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Here is why I hate most posts about Net Neutrality:

Busty Demoness·12/15/2017, 12:16:17 PM·9 votes·1,270 views

Just about every single argument amounts to "We will get the worst possible situation, guaranteed."

Fuck that.

Let's start with "don't guarantee something unless you can prove it will happen". Quit giving me "this is gonna happen whether you like it or not" bullshit because that is an easy way to come off as someone going solely off knee-jerk reactions and should generally not be listened to. Especially since you can't prove it.

As to if it actually happens? Look at most natural disasters and how to handle them. You PREPARE with stocking up supplies and having a plan for if/when it hits. You REACT to one by following said plan. You prepare for the worst possible scenario because you never know when it will hit. You pray that it won't be the worst possible scenario, but you are ready if it is. If it's not something you can readily prevent, prepare for the possible outcomes. Do not act like you can see the future and stop using doomsday prophecies as your primary argument tool, it makes you look extremely stupid.

Right now, most of what I'm seeing is reaction. And it amounts to running around like a decapitated chicken. It is embarrassing to see so many people act like it's suddenly the end of the world wide web just because the USA repealed a portion of law. Do one better than the headless chicken. Create a plan regarding the worst possible situation and work from there. That means any and all contingencies. If that means starting up a petition now to send to president Trump upon the final repeal of NN, get started and rack up those e-signatures. If that means writing many detailed, emotional letters to various members of congress/senate, get started on a good one for your template.

The point is to stop panicking and start planning your next move. Even a zombie apocalypse has a general plan you can use to increase your odds of survival. You wouldn't get far in most disasters running in circles screaming and flailing about. So stop the crazy and get ready for what you think is the worst possible situation to come.

45 Comments

SKRRRRRRAT12/15/2017, 1:18:16 PM6 votes

NA ISPs are known to be scum and by removing NN they can be even more scummy than they are. Keep being delusional by thinking they won't be.

Colonel J12/15/2017, 1:48:03 PM5 votes

What i hate most is that they're all repeating the same talking points from all the viral pro-NN videos without themselves having muxh critical thinking about it. It's like they're all mindless drones.

Chortle12/15/2017, 7:31:25 PM3 votes

I came across this on another forum that really shed light on the topic. This poster works for an ISP.

"Two reasons for monopolies:

Regional (whether it be city, county, or state) governments allow them to happen. Those governments accept money from the ISPs, whether they be campaign contributions or paying taxes/fees to have their lines operating in that region.
Because they are “utilities” you can only have so many lines, switching stations, and routing stations within an area. Your local monopoly may happen to own all of the hardware and lines in the region. If no one else had set up that hardware or lines within the region, then there is no real competition. If another ISP wants to operate on those lines (example, Comcast being able to operate on AT&T lines and switching stations), then that ISP has to pay to do so. This is no different than how things work with the electric company. I bet you don’t have choices to which electric company you can purchase power from. The same concept with the Internet.

As for your last statement, yes, it is suicide if a company within the USA to try do those tiered based packages. Those types of plans work in countries and regions that do per-bit internet services instead of per bandwidth like here in the USA.

As for forking over more cash, well that is the crux of Title 2 of NN isn’t it?

What seems like a fight between “the people” and the ISPs is really a fight of corporation versus corporation. It’s ISPs versus .com companies (Facebook, Google, Pornhub, Neflix, etc.). As someone who actually deals with these .com companies at a business level, they are really greedy and selfish. They do not want to pay for the traffic they create for their services. The amount packets and sizes of the packets can actually bog down networks. The traffic Pornhub alone in 2016 was massive.

Imagine the amount of data Netflix and Hulu sent out in 2016? How many 16GB USB sticks worth? Here is the thing with video streaming packets: they are large, they require very low chances of being dropped, very high requirement of perfectly being timed to delivery, also very low chance of causing poor quality. It takes some very high end equipment that eats up a lot of power to do this consistently. These .com companies don’t want to pay for it.

That is like me having a shipping and freight company, but me not paying my fair share of taxes in order to maintain and improve the roads. In scenarios like that, you get one of the three outcomes: • in order to maintain the roads and improve the roads to handle the huge trucks, everyone will pay an increase on a tax (sales, property, gasoline) • nothing will happen and a war of attrition will happen and the roads will fall apart. The goal is for the government to get my company to pay for road maintenance cause by me • force my company to pay via lawsuit, which my company will probably pick up and leave if that happens since I am not getting any special treatment anymore.

That scenario is exactly the same thing with Net Neutrality. • If the .com sites won’t pay for their fair share, then the ISPs will charge consumers more money since they are the end users • If a law prevents ISPs from charging consumers too much, then a war of attrition will happen. The ISPs’ goal is to get the .coms to pay for their increased traffic. Though the .com people will never pay, instead the consumer will be dealing with degrading technology and lines. ISPs will just keep doing bare minimum • A lawsuit goes against the .coms and the just get up and leave. They don’t even have to physically leave, they can change their headquarters to another country just by moving a few pieces of paper. Of course, they won’t need to leave, they have “friends” in all levels of government ready to protect them if that comes about. Of course, NN Title 2 was their baby.

This is what NN is actually about: corporations not paying their fair share. We all want corporations to pay their fair share, correct?

InB4: “Look how much money the ISPs made X year, <insert something about greed here>.” I will point to how much these .com companies have made. Most of that money comes from selling your personal information to other companies and the government."

RookPusher12/15/2017, 6:17:22 PM2 votes

Before making posts like this you really should read more about the Gilded Age. And maybe a book on human nature and it's relationship to power when a profit motive is involved. And another on what constitutes a monopoly.

Critmaster Garen12/15/2017, 8:16:55 PM2 votes

youre on a forum of a game that already adopted the microtransaction system the moment it was conceived. the practise has become more and more common in videogames to the point where certain companies sell you full priced games and then still hide some of the content behind a pay wall. hell, its come even so far that single player games are shipped with microtransactions.

in the gaming industry it already IS as bad as it gets. there is no reason not to expect the concept to spread to other areas.

the system as terrible and anti consumer as it may be obvioulsy pays off. and more companies came to realize over the past decade how much ridiculous profit these microtransaction systems can generate. give me one reason. just ONE that is not based on human decency, that internet service providers would not want to adopt such a system given the opportunity. especially when said service provider already has a monopoly over the market and can basically do whatever the fuck they want and as a customer you just have to deal with it because you dont have any alternatives.

most of the arguments of the FCC tards who were in favour of removing net neutrality were exactly that it would limit businesses from using these practises, as if there wasnt anything inherently wrong with it.

the problem is that the vote is pretty much the beginning of the end for many people who use certain internet services, unless theyre paying extra in the future. so yea, its kinda legitamate for many people to freak out.

ZenithEevee12/15/2017, 8:43:49 PM2 votes

Yes While there are actual concerns About removing NN that i can list

None of the posts Touch up on those concerns, And are literally just Fearmongering.

None touch up on that "By removing NN, You can allow large companies like BP or Walmart to gain "Trust Buster" Protection by creating an ISP business and going to the FTC because Internet would be a whateverthefuck (Some sort of "Service" business, LSS basically it allows them to build a monopoly on it because its a Necessity) business, Which would protect the mother business, And so on"

Deconet12/15/2017, 9:30:56 PM2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Busty Demoness,realm=NA,application-id=yrc23zHg,discussion-id=6fBvUTrf,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-12-15T12:16:17.485+0000)

Let's start with "don't guarantee something unless you can prove it will happen".

The problem with that idea is you don't make or change laws based only on their guarantees. They need to be made with the exceptions, oddities, and worst case scenarios in mind.

So when people are talking about NN legislation; talking about it in the worst case scenario is a legitimate approach.

BubblyRainbows12/15/2017, 5:16:32 PM1 votes

Of course this isn't going to destroy the internet. That's what the anti-NN people seem to be saying to satirize the people who are upset over the potential abuses we could be open to if the legal challenges fail. It makes zero sense to think that an ISP would destroy their revenue stream. But the problem is that prices for internet locally have only gone up with every passing year for the last decade. Ten years ago, we paid $59/month for the highest-tier internet (before they offered it in a bundle). Five years ago we paid $50 when it was bundled with TV, and $70 for the same internet without the bundle. Now we pay $100/month for the highest tier internet. Because there is exactly one ISP serving this area that offers unlimited internet. They have no competition and they know they can do whatever they want because customers' only alternatives in the area, while cheaper, throttle internet speed after a very small data cap.

Is it possible that removing the regulations could spur some competition? Maybe. Particularly in areas with multiple ISPs that offer comparable service. I don't see this change as necessarily being horrible for areas where there's already competition. I have my doubts about ISPs resisting the opportunity to restrict bandwidth to sites/services controlled by their competitors, but there is the possibility that companies may have to compete more now, and in areas with variety, that competition may keep them from taking advantage. But in an area like where I live, with only one decent ISP providing service, I doubt we'll see any improvement because of competition. If any other company was keen to move into this area with a better offer for service, I would have expected it before now. Just about any company could make a KILLING in this area by coming in and offering unlimited internet at the same speeds for $10 less. I very much doubt that the local price inflation is going to get any better with fewer restrictions on the only decent ISP serving our area.

Years back when we still had satellite TV, the price kept going up the same way until we dropped them because it was cheaper for unbundled internet + streaming services than it was to keep their TV/internet bundle. Unfortunately, it's not like we have the option now that we did then. We can't drop internet and get our streaming/gaming/internet entertainment from an "alternative internet". Sure we could dump internet service entirely and get TV instead of streaming, but TV wouldn't give us access to online gaming/internet features. When 100% of your household's TV/music/gaming entertainment comes from the internet, dropping service is not really an option. The local ISP knows it. Which, I assume, is why they feel free to raise the price yearly. Because they know that locally, we have nowhere else to go that isn't vastly more limited.

Yes, people are overstating the severity of the situation, and doing so before it's even set in stone. Which, I assume, is why I got downvoted and called a drama queen on another thread for making what I THOUGHT was an obviously-sarcastic comment about how it was nice to have internet service while we could afford it. But I really don't see how these changes will make anything better for people in areas like where we live. As I previously stated, maybe this will spur some competition in other areas where there are multiple more-or-less equal options available. But for those who live in areas dominated by one company, forgive me if I'm not optimistic about the altruism of the local monopoly. They've already been raising our prices yearly. I wouldn't be surprised if there were additional fees incoming for high-usage households like ours (if we don't want slower service to select games/services, of course).

Chortle12/15/2017, 9:50:08 PM1 votes

Here is another fairly unbiased article detailing most of the situation:

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2001903-repealing-net-neutrality-will-impact-it-but-experts-disagree-on-how

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's thought process behind the repeal of Net Neutrality: Companies such as Google are allowed to monetize their content and customers in multiple ways, ISPs are currently only allowed to make their profits via subscriptions under the current rules. Pai wants to change this and has said that ISPs should be able to make as much money as possible so they can continue to invest it into building the networks and technologies of tomorrow."

DotEleven12/15/2017, 5:45:16 PM1 votes

You can call it the worst scenario. and yes, it may or may not happen. But there's no reason to give them the ability to do it in the first place.

You already pay for your service. You pay for a bandwidth limit. People can pay more for higher bandwidth. That is their service. It shouldn't matter what site I go to the ISP shouldn't be able to regulate whether I get that 30 Mbps going to Twitch or Youtube or League.

The reason people keep bringing up this scenario is because this is what removing Net Neutrality allows them to do regardless of they will or won't.

I am Pacman12/15/2017, 5:46:43 PM1 votes

People aren't just complaining on the internet btw. Hundreds of thousands of people called/emailed their representatives and most were told "HAHA, NO, I already got paid by ISPs". After the repeal of NN two separate organizations are suing the FCC, multiple protests have happened before the repeal and being planned for future dates. State governments are already preparing legislation to protect NN even though the FFC is going to try to make it so states can't self regulate.

People are trying to save the internet, if you don't care to pay attention to them that's fine but don't insult them because they are ALSO complaining online about a corrupt system.

I am Pacman12/15/2017, 5:38:10 PM1 votes

Monopolies are either coercive, natural, or competitive.

Coercive monopolies use government regulation to push out competitors. Car dealerships eliminate private sellers with curb stoning laws, and continuously raise the requirements for new dealers.

Natural monopolies emerge from the specifics of a product or market, typically high fixed cost, and low variable cost. Physical limitations are also common (e.g., there's only space for one road).

Competitive monopolies are too efficient to compete with. Prices compete with potential competition, because raising prices induces competition. Intel's server chips are a good example.

Internet is a weak natural monopoly, because there are high fixed costs for infrastructure, but transmitting a single bit is virtually free. But the fixed cost isn't really that high.

Internet is a strong coercive monopoly, because your government conspires to allow only one infrastructure provider at a time. The real cost of last mile internet isn't fiber, switches, or power supplies. It's government red tape. The price of tech is plummeting, but incumbents work hard to raise the barrier to entry through government.

GOOGLE threw in the towel, because it was too slow and expensive to enter a new market. Do you have any idea how much money and patience Google has? (Btw, Google's objective was not to profit as an ISP, but to protect their core business from ISPs).

From Reddit u/gottagrowupeventualy

https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7jwdlh/cmv_isps_cant_be_competitive_because_they_already/

ISPs have worked with munipal and state governments to make it illegal to compete with them. They also have agreements among each other not to compete in certain areas. These laws and agreements don't disappear along with the disappearance of NN.

I always like to point out that ISPs have been receiving tax breaks from the government for years now in order to subsidize the implementation of a countrywide fiber network. It still doesn't exist and ISPs just pocket the money.

Im happy I live in Canada where my government doubled down on NN when yours got voted out.