact that we accept something won't pass despite it being universally wanted by "the people" (not pronounced "corporations") shows our biggest hurdle that we as a country need to overcome. Not race/gender equality or financial disparity, but the ability of this country to be propelled forward by a system that is representative to the needs of the many, not the powerful.
I don't even know where to start on how dangerous this is. This is populism straight up, tyranny of the majority, screw any minority/individual's rights.
When any group of people can hold a vote and force someone out of their house - or take away their property or life - that's plain wrong.
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Some group in a society holds overruling power, and if the majority doesn't hold it then the minority does. There's nothing inherently wrong or dangerous about populism.
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The fact that we accept something won't pass despite it being universally wanted by "the people"
Citation required. "Universally wanted" is a pretty strong statement considering that the vast majority of the people don't know what the problem is, much less that there is a problem.
And when the "problem" can be described as "network provider asks a commercial data source to help pay for upgrading the network connection that the commercial data source is filling up at a profit for the commercial data source", it's not going to be considered a problem this law would help instead of hinder, by many people
Cogent offered to pay capital costs (Score:2)
And when the "problem" can be described as "network provider asks a commercial data source to help pay for upgrading the network connection that the commercial data source is filling up at a profit for the commercial data source", it's not going to be considered a problem this law would help instead of hinder, by many people.
Cogent was willing to pay for the entire hardware cost [cogentco.com] to upgrade major last mile ISPs' connections to Cogent. The ISPs refused to take Cogent's money, instead demanding rents on top of that.
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I don't think it's realistic at this point to expect much change from the government. Unarmed black men die by cop in the streets and that's all part of the plan it seems. Even the black president appears to do nothing but pay lip service to the problem. Internet freedom seems downright secondary when unarmed kids are being shot by cops regularly.
To the point, I think what we are witnessing is the end of what we currently understand as the internet. Net neutrality wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for th
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The fact that we accept something won't pass despite it being universally wanted by "the people" (not pronounced "corporations") ....
The geek's first mistake in politics is to begin by assuming that everyone wants what he wants.
The second is to forget that people outside his own group may be actually and quite naturally aligned with the interests and values with whatever corporate entity he chooses to demonize.
Net neutrality is a distant, ill-defined abstraction.
What you see at ground level are the tens of millions of users drawn to add-supported and subscription media services like Netflix. This isn't how the geek expected the Int
League of Legends??? (Score:2)
So the dedicated traffic for LoL wont be allowed?
I guess West Coast players remain fucked.
http://boards.na.leagueoflegen... [leagueoflegends.com]
No the bill be be poisoned (Score:2)
Cleaning thier skirts (Score:3)
But the sponsors are all Democrats, and with Republicans now in charge of both house of Congress, the chances of it passing seem slim.
Which is why they're introducing it now instead of in any of the last 11 sessions when it might have actually passed. It's a way for them to appear like heroes to their constituents, without actually accomplishing anything (or pissing off their corporate donors).
Telephone service (Score:2)
And how would this affect landline telephone service offered by Time Warner and Comcast? Would the law force them to prioritize my Vonage traffic?
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Should have done this a While ago (Score:2)
Funny this comes up now when the dems don't have power.
Oh well... likely their sponsors don't really like net neutrality either, but they can toss a bone to the electorate who cares and say... see we did something.
Re:Fuck the libs! (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny. Their actions would suggest they believe in pork barrels.
They don't eat pork and don't run the country (Score:2)
Funny. Their actions would suggest they believe in pork barrels.
Some conspiracy theorists claim that U.S. policy is controlled by Jewish bankers. Others say Muslims have too much influence over what they call "Dhimmicrats". Whenever I hear about pork barrel spending, it just reminds me of how wrong these conspiracy theorists are.
Re:Fuck the libs! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fuck the libs! (Score:4, Funny)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Forget these bills (Score:4, Insightful)
Not sure where you were going with that, but the bridge to nowhere was sponsored by Republicans.
In this case, it doesn't matter if they're Republicans or Democrats. AT&T is a major purchaser of votes in Congress. This has no chance of passing. The people sponsoring it know that and are still doing it so they can campaign on it.
In other words, it's a dog-and-pony show.
It is beneath the dignity of the slashdot front page.
No, really.
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In this case, it doesn't matter if they're Republicans or Democrats.
Exactly. There is a reason the democrats did not push this forward when they had the Senate.
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Exactly. There is a reason the democrats did not push this forward when they had the Senate.
Nonsense [techcrunch.com]. They did try and have tried multiple times [sourcewatch.org] in the past.
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No, not really.
We are the gatekeepers for our people and we need to be in the loop on all these things.
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You spelled out exactly how it works. And this is why the gullible people who believe there are differences between the two factions are a bunch of idiots. The 'parties' are a team. One plays offense, the other defense, and then they swap.
Re:Forget these bills (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been watching this crap for over 50 years, it only becomes more obvious with each election. The last 15 have only been a steepening of the curve. But you go ahead, keep working against the truth of this business, it's your job.
Re:Fuck the libs! (Score:5, Interesting)
"That's because Republicans believe in the free market not communism."
Funny, the current bunch Ds are typically to the right of Reagan.
And no, the Rs aren't in favor of any kind of free market either. And "free markets" don't exist, ever - they are an imaginary construct much like "friction free inclined planes" in physics.
--
BMO
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And "free markets" don't exist, ever - they are an imaginary construct much like "friction free inclined planes" in physics.
Exactly. Adam Smith, the guy who invented the term in the 1700's, argued that it was the job of Government to do its best to regulate markets to keep them as "free" as possible. Previously, government action mostly consisted of helping the rich and connected build and protect their market monopolies. Sound familiar?
Re:Fuck the libs! (Score:4, Interesting)
Previously, government action mostly consisted of helping the rich and connected build and protect their market monopolies. Sound familiar?
Yep, sounds like Republicans to me. And Democrats. "Government" in the US means "government by the rich for the rich".
One of the problems is that there are two right-wing parties and no left wing at all. When Republicans froth at the mouth about socialism or communism they haven't a clue about what really is; they just think it's the same thing as government control, forgetting that their governments have been just as controlling as the other incompetents'.
Where the GOP went wrong was in getting into bed with the pro-lifer, fundamentalist, flat-earth, =3, bible-thumping loonies, who are further to the right than Hitler. They need to ditch those associations — a better choice would even have been the libertarians, who despite their own looney ideas on state control are far closer to the original Republican ideal or liberty than Oral Roberts or the Waco flakoes.
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the current bunch Ds are typically to the right of Reagan
Do any of you even remember Reagan?
What do you mean? We are awash in staunchly pro-life, tax cutting, government bashing, communist hating Democrats that want to aggressively expand military spending, appoint moderates like Rehnquist and Scalia, outlaw hiring of illegal immigrants and casually joke about nuking the Soviets on live radio.
You can't swing a cat without hitting one of these right wing Democrats.
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Healthcare reform, for example. The democrat solution is to just throw money at private insurance companies, when the rest of the developed world long ago set up some sort of universal public coverage system. The democrats are also quite happy to throw money at the military, though perhaps not to the same extent as the republicans.
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outlaw hiring of illegal immigrants
That's already illegal. It's just not enforced very well, and even when it is, they only prosecute the shell company used for labor by the big developers, who act all shocked that their subcontractors would have hired all those illegals. Even Tompkins Builders did it on a federal building in Richmond. Oh, look I found a reference [bvbl.net].
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He also expanded the size of government, raised taxes, granted amnesty to undocumented immigrants and benefited mostly from a monetary policy put in by Paul Volcker during the Carter Administration. If it hadn't been for the tough love policy re: the dollar and tightening money, there would have been no "Reagan Recovery".
Not to mention that he listened to
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lol.. you are so funny.
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Obviously you weren't there.
He was president for 8 years. How could the government not grow if the country did? But in any case, Congress funds the size of government, and the deficit, not the President. And they beat him politically, a lot.
I was making minimum wage, $3.35 an hour, in 1983. Reagan's tax cut took my $125 weekly check to $135. That was a big deal for me. You guys can revise all you want about his 9 tax increases or whatever, I was there.
Cuba was in the process of taking over Grenada, and ther
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Such revisionist history.
All history is revisionist. Anyone claiming otherwise is trying to sell you something.
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"deciding to fire practically every air traffic controller"
Um, no. He didn't decide shit. It was the law, and the controllers broke it.
Reagan pissed off the union leadership by getting so many union members to cross over and vote for him. He beat Carter so very badly; it was embarrassing.
So, they put his back against the wall pretty much the moment he came in. It was a win-win for the union leadership and their Democrat bosses. Either Reagan would back down and issue some executive order delaying the mandat
Fuck the libs! (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly, the free market. If you don't like what your broadband provider is doing, just switch to one of the many other offerings in your area!
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This bill does nothing to address that problem.
Re:Fuck the libs! (Score:5, Insightful)
Thing is though, on this and many other issues, the politicians/parties don't believe there's a problem, won't propose solutions, and try to shut down, derail, or otherwise prevent actual debate by distorting the issues.
I would love it if the debate were between Republicans proposing measures to actually increase real competition, versus Democrats proposing measures to prevent the various companies from screwing over their customers. A situation like that, where most of the politicians were actually advocating for what the average citizen wants/needs, would be pretty close to ideal, and the outcome would at least be a reasonably close solution.
At least the Democrats in this case are trying to suggest solutions. We need Republicans that recognize there's a problem and propose solutions, too.
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This.
And, if we put profits first, but make that "We The People"'s profit, net neutrality is not a partisan subject.
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The republicans seems to think that you are getting what you paid for, that you are getting the speed and services you pay for so the fast lanes or prioritized access would have to be in addition to that.
There is the problem. Many people are saying this sucks, but not saying the right words. Of course it's hard to get proof your ISP is limiting your speeds to below the package plan they sold you, but start making accusations of fraud and deceptive business practices against them.
Tom Wheeler said when talkin
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Personally, I'm in favor of community fiber. You can drum up support for that locally and actually stand a chance of accomplishing something. Whatever the feds do will be stuffed with pork and by the time it's signed into law, it will be contrary to the original stated purpose of the legislation. Hoping that the Dems or the GOP will actually do something for us is an exercise in futility. We have to try and get it done ourselves, or it isn't happening.
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Which candidates would those be again?
While obvious in theory, the proposed solution lacks something in the practical application department.
There are two types of national-level candidate these days: owned and crackpot. Sometimes there is overlap.
At this point, I just vote for the candidate who is being paid by the special interests and corporations I dislike the least.
Let's face it. There's no mystery about why this has happened. Increased centralization, expanding governmental involvement, and the she
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So if Netflix doesn't like a particular broadband provider they can switch to one of the many others currently connecting the same customer...
Or they could urge their customers to switch to one of the many better providers in their area...
Fuck the libs! (Score:5, Insightful)
The Republicans believe in "free" market that helps the most powerful Corporations.
Re:Fuck the libs! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oddly enough, Net Neutrality is about protecting and strengthening the free market such that it remains free and competitive.
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No, Net neutrality is a routing policy about how to prioritize packets that people can choose to implement.
Using the government to mandate it upon everyone, under threat of legal action, whether it's a good solution or not, is an entirely different issue.
Re:Fuck the libs! (Score:5, Insightful)
a routing policy that protects and strengthens a competitive free market among internet based services and companies.
im well aware of what NN is.
and one aspect of its implications is that big fish cant pay for preferential treatment or an unfair advantage, allowing upstart "internet startups" a fair shot as taking on goliath. the task of a startup taking on an existing leviathan is hard enough on a level playing field, just by virtue of being a tiny nobody going against a big somebody, but its everyones interests to preevnt Goliath from stopping David from even born. And that is one aspect and implication of a sound NN policy.
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really, its not that hard a concept to grasp why NN helps free market ideals.
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The problem of insuring that rent seekers don't destroy the value of an open Internet is a collective action problem because it's in each ISP's interest to tax the hell out of usage as heavily and as _opaquely_ as possible(i.e. suppress pricing feedback so consumers, even if they had a choice, wouldn't know when to exercise it), even if when all ISPs do this the overall wealth creation is less.
The solution to collective action problems is government. Government is therefore the ideal institution to impose n
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Step 1. Talk publicly about freedom, Step 2. Vote only to protect corporate freedom, Step 3. Get reelected and repeat.
Net Neutrality is broad issue that deserves our unyielding support. The Netflix/Comcast debacle is a corner case that is debatable in some respects.
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Then maybe you can list some Republicans who object to the currently widespread practice of cities forcing businesses and developers to provide more parking than the market wants and is willing to pay for of its own accord? Are there any true laissez-faire Republicans in Congress?
No, Republicans quickly turn into socialists whenever it benefits Big Oil.
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Talk to your city council FFS. Congress has absolutely no constitutional authority over the issues of parking you just mentioned outside of Washington D.C and it has abdicated most of that to a "city government". Its all a local issues with your local politicians.
Do they not teach government and civics in school any more?
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Where have you been?
The Feds will withhold grant money, tax money; squeeze a whole state if they have to, until you get on board and comply.
It's cute the way you bring up constitutional authority in this day and age.
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When has that ever prevented anyone from objecting to something?
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So in other words, yes.
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I believe you need a slight correction: Conservatives believe in the free market. Many republicans are not conservatives.
No, that's not what conservative means (Score:2)
No, conservatives don't believe in any specific political ideology. Conservatives believe in slow to no change, preferring to err on policies that return us to the way things used to work.
In truth, the GOP is composed of right wing politicians, many of them extreme right wing. While they claim to support free enterprise, in reality they push for less government, which, as a side-effect, means fewer regulations for business. Don't be fooled, though, it's only a side-effect.
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Conservatives currenly consist of several conflicting ideologies - the political, social and economic conservatives - as described by Tony Perkins, who is himself all three with an emphesis on social. They are held unified by a common political party (republicans) and opponent (Democrats/liberals). This political situation lets them work effectively together even though their ideologies would otherwise conflict on some issues.
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The free market requires that you can get your goods to the market. Allowing a cartel to stand in the way of getting your goods to market is anti free market, not pro free market.
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Who is allowing a cartel to stand in your way?
If you purchase 3 apples from me and I only give you 2, is that not fraud? If I constantly short you is that not deceptive business practices (check you state laws)? So if I sell you a contract to mow your yard all summer long when it needs mowed and mow it only once right before fall, did I not enter into both deceptive and fraudulent business practices? How about if I include the magic words, "up to" the end of summer?
So if anyone is selling you internet acces
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Elizabeth Warren is also in bed w/ the corps. Why else would she vote to continue the ExIm Bank (which is basically free money to a few large multinationals)?
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It's never lost a dime and in facts runs a profit, although as they say in the industry: past performance is no guarantee of future results. But FWIW the ExIm bank has been running a surplus since 1934.
So what about the 3 Billion in long term losses it had to reveal back in '87? Additionally, per the CBO, the ExIm will cost taxpayers about 2 billion over the next decade.
The simple fact is the US taxpayer need to stop subsidizing big business. (ironically, this is something occupiers and tea partiers agree on).
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Nice try, but you're doing it wrong. I don't pay to send the internet.
Ending network neutrality would be more like you paying to ship me something overnight express, but unless I pay on top of what you already paid to send me the package, the package gets shipped media mail. No, you don't get your money back. Yes, you're paying for a service you have no hope of receiving.
Re: (Score:2)
If someone says they're going to deliver a package and they're not, that's fraud.
If you pay for a certain level of service and your ISP doesn't deliver, that's also fraud.
No public policy, no Net Neutrality necessary.