Burger King Makes the Case For Net Neutrality (variety.com) 246
An anonymous reader writes: By now you've probably seen Burger King's spoof ad on the decision by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to repeal net neutrality. In the ad, Burger King customers are informed that there are now three "lanes" for ordering Whoppers -- each with substantially different prices and waiting times. The ad has already generated over a million views on Youtube and is lighting up Twitter. One thing I missed the first time is that while the Burger King "counter service" is clearly in on the act, the customers are apparently real; they learn of the cockamamie scheme at the counter in the style of the old TV show Candid Camera. Variety notes that the video "ends with an apparent dig at FCC Chairman Ajit Pai [...] as the Burger King character is shown drinking from an oversized Reese's coffee mug. That is the type of coffee mug that Pai uses at FCC meetings."
Not quite the best parallel (Score:2)
Because it's (probably) not the consumer that pays (directly) for the preferred treatment. But in the end that's who will foot the bill, so...
Re:Not quite the best parallel (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I agree it's a bad analogy. I think a better one would be a grocery store where each checkout line is a different speed and price, faster lines charging more, and the brand of the item you choose depends on which line you are allowed to queue up in. If you have a non-preferred brand of cereal, Kellogs and Post for example, you must join the slower lane. Oh, but you can pay extra to take the non-preferred brand into the express lane, which already includes preferred brands of General Mills who payed extra to be included in that lane by default.
I agree the analogy isn't perfect but, well, it's an analogy do it "can't" be perfect.
Personally, I found the video both funny and entertaining. And, more importantly, it reached a lot of ordinary people and tell them that killing net neutrality is a bad thing. And that worth more than the best analogy we could come with.
Re:Not quite the best parallel (Score:5, Insightful)
Did it? I mean, I've heard about the video, but I haven't bothered watching it, because it's a Burger King commercial and I don't care.
You're on Slashdot so I'm pretty sure you're aware about the importance of Net Neutrality. So it doesn't matter if "you" saw the video or not
As for the video, it was released 2 days ago and it already have +2.5 M views so I think we can agree it reached a "lot" of ordinary people that doesn't have a clue about what Net Neutrality mean : https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Plus, even if it did, so what? Had they released this before the FCC vote, it might have mattered. Granted it still wouldn't have, but it might have. But the FCC vote is over. Net neutrality is dead. It's never coming back.
Is it? I live in Canada and, as far as I know, it's pretty much alive here. USA Rest of the World
And I wouldn't be so sure that democrat won't cancel this. I got the feeling that the next democrat president will take a linking to destroy everything that Trump made.
So what's the point to doing the video now?
Well, to sell shitty hamburgers, of course, under the guise of "informing the public." Who aren't informed and largely don't care about the boring details of net neutrality.
Unless you want the Net Neutrality to stay dead, why would you bother that Burger King spend its own money to teach people about it? Of course it's a publicity stunt, but they could have instead created 4 different flavor of Whopper : https://www.gq.com/story/new-d... [gq.com]
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Is it? I live in Canada and, as far as I know, it's pretty much alive here. USA Rest of the World
I meant : USA (Insert "Isn't Equal" character here) Rest of the World.
I could add the character while writting, but it disapeared when click the "Submit" button
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Two states have already reinstated net neutrality within their jurisdictions and there's a bill in congress to reinstate it federally. This is a good time to apply a bit of political pressure.
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One thing the video doesn't cover is people abandoning Burger King and going to McDonalds, Wendy's, Whataburger, In-N-Out, Jack In the Box, Burger Street, Steak-N-Shake where this isn't done. Or any number of mom-and-pop burger places going up that will provide a reasonable order-to-delivery model for burgers that people like.
Of course, this model is based on Burger King having a complete monopoly on the Whopper itself. But Comcast doesn't own or control Netflix, Hulu, Google, etc. So in this "analogy", is really more like Uber Eats, where Uber Eats would charge more to deliver a Whopper than a Big Mac. They are a deliver service, not a content provider. So like Google Fiber, Burger King would start it's own delivery service that would deliver Whoppers or Big Macs at the same or lower price - and drive Uber Eats out of business or force them to charge the same price.
Never underestimate the power of the people and the drive of competition.
And your point is?
I think that you focus too much on "It won't help peoples to undersand what Net Neutrality is".
The way I see it, it doesn't matter (much?) that people undertands the details of Net Neutrality. The only thing they need to know is that Net Neutrality is a bad thing and that video is pretty efficient at it.
If you want a Coke with that, we'll superspeed it (Score:2)
If you're absolutely sure you don't want a Coke, just wait in line a bit longer.
(insert coke lines jokes below)
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If you're absolutely sure you don't want a Coke, just wait in line a bit longer.
That may actually be more brilliant than what they actually did. You can have your burger right now if you order a full value meal and supersize it. If you don't supersize it, you have to wait, and if you just get the sandwich, GFL. (The rest of the setup, including no special fees for chicken sandwiches, is still spot on.)
that would be awesome ... (Score:2)
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You mean like paying UPS ground for a 12-pack of socks instead of next day air?
Can you imagine UPS or Fedex doing the same commercial and everyone saying, "yeah, that makes sense."
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Except there is a real reason why ground delivery is slower and cheaper. There is no reason that Netflix should cost more then streaming someones catcam at 4k.
Your UPS example is more like being able to buy a higher bitrate or higher cap from your ISP, fine under net neutrality.
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More like all socks are carried the same way but if you pay double, they won't hold them at a warehouse a mile from your home for 5 days before they put them on the delivery truck.
Re:that would be awesome ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... to be able to choose more to get faster service at a restaurant.
Would it be awesome to have to pay more to get functional service at a restaurant? Because that's the actual scenario.
Re:that would be awesome ... (Score:5, Informative)
If you're paying for non-functional service, wouldn't that be a matter for the FTC? If you're not getting what you paid for, isn't that fraud?
Not now they've explicitly made it legal by abolishing NN. The ISP gets to decide what is functional, and if you don't like it, you can pay more — maybe. An ISP owned by a major news outlet might well just go ahead and make all other major news outlets load slower, and not give you the option to pay more to get them at the same speed, and it would be completely legal.
Re:that would be awesome ... (Score:4, Insightful)
They could completely block the competing news service, or worse, block the registration site for the other party if they're political or if internet voting ever became a thing, block areas that might vote for the other party. ISP's could have a lot of political power by being the gatekeepers to various political sites.
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But that's not what the commercial showed. It showed you could either have the regular old speed for double the normal price or you could wait the full regular time plus an artificial delay to have it at the regular price. Sound good?
Unintentionally Ironic (Score:2)
If BK actually had such a policy, their customers would shop elsewhere starting tomorrow -- obviously. The commercial unintentionally makes the free marketer's point for them.
To make matters worse, the old "neutrality" wasn't really neutral. The actual policy was more like BK could only sell burgers that the government let them sell.
Re:Unintentionally Ironic (Score:5, Informative)
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Except that this is about internet service providers, so there is no "shopping elsewhere" for most people.
And even if there was a choice and you are thinking of throwing the words "free market" in a reply, think again. Look at current prices and speeds. There's already collusion between the ISPs to have as little differences in prices and speeds as possible.
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So your complaints are not really about net neutrality, but instead about monopolies or near monopolies? And you're not going to even try to identify why those (near) monopolies exist, or the myriad other ways a monopoly can screw their customers?
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The reason those monopolies exist has already been identified - they're a natural monopoly (or at least a natural oligopoly) like electricity or natural gas. There's a massive amount of infrastructure involved, and the cost of that only works out if you can recover that investment with a certain percentage of subscribers.
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But to finish my point, regulation is not for every industry, but it's sometimes necessary for monopolies or near-monopolies because the consumer has a weak bargaining position.
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And even highly competitive industries such as fast food restaurants need regulating so they don't race to a bottom of saving money by not keeping the food preparation areas clean.
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You say for most people, but that's not true. Most people have several ISP choices in the US.
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I live in a major metro area and here there are two. Two is not enough to make market competition work. There'd need to be dozens.
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Apple v Android. Are you saying that's not competitive?
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Do not most people live in urban areas? Are there not multiple ISPs in urban areas?
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To make matters worse, the old "neutrality" wasn't really neutral. The actual policy was more like BK could only sell burgers that the government let them sell.
Ever heard the aphorism "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt"?
Maybe you should consider it, because in no way, shape, or form does Title II regulation allow the government to dictate what ISPs are allowed to deliver to their customers. If you want to claim otherwise, you had better be ready to prove it.
Frankly, the main reason I'm challenging you to prove it so that when you realize that you can't, you might actually learn something. I'm getting pretty sick
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And what part, exactly, of "regulate" do you not understand?
Re:Unintentionally Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
If BK actually had such a policy, their customers would shop elsewhere starting tomorrow -- obviously.
There is no 'elsewhere' for 1 in 3 households in America. There are plenty of small towns with only one or two restaurants in them. The situation becomes worse if you actually expand the metaphor to multiple restaurants, because municipalities create protectionist artificial scarcity there, too. You can only purchase food from a business with a license to sell you food. Municipalities control the distribution of these licenses on specious bases. For example, lots of places don't permit food trucks, or they make it prohibitively expensive to operate one — you have to apply for permits over and over again for each county you want to operate in. This isn't so bad in states with few counties, but California has something like 56 of them and just operating in half of the state means that you've got dozens to deal with. And California is where the people live.
At both ends of the loop road I live on, people can get cable or DSL. But in the middle where I live, all I can get is access from a WISP which charges me $99/mo for 250GB at 6Mbps. What year is it? We paid the telcos to build out the last mile, and they pocketed over $450M and in fact paid the money out to executives in the form of bonuses. What if Taco Bell wins the fast food wars, and all restaurants are Taco Bell?
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The freer the market, the faster (and typically cheaper and better) you will get a solution.
Did you type that with a straight face, or were you smirking the whole time?
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Too bad there's no such option for internet service in many areas.
In real life (as opposed to the elementary school level understanding of competition), you'd need to have a few dozen ISPs to choose from in order to keep the competitors honest.
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Hardly. Take Apple and Android. According to your lights, we have no competition among smartphone makers. That's daft.
NN is BAD, more competition will solve all issues (Score:2)
reduce regulatory red tape on infrastructure at state and local levels that allow for local monopolies and the issue will resolve its self. If municipalities, small or mid sized ISP companies, and perhaps even non profits like the Farm Bureau in rural areas, are allowed to sell services against Comcast and ATT, things will improve dramatically. There is no need to put bureaucrats in charge of what can and cant be seen online and make no mistake, the NN regs as they were written absolutely laid the framewor
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this isnt about FCC - its about local and state regs that prevent non incumbents from pulling new cable on existing poles. As I said, its about infrastructure. They dont have to use ATT or comcasts wires, they just need access to poles and underground viaducts.
A good spoof (Score:3)
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It's not only about the lack of net neutrality creating paid high speed lanes, it's also harming consumers who might not want to watch Comcast Xfinity content but are more interested in Netflix.
They actually covered that: it was only whoppers (Netflix) that were tiered, if you wanted a chicken sandwich (Comcast Xfinity) then you didn't have to wait or pay extra. The even mentioned it was because they wanted to sell more chicken sandwiches.
WTi-Fi? (Score:2)
Poster on the wall says "Wi-Fi only for 6.33"
Was that part of the fake ad, or is this real?!
Here in Canada we get free wi-fi from McDonald's or Tim Horton as soon as we buy something. A lot of them don't even lock or change the password so as soon as you're a customer once, you have access.
Re:WTi-Fi? (Score:5, Informative)
It's a subtle dig at the FCC/Ajit Pai. 6.33 = "FCC", based on where the characters appear in the English alphabet.
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Oh, I did not even think of that. Nice nerdy touch.
I did laugh at the big-ass Reese cup at the end though, not sure how many people in the USA will even get that reference.
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That is seriously subtle. I did not pick up on that.
Slow lanes (Score:2)
The slow lanes for ordering a burger are actually at Whataburger.
Misinformation, making the problem worse (Score:2)
They are, unfortunately, perpetuating a myth about network neutrality which is completely wrong. Burger King has now hurt the network neutrality case. Every ISP, always has, and always will, offer varying speeds. That's not a violation of neutrality.
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Nope, the speed has always been a function of the hardware in your area. The bandwidth has been something that was available in differently priced tiers. This is readily apparent if you look at the burger as a packet. It wasn't the case that the employee couldn't push the burger across the counter slowly but that they weren't allowed to hand it over until some arbitrary time had passed.
I can pay my ISP more money to get more bandwidth, but for some things latency is more important. And no amount of bandwidt
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The speed throttling only applies to specific products. If you want a chicken sandwich, you are not throttled. They covered this.
What about airplanes? (Score:3)
Priority Queue (Score:3)
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"for an extra $20 cents"
Is that Verizon math? [slashdot.org]
Best analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine if you couldn't call Pizza Hut without paying an additional $15 to Verizon, because Pizza Hut refused to pay Verizon for "access" to their customers. But if you call Papa John's, you get a 20% discount on your order because Papa John's *did* pay Verizon for access to the customers.
Now extend that to every phone call you make. Imagine if the only calls you could make for "free" (as part of your plan) were to individuals and businesses that are paying for the privilege of having Verizon customers call them without additional charges.
THAT is why not having net neutrality is bad. The entire internet will rapidly become pay-per-view, and only the BIGGEST companies will be able to afford to pay-off the bandwidth providers/ISPs to make their content "free".
Sounds good (Score:2)
Drivethrough use case has very different latency requirements than dining in, I don't mind BK deploing traffic shaping to account for that. For Netflix-style bulk consumption of the same item, it would make sense to just have a pile of burgers on the counter and have everyone grab one and swipe their credit card. Sure they get preferential service, but they also don't route their orders all the way to the kitchen and are in and out fast.
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For Netflix-style bulk consumption of the same item, it would make sense to just have a pile of burgers on the counter and have everyone grab one and swipe their credit card.
That's actually how it works. At peak times, the vast majority of fast food restaurants prepare food preemptively, and queue it for delivery to customers. The epitome of this practice AFAIK (I have never been into some well-known chains like White Castle simply due to lack of proximity, so I can't speak to every fast food shit-slinger) is McDonalds, which will queue up several of each of their most popular sandwiches before the lunch rush. Some restaurants prep complete sandwiches, which is why they are so
Coca-Cola sponsored lane (Score:2)
Not a big fan of this commercial, but only because I don't see an issue with paying for a bigger pipe. I think it's fair that I pay more for higher raw throughput for multiple streaming devices than my neighbour that only streams through one TV.
But add a "Fast Lane, sponsored by Coca-Cola" to the mix, where Burger King can push you to buy Coca-Cola instead of Pepsi, because Coca-Cola bid higher than Pepsi for prioritization privileges, and the real problem with repealing NN becomes apparent.
Re:Coca-Cola sponsored lane (Score:4, Informative)
Not a big fan of this commercial, but only because I don't see an issue with paying for a bigger pipe. I think it's fair that I pay more for higher raw throughput for multiple streaming devices than my neighbour that only streams through one TV.
But add a "Fast Lane, sponsored by Coca-Cola" to the mix, where Burger King can push you to buy Coca-Cola instead of Pepsi, because Coca-Cola bid higher than Pepsi for prioritization privileges, and the real problem with repealing NN becomes apparent.
Did you miss the part about the chicken? If you bought a chicken sandwich, it was instant. If you paid for extra speed on the whopper, it was instant. If you did not, they had your sandwich, weren't doing anything else (your pipe was empty), but they just didn't fill the capacity of their pipe.
Bad analogy (Score:2)
The problem that net neutrality tries to address is that the customer has already paid for a certain level of service. You've paid fo
Net Neutrality is a distraction.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Net Neutrality as it was written is pointless and is anything but what it should be. I really wish people would realize that - it doesn't fix the problem and makes it seem like the issue is private companies running amok, instead of the real issue being seen: there is extremely little competition in the last mile, especially in rural areas. This has to do with what others mentioned - access to poles, monopolies from both cities and large multi-tenant units, etc. This isn't about traffic prioritization, it's about lack of competition due to regulations/laws/case law.
Further, the law itself did absolutely nothing in making sure that companies can't effectively "prioritize" traffic anyway, see #1 below.
1. Only artificially limiting bandwidth via rate shaping, etc is covered by the old law. Technical "limitations" are not. You can't require an ISP to setup more peering points, increase transit, etc. ISP's use transit (generic traffic) and peering (sending traffic to a specific company.) Most major companies like to peer since it is generally far, far cheaper than paying for transit. If Comcast is peering with Netflix and only has a 100 mbps connection to them, but the actual bandwidth required from Netflix should be more like 1000 mbps without causing slowdowns, they can simply not facilitate increasing that. It costs money (to Comcast and Netflix) to increase that bandwidth between each other, so who pays for it, especially if that utilization is heavily one-sided? Same scenario will happen, but, a different "cause".
2. Having something labeled "Net neutrality" does not make it so. The only reason people haven't left the incumbent carriers in droves is because they have no other choice in many areas. You remove the barriers to competition and it will fix this situation without having the federal government needing to pass pointless laws.
3. Net Neutrality was passed in 2015, how many years prior did the internet exist and the world did end...
Burger King's Tax Inversion = Lifetime Boycott (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nothing to do with net neutrality (Score:5, Insightful)
Not exactly, but they do confuse the issue. If you notice, only the Wopper is being delayed, and it's being delayed despite being able to be served faster. Other sandwiches like Chicken (as pointed out in the ad) do not require waiting in the slow line.
If we assume Woppers are a substitute for torrents then the net neutrality parallel is obvious - unfortunately the target audience for the commercial won't make the connection.
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Well, hopefully they'll make the connection that they can't get what they want unless they pay through the nose. That would be good enough.
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If we assume Woppers are a substitute for torrents then the net neutrality parallel is obvious - unfortunately the target audience for the commercial won't make the connection.
I don't think it's important that they make the connection about how eaxactly Net Neutrality will affect this but not that.
Waiting for their Whopper is pissing them off like Net Neutrality will piss them off. It's all that matters.
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As TheCycoONE points out, they kinda sorta made the point, but weakly. I was a little disappointed that they didn't have something along the lines of this:
You can only get cheese if you also get mustard and kale. You can scrape those off if you don't want them, but you have to pay for them; they're part of the bundle. If you want ketchup and pickles, you have to buy an apple pie. And fries are only available if you add the chicken sandwich package.
Re: Nothing to do with net neutrality (Score:2)
Sounds like you are arguing against cable tv bundling channels. That is fine, but it is no way remotely connected to net neutrality.
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Sounds like you are arguing against cable tv bundling channels. That is fine, but it is no way remotely connected to net neutrality.
You may think it isn't connected, but wait and see. ISPs that are also TV providers (in other words, all of the cable providers) make a lot of money on channel bundling, and they are losing TV customers as cord cutting increases. I'm sure they'd really like the bundling model to extend to internet access.
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Can BK spell hippocritical?
Maybe. But apparently you can't.
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Not filthier than all the other fast food restaurants around here. Mostly 'cause our health inspectors are quick to shut down any restaurant that doesn't look like a pre-op operating room.
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Not filthier than all the other fast food restaurants around here. Mostly 'cause our health inspectors are quick to shut down any restaurant that doesn't look like a pre-op operating room.
When I worked in fast food, we (I) scrubbed down the walls and floors every night, besides all the other usual cleaning tasks. Fast food restaurants are probably cleaner on average than greasy spoons, at least.
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Actually, plenty of sit-down restaurants have something like this. You can take the slow approach of waiting for a table, or go to the bar and order food there. If you are alone or in a hurry the bar works well. If you are with a group and want to sit together instead of getting scattered (or at least strung out in a line where it is harder to talk), you wait. I seen places where the bar menu is the same, and other places where it is different.
All that said, I agree that the fact that most places you have c
Re: Nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
Despite the ridiculous amount of capital it takes, a lot. The number one place that there are issues is utility poles. Right now, most municipalities have regulations that you must wait for the incumbent player to move their cables to make room for yours. Typically, there is no required turnaround time, or it's a ridiculously long time like 90 days per pole and they can charge you whatever they want for the "service." Some municipalities passed what a are called "one touch make ready" regulations but, the incumbents have sued every time, with varied results but, if nothing else, you had to wait for the lawsuit to conclude before you could proceed. One touch make ready is a regulation that allows a new players to move aside existing cables to make room for their own on the condition that they do not harm existing cables or interfere with the competitor's service. Google fiber required that one touch make ready laws were passed before they would consider your city for their service.
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most municipalities have regulations that you must wait for the incumbent player to move their cables to make room for yours.
This is one place where I have sympathy for the incumbents. How many Slashdot sysadmins would be fine with a competitor's engineer messing with the fiber runs in your data center under the condition "that they do not harm existing cables"? Maybe they're only making simple modifications to the setup but eventually someone's going to mess up. Your users aren't going to care that technically it was someone else who broke the internet.
Regulations that stipulate reasonable service times and fees seem like a
Public property (Score:5, Insightful)
But that's the point; utility poles aren't on the property of the ISP. They are on municipal property (or private property with municipal easements) and the municipality has every right to regulate how they are maintained and who can use them. In many places, the poles were originally installed by the electrical utility and telcos and cable companies are just free-riders.
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The drive through is often the fast lane and going indoors to order is the slow lane. The drive through customers usually take priority.
LOL. Apparently you've never been to In-n-Out during dinnertime.
Re:And McDonalds does what in this scenario? (Score:5, Insightful)
seems more like you don't understand how an analogy works. the set of all hamburger restaurants isn't "the internet" in this case. this single BK restaurant is "the internet", or monopoly gateway to is. in the context of the ad, the whopper is like netflix or something. you can get the chicken sandwich, which is the ISP video, with no delays. but you may have to wait (or get your whopper throughput throttled) if you don't pay for a premium line. the analogy totally works, if you don't attempt to over-analyze it with "that's not really how..." irrelevant reasoning.
Re:And McDonalds does what in this scenario? (Score:5, Insightful)
But only Burger King has the whopper, which is their point.
ISPs could throttle your access to Netflix, Hulu and YouTube for example.
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I thought the point was that if you pay more you should get better service?
I haven't watched the video, but I'm guessing it features people who are upset about the situation? I think it would be fantastic if I could skip a long line by paying more if I'm in a hurry.
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Not quite. Net neutrality says nothing about overall better service at a premium price. What it is about is the ISPs restricting your traffic that you already paid to have access to, based on schemes that are probably hidden and/or indecipherable to the consumer who has paid the bill.
Theoretical example with concrete details: Suppose you had Netflix, and you suddenly noticed it was much slower, but other some other quick technical checks you perform show your network speed is okay. You call up your ISP a
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So, Burger King wants to help you and your reaction is to boycott them? What's wrong with you?
Click on "Slow Reply to This" to have your reply online in 10 minutes or less,
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Destroy the free market that never existed?
Re: So who advertises on Fox News Hannity? (Score:4, Insightful)
So junk food restaurant chains are not allowed to voice their opinion? Especially in areas where such policies may affect their business.
Chick-fil-A is mostly located in the Bible Belt, so being overly liberal could effect its business.
Papa Johns needs an army of low paid workers, having them pay for health insurance will hit their business model.
Burger King I expect needs net neutrality, as it is trying to get back into the game, the once #2 burger chain, is loosing a lot of ground. For it to try to get press again, they need to advertise on the cheaper routs of the internet. Having there voice being blocked means they will not be able to run their business.
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Chick-fil-A is mostly located in the Bible Belt, so being overly liberal could effect its business.
On a "number of restaurant per capita" basis it looks that way, but they have locations in 45 states and the District of Columbia. There are 4 locations within a 15-minute drive of where I work in SoCal. The store on Westwood Bl, right on the edge of the UCLA campus (hardly a bastion of religious conservatism) does a booming business. Oh, and by the way: effect =~ s/^e/a/
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On a "number of restaurant per capita" basis it looks that way,
Which is the only meaningful way to talk about where a chain has concentrated its business.
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I'd say revenue by ZIP code would be another extremely meaningful way.
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Only with uniform prices. Say, revenue of McDonalds from Russia doesn't reflect their popularity there, because if they charged the same prices as in USA, they'd be without customers.
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Papa Johns needs an army of low paid workers, having them pay for health insurance will hit their business model.
Papa Johns already had a loophole for this all along anyway. Most locations are independent franchises that don't have enough employees to fall under any insurance requirements anyway.
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Do you hold Hobby Lobby [wikipedia.org] to the same standard?
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I think he thinks these companies are trying to get in the spotlight.
Chick-fil-A you can try to make that case since the owner dared to voice his opinion during an interview but that's only fair if you hold all the companies that came out in favor of gay marriage as just as agenda oriented.
Hobby Lobby is in a different situation as they were not trying to hit the radar. A bunch of people started protesting and making allot of noise even though Hobby Lobby did actually pay for many forms of birth control.
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Hobby Lobby is in a different situation as they were not trying to hit the radar. A bunch of people started protesting and making allot of noise even though Hobby Lobby did actually pay for many forms of birth control. Unfortunately with that protest crowd it's give us all for free or you might as well as give us nothing.
I'm angry with Hobby Lobby more due to the fact that they decorated their headquarters with artifacts stolen from Iraq during the Iraq War/ISIS.
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Hobby Lobby is in a different situation as they were not trying to hit the radar. A bunch of people started protesting and making allot of noise even though Hobby Lobby did actually pay for many forms of birth control. Unfortunately with that protest crowd it's give us all for free or you might as well as give us nothing.
I'm angry with Hobby Lobby more due to the fact that they decorated their headquarters with artifacts stolen from Iraq during the Iraq War/ISIS.
If what you say is true, then those artifacts are likely safer at Hobby Lobby than they are in Iraq. Were I an Iraqi who cared about my history, I might even be happy about this.
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In the 1880's, NCR added extra health and safety features for the workers, like chairs, and an on-site doctor to deal with accidents. Almost no other company did this. But this wasn't done because of any social agenda or liberal leanings, instead the president felt that happier and healthier workers were better workers. It's an old idea that still applies.
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The difference is that amusements parks aren't critical for modern life. Also, many areas there might be one choice for Internet provider. So no, not "common practice".
Neither is Burger King "critical for modern life" nor the only choice in fast food providers.
My point is that people and businesses are definitely willing to pay for different qualities of service or quantities of a product.
Regardless this is about the relevance of the Burger King ad to the subject of Net Neutrality.
Re:Not a good comparison (Score:5, Informative)
You're wrong. Burger King's analogy is that they'll let you pay more for faster priority access to their product. To accomplish this, they will artificially slow down access to those that are unwilling to pay the ridiculous premium. Those customers that were waiting forever for their burgers weren't waiting because there were many customers that pay the premium, they were waiting just because the premium option existed and they didn't pony up. That's the entire point of their analogy and is perfectly valid.
Get rid of toll roads (Score:3, Interesting)
Many Toll Roads are built with the rationale that of you pay the toll, then you can travel faster than the rest of the schmucks.
A prime example of Austin, TX with a toll road with prices that vari with the traffic. Presumably, it's worth more to go faster.
Of course the reality is they fucked it up and people end up spending$5 to go a few miles just as slow as everyone else.
So if paying more at BK, or your ISP is bad, then certainly paying more fore essentially nothing is far worse.
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So you switched from a bad company to a horrible one. Smooth move.
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That's more to do with ability for competitors to set up business. Much like a gas pipeline, you can't have 5 alternatives in town for Internet without some kind of compromise.
they are selling virtual bandwidth on a pipe that is already there.
That's sort of covered by the ad. The burgers were already ready, but they wanted to charge extra to deliver it sooner.
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Various towns trying that have found state laws getting passed forbidding them from doing so.
I'll agree that the physical plant in the "last mile" is a natural monopoly. But the companies that might want to eventually move into that natural monopoly don't want anyone they can't drive out of business to run it.
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Much like if there was actual competition for ISPs, net neutrality would enforce itself in the market.
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Same. Whataburger makes some of the best fast food burgers in the market. They make a good breakfast too.