Obama: "Regulate the 'Net!"

[imind]

.You should take it that I've completely rejected the arguments for net neutrality based on how free enterprise works.

no, i think its pretty obvious here from your comments that you have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[Glass*Soul]

I freely admit to having no clue. Although, if Internet providers are making deals with the most popularly visited sites to make them work faster, I honestly don't see the issue, unless it results directly in other sites going slower.

It would follow that if there are tiered speeds, and the faster speeds are more expensive, the less affluent an operation is the slower it will load and the less likely people will be to access their sites and services. Those who don't pay a premium fee can be throttled into oblivion. And that's assuming that ability to pay will always be the one and only reason for throttling a site. The process could also be used to control what content is available to customers. If your favorite newspaper, or blog or political site displeases your ISP, then trying to log onto them will produce a slowly rotating swirly while those that please your ISP will load with blinding speed.

An analogy would be if you pick up your phone and find that while calls to certain numbers go right through, calls to other numbers take so long that you generally end up hanging up. Whether intentionally or not, the phone company would be controlling who you talk to.

 

[HisMan]

It has nothing to do with broadband or cost but is a backdoor way using political double-speak, i.e. "neutrality," to control our freedoms.

Obama'a agenda is crystal clear and proven by the fact that his appointees in the FCC all voted to regulate political speech on the net. A proposal to do just that failed by only one vote in a 3 to 3 tie that was completely along party lines. I can't link as I'm a newby but if you're interested please google "FCC proposes to regulate political speech."

 

[Supreme]

It's great that the President is coming out on this- and on the right side, it would seem. Netflix, Google and like would love to charge people extra to use their services, but the federal government should (and is) stopping them from doing so.

 

[Joykins]

It's great that the President is coming out on this- and on the right side, it would seem. Netflix, Google and like would love to charge people extra to use their services, but the federal government should (and is) stopping them from doing so.

Netflix and Google are FOR net neutrality. As content providers, it benefits them. And Netflix can (and does) now charge a subscription, as does Google for premium services.

 

[ThisBrotherOfHis]

no, i think its pretty obvious here from your comments that you have no idea what you're talking about.

One more time, for clarity ...

So ... if we get "net neutrality," then all the people on the Internet who think its a great idea can then begin campaigning for my favorite changes to the free market:

• All houses, regardless of what size or their location, will now sell for $100,000 -- or less, if we can get the builders to agree to it
• A ticket behind home plate at The 'K' will cost the same as the nosebleed ticket in the upper deck come opening day next year
• A brand new Mustang GT500 will now sell for the same price as it's littler brother, the Fiesta
• Harvard and Johns Hopkins will now charge the same thing for an education as my local community college

People favoring so-called "net neutrality" should avidly support all those things without event thinking about them. They are "no-brainers." I mean, after all, if "net neutrality" is a great idea, so are those, and all are equally practical.

OK, now back in the real world. These things are priced differently for a reason. They are not neutral. Nothing is neutral in a free market economy. Which is why “net neutrality” is a dumb idea.

There was once a time when the Internet was open to all, just like the days when gasoline was plentiful and water could be drunk from any available stream. Ironically, I don't see anyone claiming their water service should be free, since the the source for that water is open to anyone who wants to go to the bank of the river and get some.

Obviously, the world has changed. The Internet is not, contrary to what many believe, a place of unlimited access. And it is certainly no longer free. There is only so much data that can flow in and out of it through the spectrums provided. The 'Net is like real estate. Making uninformed utopian demands that the speed of access to it be provided at the same cost to everyone is like demanding to pay the same for a hotel room, no mattter whether it is at a Motel 6 in Sedalia, Missouri, or the Ritz Carlton Central Park.

If people want a better location they have to pay more. That's why a 5,000 square foot home in Mission Hills costs more than a three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath in rural Ohio. That is why my Royals charge more for the seat behind home plate than they do for one in Row ZZZ in section 422. It is why I will never buy a brand new Mustang GT500 for the price of a Fiesta. It is why Your Town Community College offers much cheaper tuition than Harvard or Johns Hopkins.

Why would the Internet be any different?

Newsflash, folks: There’s no such thing as "neutral," with the Internet or anything else. It's been tried. It was called "Communism." It failed.

 

[ThisBrotherOfHis]

Arrgghhh! Double post again. Sorry.

 

[tulc]

seems to be a lot of double posts today.
tulc(wonders why)

 

[ThisBrotherOfHis]

seems to be a lot of double posts today.
tulc(wonders why)

Yes, tulc, please join me in forming an "edit function neutrality" petition to get someone to fix the malfunctioning edit function.

 

[Joykins]

So ... if we get "net neutrality," then all the people on the Internet who think its a great idea can then begin campaigning for my favorite changes to the free market:

• All houses, regardless of what size or their location, will now sell for $100,000 -- or less, if we can get the builders to agree to it
• A ticket behind home plate at The 'K' will cost the same as the nosebleed ticket in the upper deck come opening day next year
• A brand new Mustang GT500 will now sell for the same price as it's littler brother, the Fiesta
• Harvard and Johns Hopkins will now charge the same thing for an education as my local community college

These are different because they are end-use products and the Internet is not an end-use product. The Internet is the technology by which we acquire the end-use product (usually data/content).

Right now providers of end-use content on the Internet are free to compete and price their products as they wish, whether they are Google, Netflix, the public library, a membership-oriented gaming site, a pornography site, a college course, or the shopping experience you have at Amazon.

A more apt metaphor would be the old "information superhighway" metaphor--whether there should be fast lanes or HOV lanes or bus-only lanes, whether/how tolls apply, whether the highway is open to all at the same level--and who gets to make sure that whatever the rules are, are followed by the companies and other organizations that own and maintain certain stretches of the roads.

Other apt metaphors would be electricity, water & sewage, telecommunication, or other kinds of infrastructure. These are a mishmash of public and private, and have always been fairly heavily regulated.

Kind of like... utilities.

 

[Supreme]

Netflix and Google are FOR net neutrality. As content providers, it benefits them. And Netflix can (and does) now charge a subscription, as does Google for premium services.

I'm glad to hear it.

 

[HisMan]

[/FONT]

Great post and right on!

The whole thing is yet another invented "crisis" that liberals are, once again, trying to use to restrict our freedoms. Of course there are problems but the rhetoric is almost exactly like the rhetoric used to justify government intrusions into health care (a crisis which they are responsible for creating in the first place).

New technologies and new markets will sort all of these problems out on their own if the government would just stay out of the way. It's like the "crisis" Clinton invented regarding AT&T's monopoly. Not two years after the massive, ugly fight in Congress to break them up everybody had cell phones and cable and land lines were more and more being connected through cable companies and not phone lines.