Network Neutrality(stripe.com)
stripe.com
Network Neutrality
https://stripe.com/blog/network-neutrality
13 comments
Pricing neutrality is hard to enforce and can lead to price inflation (c.f. interchange), but we'd be game for something along these lines. Part of Stripe's raison d'être is making pretty advanced payment infrastructure — only available prior to those with considerable means and past experience — available to anyone. We're obviously not there yet (witness the limited number of countries, payouts only being available in the US for now) but that's where we're trying to get to.
Don't know why this isn't higher up, it shows a consistent position on these matters, and displays a pretty mature context to the original post that set up the comparison. The question was an honest one, and as someone mentioned earlier such legislation might actually be super favorable for Stripe.
There's a big difference between the ISP and payment processing markets in the US.
Most consumers and small businesses in the US can buy ISP services only from a duopoly, the cable company or the phone company, who therefore are in a position to dictate terms to customers. In other words, there's no functioning "free market" for consumer and small-business ISP services.
On the other hand, there are many payment processors in the US.[1] Say what you will about their service quality (most suck -- Stripe is an exception), but at least customers have multiple choices. No payment processor is in a position to dictate terms. In other words, there's a functioning market for payment processing services.
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[1] http://www.quora.com/How-many-payment-card-merchants-are-in-...
Most consumers and small businesses in the US can buy ISP services only from a duopoly, the cable company or the phone company, who therefore are in a position to dictate terms to customers. In other words, there's no functioning "free market" for consumer and small-business ISP services.
On the other hand, there are many payment processors in the US.[1] Say what you will about their service quality (most suck -- Stripe is an exception), but at least customers have multiple choices. No payment processor is in a position to dictate terms. In other words, there's a functioning market for payment processing services.
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[1] http://www.quora.com/How-many-payment-card-merchants-are-in-...
Then why not promote competition and choice, via antitrust enforcement and franchising/last-mile-infrastructure reforms?
Federal "net neutrality" regulations freeze into national law a particular formula for access, based on an idealized model that's never quite existed before. (To the extent the net has often been 'neutral', it's not because the FCC demanded it, but customers and businesses. And the legions of de facto exceptions have been practical, and evolving quickly, not waiting for telecom-lawyer mandarins in DC to design us a better internet.)
Even if new utility-style regulation prevents certain abuses, it equally prevents valuable experiments from incumbents or new entrants. The history of regulated utilities – electric, water, classic phones – is one of stagnation, and plenty of subtle abuses from those incumbents whose margins get effectively written into law.
Federal "net neutrality" regulations freeze into national law a particular formula for access, based on an idealized model that's never quite existed before. (To the extent the net has often been 'neutral', it's not because the FCC demanded it, but customers and businesses. And the legions of de facto exceptions have been practical, and evolving quickly, not waiting for telecom-lawyer mandarins in DC to design us a better internet.)
Even if new utility-style regulation prevents certain abuses, it equally prevents valuable experiments from incumbents or new entrants. The history of regulated utilities – electric, water, classic phones – is one of stagnation, and plenty of subtle abuses from those incumbents whose margins get effectively written into law.
> Even if new utility-style regulation prevents certain abuses, it equally prevents valuable experiments from incumbents or new entrants.
Without opening up infrastructure to competing ISP services, the current system guarantees there will be no new entrants (and, via mergers, an ever decreasing number of competitors). Infrastructure is a natural monopoly, but the services provided over that infrastructure are not. Locking infrastructure customers to a single ISP is effectively giving the monopolies a gift-wrapped invitation to abuse their market power.
Without opening up infrastructure to competing ISP services, the current system guarantees there will be no new entrants (and, via mergers, an ever decreasing number of competitors). Infrastructure is a natural monopoly, but the services provided over that infrastructure are not. Locking infrastructure customers to a single ISP is effectively giving the monopolies a gift-wrapped invitation to abuse their market power.
There are new wireless technologies. And Google blimps or Google fiber. And other companies or cities can run new wires, or put ever-improving wireless repeaters on old polls. None of the cable infrastructure is that old, the world is awash in capital looking for projects, and even the tech for running wires has improved massively recently via robotics, compared to the 70s/80s cable build-outs. Smarter caching, or peer-to-peer delivery, can also thwart many ISP bottlenecks.
So I'm not sure this is a 'natural monopoly' at all. There's been too little time to observe, and things are still changing fast.
Let abusive incumbents try to collect monopoly rents. That would attract lots of new solutions from very savvy and deep-pocketed challengers, like Google, Apple, and other strategic investors.
So I'm not sure this is a 'natural monopoly' at all. There's been too little time to observe, and things are still changing fast.
Let abusive incumbents try to collect monopoly rents. That would attract lots of new solutions from very savvy and deep-pocketed challengers, like Google, Apple, and other strategic investors.
> So I'm not sure this is a 'natural monopoly' at all.
To be clear, by 'infrastructure' I mean physical lines going to the premises. There's still hope for wireless, but competition in the physical connection space is effectively dead, and getting deader with every merger.
To be clear, by 'infrastructure' I mean physical lines going to the premises. There's still hope for wireless, but competition in the physical connection space is effectively dead, and getting deader with every merger.
Then break them up. Or run new lines: it'll be easier than the cable buildout of a couple decades ago, we're richer and smarter today.
But also: why are the physical lines a separate market from wireless? They are very, very close substitutes – bits are bits. And advancing tech or clever to-the-curb (but not to-the-premises) buildouts could make wireless broadband fully competitive with the wired networks.
If the wired incumbents get fat and happy on a position of temporary advantage – for example for bulk video delivery – then those potential wireless advances will see more investment.
But also: why are the physical lines a separate market from wireless? They are very, very close substitutes – bits are bits. And advancing tech or clever to-the-curb (but not to-the-premises) buildouts could make wireless broadband fully competitive with the wired networks.
If the wired incumbents get fat and happy on a position of temporary advantage – for example for bulk video delivery – then those potential wireless advances will see more investment.
Physical line can be way faster, especially with fibre. The bandwidth difference will only widen over time.
These are different market. You may think the buck stops somewhere, but after 720p video streaming, you get 1080. Then you get gaming, at sixty FPS, not 30. Then you get VR streaming, up to 10 times the pixel rate, and nearly twice the frame rate to have perfect presence. And never mind the latency requirements. Then you can get more sci-fi, with direct neural interfaces, and, eventually whole brain emulation over the network —though at that point, the economy would have changed so much that the fibre vs wireless debate will be quite moot.
These are different market. You may think the buck stops somewhere, but after 720p video streaming, you get 1080. Then you get gaming, at sixty FPS, not 30. Then you get VR streaming, up to 10 times the pixel rate, and nearly twice the frame rate to have perfect presence. And never mind the latency requirements. Then you can get more sci-fi, with direct neural interfaces, and, eventually whole brain emulation over the network —though at that point, the economy would have changed so much that the fibre vs wireless debate will be quite moot.
> Then break them up.
That's effectively what I'm advocating--by removing their monopoly power to be the only ISP available to the customer on the other end of their lines. Breaking them up into regionalized monopolies doesn't give consumers a choice, but opening the lines to competition does.
That's effectively what I'm advocating--by removing their monopoly power to be the only ISP available to the customer on the other end of their lines. Breaking them up into regionalized monopolies doesn't give consumers a choice, but opening the lines to competition does.
That would attract lots of new solutions from very savvy and deep-pocketed challengers, like Google, Apple, and other strategic investors.
And if it doesn't? How long do we wait?
And if it doesn't? How long do we wait?
Wait until measurable abuses actually exist, and persist for year or two – enough time to understand – rather than acting on paranoid fantasies (like the "cable tiers" mockup) that might never materialize.
For example, what if ISPs roll out traffic-preferences-for-pay... but the base bandwidth available to customers, and sites that don't opt to pay for preference, also keeps improving, on a price/performance basis? Would that still be an emergency requiring novel nationwide regulation?
And wouldn't we learn something if some local markets showed abuse or lagging price/performance, while others thrived? Couldn't we, and especially the lagging jurisdictions, then do the minimal targeted reforms to improve results based on actual history, rather than a theoretical "neutral net" ideal?
Note that unlike the shared broadcast airwaves, the economic case for wires being a 'commons' needing public management is weak. There's already at least 3 sets of wires running to most structures – electricity, phones, and cable – and more could be added if those aren't satisfying the customers. And even electricity – far more foundational than internet – is regulated in a diverse manner locally, not nationally.
Wait and see and let localities and businesses experiment is just fine - it's what got us to this point, after all, and the internet is doing just fine – albeit prone to occasional panic attacks: "Death of the Internet Predicted, Film At 11".
For example, what if ISPs roll out traffic-preferences-for-pay... but the base bandwidth available to customers, and sites that don't opt to pay for preference, also keeps improving, on a price/performance basis? Would that still be an emergency requiring novel nationwide regulation?
And wouldn't we learn something if some local markets showed abuse or lagging price/performance, while others thrived? Couldn't we, and especially the lagging jurisdictions, then do the minimal targeted reforms to improve results based on actual history, rather than a theoretical "neutral net" ideal?
Note that unlike the shared broadcast airwaves, the economic case for wires being a 'commons' needing public management is weak. There's already at least 3 sets of wires running to most structures – electricity, phones, and cable – and more could be added if those aren't satisfying the customers. And even electricity – far more foundational than internet – is regulated in a diverse manner locally, not nationally.
Wait and see and let localities and businesses experiment is just fine - it's what got us to this point, after all, and the internet is doing just fine – albeit prone to occasional panic attacks: "Death of the Internet Predicted, Film At 11".
> Wait until measurable abuses actually exist
Specific measurable abuses and the court rulings in the specific attempt to deal with them in the Comcast FCC action and subsequent litigation in 2007-2010 was one of the things which spurred the FCC to move network neutrality from a set of generalized objectives that it was seeking to preserve in it its other actions to a specific focus of dedicated, generally-applicable regulation.
So been there, done that.
Specific measurable abuses and the court rulings in the specific attempt to deal with them in the Comcast FCC action and subsequent litigation in 2007-2010 was one of the things which spurred the FCC to move network neutrality from a set of generalized objectives that it was seeking to preserve in it its other actions to a specific focus of dedicated, generally-applicable regulation.
So been there, done that.
> Federal "net neutrality" regulations freeze into national law a particular formula for access
Er, no it doesn't "freeze" anything. FCC regulations of other regulated industries are very frequently updated. And regulations, while given force of law by the laws authorizing regulation, are not the same as law particularly with regard to being "frozen", as they can be changed by either changing the law on which they are based, or by change through regulatory process. They are, therefore, strictly less "frozen" than law.
Er, no it doesn't "freeze" anything. FCC regulations of other regulated industries are very frequently updated. And regulations, while given force of law by the laws authorizing regulation, are not the same as law particularly with regard to being "frozen", as they can be changed by either changing the law on which they are based, or by change through regulatory process. They are, therefore, strictly less "frozen" than law.
Maybe the old saying "give them an inch, they'll take a mile" is apropos here?
Apropos how, besides describing what the ISPs have already demonstrated?
While no, "as an access provider, you can filter and rate limit content in combination with charging content providers as well as consumers for the transfer of that content" will not be constitutionalized or truly frozen... Moving in that direction with FCC regulations is pretty close to the same thing. It sets a precedent for this practice in the future. In nearly any system, it's harder to remove or change regulations than it is to add them.
In fact, it will make it easier to add similar regulations, as has been shown throughout the history of our country's particular style of governance.
In fact, it will make it easier to add similar regulations, as has been shown throughout the history of our country's particular style of governance.
I'm not sure how equal your analogy is. It would require that All Payment Processors, not just Stripe, would have to treat all users neutrally. Which would be awesome, because Stripe would beat the heck out of the competition.
Plus, to be a fair comparison, it would mean regulation so that payment processors couldn't actively make it HARDER for you unless you pay them. Which again, they should be in support of.
It's more like the DMV throwing down nails and tacks in your driveway and telling you that you can have them removed if you pay them more.
Plus, to be a fair comparison, it would mean regulation so that payment processors couldn't actively make it HARDER for you unless you pay them. Which again, they should be in support of.
It's more like the DMV throwing down nails and tacks in your driveway and telling you that you can have them removed if you pay them more.
Yes, just like the current rules would affect all ISPs. Sorry if it wasn't clear that the law would apply to all payment processors and not be written to solely affect Stripe.
I think you may still be missing the main point, which is that network access providers already have a tight hold on your business. For a given geographic area, you usually only have access to either phone lines or cable, with some exceptions, which usually are higher cost and lower quality.
While you may be able to obtain DSL service from multiple "providers", they're almost always using the same resources. Kind of in the same way that there are many mobile providers, but they all rely on the major networks.
Companies like Stripe on the other hand, are equivalent to the front end of that system. Nearly anybody can provide the same service that Stripe does. Which makes it a competition to see who can provide the best service vs price (or whatever choices you're basing your decision on).
If you only have access to the internet through your cable lines or phone lines, having the entities that control those finite resources legally able to charge more for different types of content over their lines or content from different locations, etc. is a pretty huge deal.
Even when you use some "local ISP", if the company that controls the end point at which your phone lines are connected to the internet decides to start filtering, rate limiting, etc. the data you're receiving, there's not much you can do about it.
Heck, even wireless internet providers are working with finite resources. You can't just decide one day that you want to start a business doing wireless networking over large distances without getting the FCC involved. It's to the point that you could basically consider wireless networks with enough broadcast strength to cover a city to have virtual hard lines. They essentially own those frequencies, so they may as well be considered the same type of finite resource.
While you may be able to obtain DSL service from multiple "providers", they're almost always using the same resources. Kind of in the same way that there are many mobile providers, but they all rely on the major networks.
Companies like Stripe on the other hand, are equivalent to the front end of that system. Nearly anybody can provide the same service that Stripe does. Which makes it a competition to see who can provide the best service vs price (or whatever choices you're basing your decision on).
If you only have access to the internet through your cable lines or phone lines, having the entities that control those finite resources legally able to charge more for different types of content over their lines or content from different locations, etc. is a pretty huge deal.
Even when you use some "local ISP", if the company that controls the end point at which your phone lines are connected to the internet decides to start filtering, rate limiting, etc. the data you're receiving, there's not much you can do about it.
Heck, even wireless internet providers are working with finite resources. You can't just decide one day that you want to start a business doing wireless networking over large distances without getting the FCC involved. It's to the point that you could basically consider wireless networks with enough broadcast strength to cover a city to have virtual hard lines. They essentially own those frequencies, so they may as well be considered the same type of finite resource.
I think your analogy is flawed, and here's why.
As a broadband customer, I pay for access to "the Internet". Over the last couple of decades, "the Internet" has meant access with something akin to net neutrality in place.
What my ISP wants to sell me is not "the Internet", but something new, which they have yet to define. But from what their lobbyists have put into the FCC proposal, the "Internet" they want to sell me is one where both sender and receiver of data pay them for data. This is not a wholly unreasonable payment model, but it would represent a profound shift in how the Internet is paid for in the U.S.
Further, under their proposal, my speeds to any particular website are dependent on how much I pay and how much the other side pays to my ISP (not theirs). Crucially, half of this is wholly outside my control. Of course, I still pay for the full pipe regardless.
Note that in particular the source server has not been a customer of my ISP, but the FCC thinks they should become a customer of my ISP so that I can have the speeds I have been sold as of today. This is not how the Internet has worked, and is a new service offering being marketed as "the" Internet.
So a better Stripe analogy would be that Stripe offers would be if they 1) first became as big as Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and American Express combined (that would give them approximately the market heft of the American broadband ISPs); 2) required cardholders to buy a Stripe Consumer subscription before processing their cards for merchants. I'm fairly certain that even our lax banking regulators would have something to say about this.
As a broadband customer, I pay for access to "the Internet". Over the last couple of decades, "the Internet" has meant access with something akin to net neutrality in place.
What my ISP wants to sell me is not "the Internet", but something new, which they have yet to define. But from what their lobbyists have put into the FCC proposal, the "Internet" they want to sell me is one where both sender and receiver of data pay them for data. This is not a wholly unreasonable payment model, but it would represent a profound shift in how the Internet is paid for in the U.S.
Further, under their proposal, my speeds to any particular website are dependent on how much I pay and how much the other side pays to my ISP (not theirs). Crucially, half of this is wholly outside my control. Of course, I still pay for the full pipe regardless.
Note that in particular the source server has not been a customer of my ISP, but the FCC thinks they should become a customer of my ISP so that I can have the speeds I have been sold as of today. This is not how the Internet has worked, and is a new service offering being marketed as "the" Internet.
So a better Stripe analogy would be that Stripe offers would be if they 1) first became as big as Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and American Express combined (that would give them approximately the market heft of the American broadband ISPs); 2) required cardholders to buy a Stripe Consumer subscription before processing their cards for merchants. I'm fairly certain that even our lax banking regulators would have something to say about this.
So....?
Just because the internet would work differently it needs to be absolutely abolished? Consider the following:
If the funds ISPs get from service providers begins to completely overshadow the monthly fees from consumers, you may end up with really interesting incentives: namely, it may be in an ISPs best interest to provide as many people with as cheap as internet as possible. Doing so would mean more people using Netflix, which means Netflix paying them more. We could end up in a situation where the services providers do all the paying, and internet becomes free for consumers, since every additional free consumer is cheap for ISPs, and every additional byte delivered by Netflix to the consumer is a huge win for them. I'm not saying this WILL happen, but I think its silly to assume that everything in the world will fall apart with this model, just because its different.
Just because the internet would work differently it needs to be absolutely abolished? Consider the following:
If the funds ISPs get from service providers begins to completely overshadow the monthly fees from consumers, you may end up with really interesting incentives: namely, it may be in an ISPs best interest to provide as many people with as cheap as internet as possible. Doing so would mean more people using Netflix, which means Netflix paying them more. We could end up in a situation where the services providers do all the paying, and internet becomes free for consumers, since every additional free consumer is cheap for ISPs, and every additional byte delivered by Netflix to the consumer is a huge win for them. I'm not saying this WILL happen, but I think its silly to assume that everything in the world will fall apart with this model, just because its different.
So, you're saying, we should trust the business that's currently trying to milk more money from any tit they can find, to lower their prices because they're bringing in a new revenue stream elsewhere? The same business that has no incentive to do so because they probably only have one competitor in a given geographical area?
The internet itself was basically built on equality. Look at any of the articles and blog posts being written by the actual internet backbone providers. They've been keeping the equality stable through the years with their peering agreements.
We would basically be giving the rights to providers like Comcast to say "We've decided that Wikipedia should pay extra if they want consumers of their information to continue to receive it in a timely manner." "Oh, we're also starting up a new service called Xfinipedia that provides a similar service, but one where we moderate the content."
Call it paranoid, but this is exactly what they're intending to do with video streaming services. They want to provide on demand video streaming to their online customers, while making it more expensive for competitive services to operate. What prevents them (or other providers) from doing the same with any service?
The internet itself was basically built on equality. Look at any of the articles and blog posts being written by the actual internet backbone providers. They've been keeping the equality stable through the years with their peering agreements.
We would basically be giving the rights to providers like Comcast to say "We've decided that Wikipedia should pay extra if they want consumers of their information to continue to receive it in a timely manner." "Oh, we're also starting up a new service called Xfinipedia that provides a similar service, but one where we moderate the content."
Call it paranoid, but this is exactly what they're intending to do with video streaming services. They want to provide on demand video streaming to their online customers, while making it more expensive for competitive services to operate. What prevents them (or other providers) from doing the same with any service?
No, I'm proposing that there may be a scenario in which it becomes beneficial to provide a free service to customers in order to maximize profits. I other words I'm asking you to trust that they will want to make money (not be kind), which I don't imagine to be a hard hung to imagine. Just how google doesn't offer you search for free out of the goodness of their hearts but rather because it is an ultimately a more profitable model than charging us. Again, I'm not suing this will necessarily happen, and you should read runaku's reply for some good counter points.
Oh I absolutely agree that it's not an entirely unreasonable model. But nothing about the rhetoric coming out of the FCC is saying that they are looking at changing the entire payment model of the Internet. (Also of note is that changing something this fundamental does risk breaking the system in order to fix it on the other side.)
If you look at the deliberation involved in the rollout of IPv6 and compare to this, which is about as fundamental on the business side, there's no comparison. The FCC is moving in a haphazard fashion without addressing what a fundamental change this is.
It is indeed interesting to wonder how the incentives change if the funds ISPs get from service providers (SPs) overshadow the fees from consumers. In an unregulated market, that would possibly lead ISPs to acquire those SPs (a la Comcast-NBC) and make it harder to access content not owned by the ISP. So we could circle back to an AOL-like environment. The FCC is so far pretending that this is not possible.
Also note that under your scenario it's possible that the Netflix business would not be possible, because the ISPs would make the connection fees high enough to destroy the business model, instead shunting their customers onto their proprietary platforms. In fact, any time an SP becomes popular, it would be shareholder-friendly for the ISP to make a bad clone of that SP and then make connection fees to the original unbearably high. The FCC is again ignoring this likely outcome.
To say nothing of the likelihood that fewer SPs will get started in the first place. Given free reign, why wouldn't large ISPs charge a baseline connection fee for every SP? And why would we expect that fee to accessible to businesses without institutional funding? It would be "commercially reasonable" for e.g. Comcast to charge $10k annually for access to it's tens of millions of subscribers. It would be "commercially reasonable" for AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc. to do the same. Don't forget that any web operator that wants to be accessible nationally/globally (if other countries follow suit) will need to pay that connection fee many times. The FCC is silent on this issue.
The point is there's a lot here that's not being addressed by the FCC.
If you look at the deliberation involved in the rollout of IPv6 and compare to this, which is about as fundamental on the business side, there's no comparison. The FCC is moving in a haphazard fashion without addressing what a fundamental change this is.
It is indeed interesting to wonder how the incentives change if the funds ISPs get from service providers (SPs) overshadow the fees from consumers. In an unregulated market, that would possibly lead ISPs to acquire those SPs (a la Comcast-NBC) and make it harder to access content not owned by the ISP. So we could circle back to an AOL-like environment. The FCC is so far pretending that this is not possible.
Also note that under your scenario it's possible that the Netflix business would not be possible, because the ISPs would make the connection fees high enough to destroy the business model, instead shunting their customers onto their proprietary platforms. In fact, any time an SP becomes popular, it would be shareholder-friendly for the ISP to make a bad clone of that SP and then make connection fees to the original unbearably high. The FCC is again ignoring this likely outcome.
To say nothing of the likelihood that fewer SPs will get started in the first place. Given free reign, why wouldn't large ISPs charge a baseline connection fee for every SP? And why would we expect that fee to accessible to businesses without institutional funding? It would be "commercially reasonable" for e.g. Comcast to charge $10k annually for access to it's tens of millions of subscribers. It would be "commercially reasonable" for AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc. to do the same. Don't forget that any web operator that wants to be accessible nationally/globally (if other countries follow suit) will need to pay that connection fee many times. The FCC is silent on this issue.
The point is there's a lot here that's not being addressed by the FCC.
Doesn't sound too palatable to me. All you're doing is taking the cost to the consumer and passing it from payment to ISPs to payment to content providers. Meanwhile you are entrenching the few large content providers that can afford the fees.
Moreover, you're doing nothing to address the lack of competition among ISPs, meaning ISPs have an incentive to raise prices above the market clearing equilibrium in order to extract greater rents.
Tangentially, I don't understand why anyone is talking about fairness here. Corporations don't care about fairness; they care about profit. If corporations were individuals they'd be psychopaths; they are a necessary evil to aid the price mechanism in efficiently allocating resources, nothing more. The goal is to get them to perform this function while minimizing market distortions and rent extraction. If this entails being "unfair" to a corporation, who cares?
I also don't understand the problem in principle with regulation. Of course it can be abused, but so can a complete lack of regulation. The only economists who believe that the solution to all our woes is completely unregulated markets are a few wingnut Austrain economists and people who fundamentally misunderstand the Coase theorem.
Moreover, you're doing nothing to address the lack of competition among ISPs, meaning ISPs have an incentive to raise prices above the market clearing equilibrium in order to extract greater rents.
Tangentially, I don't understand why anyone is talking about fairness here. Corporations don't care about fairness; they care about profit. If corporations were individuals they'd be psychopaths; they are a necessary evil to aid the price mechanism in efficiently allocating resources, nothing more. The goal is to get them to perform this function while minimizing market distortions and rent extraction. If this entails being "unfair" to a corporation, who cares?
I also don't understand the problem in principle with regulation. Of course it can be abused, but so can a complete lack of regulation. The only economists who believe that the solution to all our woes is completely unregulated markets are a few wingnut Austrain economists and people who fundamentally misunderstand the Coase theorem.
Doing so would mean more people using Netflix, which means Netflix paying them more.
How are you not describing exactly the model we 'benefit' from now with cable TV? And in what version of the future does the ISP not choose to continue to charge the customer the same exact way companies do now with cable TV?
I'm just struggling to understand how your version is anything but wishful thinking.
How are you not describing exactly the model we 'benefit' from now with cable TV? And in what version of the future does the ISP not choose to continue to charge the customer the same exact way companies do now with cable TV?
I'm just struggling to understand how your version is anything but wishful thinking.
So, in your scenario.. Comcast is just going to charge customers less because they already get enough money from big internet companies?
That will never happen. Comcast will pocket the money from both sides of the pipes.
As internet providers have no competition there is no reason to have to charge less.
If service providers are hit with unfavorable regulations they may reconsider being in the 'Internet' service provider business and instead return to an AOL/CompuServe style model.
No they didn't set up the comparison themselves, and it is a false and harmful comparison. The Internet is not the same category of thing as Stripe, or pretty much anything else that I can think of. The Internet is a network of networks. Net neutrality is what allowed it to grow and flourish to everyone's mutual benefit. It is not AT&T/Comcast/Verizon that created the Internet and thus have the right to control it, rather they are selling access to the Internet which they can profit from not because of their initiative and innovation, but because of a much larger collaborative effort and series of gentleman's agreements that predate their involvement. They have leverage because of a monopoly on the last mile to consumers and they are trying whatever shenanigans they can to capitalize on that advantage, but it's all bullshit, and to even entertain their bullshit with false analogies for the sake of some deluded sense of fairness is really a bad idea.
What Stripe does is the same as any other payment gateway. Not only did they fully create their own platform, but there are dozens of competitors with no barrier to entry, and mind you, even if they did have some kind of monopoly to something they themselves built, it still wouldn't fall into the same category as the Internet.
Even suggesting this comparison is to frame the debate in favorable terms for the telecoms, and they definitely don't deserve the support.
What Stripe does is the same as any other payment gateway. Not only did they fully create their own platform, but there are dozens of competitors with no barrier to entry, and mind you, even if they did have some kind of monopoly to something they themselves built, it still wouldn't fall into the same category as the Internet.
Even suggesting this comparison is to frame the debate in favorable terms for the telecoms, and they definitely don't deserve the support.
You are free to believe that the analogy is not sound, or that the comparison is weak, but it is silly to say that they did not set the comparison themselves. You should definitely take it up with them (which was part of the point of my post). Its not really clear to me how to prove this to you other than just quoting the post back to you:
"As we’ve written before, we believe in the power of impartial platforms. We’re building a platform ourselves, and we work hard to ensure that Stripe treats businesses of all size neutrally. Mr. Wheeler’s plan would push the internet in the opposite direction. It would give larger players a distinct advantage, hurt new companies, and dampen the rapid innovation that has thus far defined the internet economy."
Unless you believe mentioning themselves and how they stay neutral was one big typo, or some sort of strange and irrelevant digression, it seems pretty clear that they are comparing their neutral intentions with the importance of keeping net neutrality. Their argument basically goes:
1. We believe in impartial platforms as a general tenant.
2. For example, our platform, as a subset of "platforms", should remain neutral which we strive to do.
3. The internet, another platform, should also be neutral, if not these bad things will happen: blah blah blah.
"As we’ve written before, we believe in the power of impartial platforms. We’re building a platform ourselves, and we work hard to ensure that Stripe treats businesses of all size neutrally. Mr. Wheeler’s plan would push the internet in the opposite direction. It would give larger players a distinct advantage, hurt new companies, and dampen the rapid innovation that has thus far defined the internet economy."
Unless you believe mentioning themselves and how they stay neutral was one big typo, or some sort of strange and irrelevant digression, it seems pretty clear that they are comparing their neutral intentions with the importance of keeping net neutrality. Their argument basically goes:
1. We believe in impartial platforms as a general tenant.
2. For example, our platform, as a subset of "platforms", should remain neutral which we strive to do.
3. The internet, another platform, should also be neutral, if not these bad things will happen: blah blah blah.
That is because you are comparing the wrong things.
If stripe started to charge two different companies based on which brand of jeans they were selling you had a point but that is not what Stripe do.
They treat everyone the same regardless of what they sell but not how much they pay. Thats the difference.
If stripe started to charge two different companies based on which brand of jeans they were selling you had a point but that is not what Stripe do.
They treat everyone the same regardless of what they sell but not how much they pay. Thats the difference.
That analogy doesn't really work cause that is not really the problem with ISPs today. People pay different prices for different speeds.
The problem of network neutrality is much more subtle in that it introduces the idea of censorship with the type of content that is considered acceptable.
If Stripe started asking porn companies to pay more than lets say a church group for the same service you could start to talk about an analogy but thats not the case.
The problem of network neutrality is much more subtle in that it introduces the idea of censorship with the type of content that is considered acceptable.
If Stripe started asking porn companies to pay more than lets say a church group for the same service you could start to talk about an analogy but thats not the case.
I would say that rather than type of content, the issue is about source and destination of the packets. Payment platforms already distinguish between type of payment (shopping, fund transfer, gambling and fraud) etc. The analogy would be to not discriminate among two shopping sites.
I can buy that.
The point to me is that you might treat people differently based on what they pay you, but you don't treat them differently based on what they are selling.
The point to me is that you might treat people differently based on what they pay you, but you don't treat them differently based on what they are selling.
> Since they set up the comparison themselves, I wonder if Stripe would be in favor of legislation that forced them to forever treat all their customers neutrally vs. us just trusting them to "work hard to ensure" that end.
ISPs already do that all the time with in-network CDNs, dedicated ports and the like. And nobody cares because it does not make things worse.
ISPs already do that all the time with in-network CDNs, dedicated ports and the like. And nobody cares because it does not make things worse.
It is not a good idea to compare 2 unrelated industries directly. In the ISP Industry, the customer pays for X Mbit of Bandwidth. In the payment industry, the customer pays for the transaction fees indirectly. Hence, if you were to get your internet connection for "free" and pay for it indirectly, then the comparison could be made.
All you libertarian ubermensch refuse to acknoledge the historically unprecedented levels of innovation that the regulated internet has produced based off of government funded research. And you provide no good reason to destroy this miracle besides 'free market!'.
"We’re building a platform ourselves, and we work hard to ensure that Stripe treats businesses of all size neutrally."
One assumes larger customers get more favorable processing rates than smaller customers. So if two services do largely the same thing and both use Stripe and one is substantially larger than the other then I suspect Stripe is directly, even if inadvertently, favoring one over the other. Stripe's in the payments business and they favor one set of customers over the other based on their size and pricing power.
My issue isn't with Stripe. It's with the language around net neutrality. Basically 1000+ entrepreneurs and VC's who generally bemoan all things government are now asking that this area be protected from market forces. Very awkward. Any half way decent free market economist will tell you that every non Netflix user is subsidizing the crap out of Netflix users under the current set up and that's not very free marketish.
One assumes larger customers get more favorable processing rates than smaller customers. So if two services do largely the same thing and both use Stripe and one is substantially larger than the other then I suspect Stripe is directly, even if inadvertently, favoring one over the other. Stripe's in the payments business and they favor one set of customers over the other based on their size and pricing power.
My issue isn't with Stripe. It's with the language around net neutrality. Basically 1000+ entrepreneurs and VC's who generally bemoan all things government are now asking that this area be protected from market forces. Very awkward. Any half way decent free market economist will tell you that every non Netflix user is subsidizing the crap out of Netflix users under the current set up and that's not very free marketish.
"Any half way decent free market economist will tell you that every non Netflix user is subsidizing the crap out of Netflix users under the current set up and that's not very free marketish."
Can you explain the reasoning of this statement?
Can you explain the reasoning of this statement?
I second the motion.
I think he means that people who pay for internet access and then barely use it subsidize the people who do use it. Just like gym memberships that aren't used subsidize those that are.
But it's a specious argument. Just because some users are more profitable than others doesn't mean that it's OK to charge money to providers to not degrade the pipe that I'm paying for.
If I want to download at full speed 24/7, I should be able to do that (barring any specific limits in my contract with the ISP). Yes, I will be a less profitable customer than one who sends an email once a week, but those are the breaks: Either change the contract so its limits are clear, or make sure that the average profit stays enough in the black to cover the cost of the outliers.
I'm paying for a service. If they aren't providing that service, and they are limiting my connection to try to shake down providers, they're doing it by hurting my service experience. And if they're doing that in a market where there are no ISP options, then it's an abuse of monopoly power.
And any "half way decent free market economist" should recognize that monopolies can and should be regulated. Especially when the monopoly is on something that the UN has declared to be a human right. [1]
[1] http://www.thewire.com/technology/2011/06/united-nations-wik...
I think he means that people who pay for internet access and then barely use it subsidize the people who do use it. Just like gym memberships that aren't used subsidize those that are.
But it's a specious argument. Just because some users are more profitable than others doesn't mean that it's OK to charge money to providers to not degrade the pipe that I'm paying for.
If I want to download at full speed 24/7, I should be able to do that (barring any specific limits in my contract with the ISP). Yes, I will be a less profitable customer than one who sends an email once a week, but those are the breaks: Either change the contract so its limits are clear, or make sure that the average profit stays enough in the black to cover the cost of the outliers.
I'm paying for a service. If they aren't providing that service, and they are limiting my connection to try to shake down providers, they're doing it by hurting my service experience. And if they're doing that in a market where there are no ISP options, then it's an abuse of monopoly power.
And any "half way decent free market economist" should recognize that monopolies can and should be regulated. Especially when the monopoly is on something that the UN has declared to be a human right. [1]
[1] http://www.thewire.com/technology/2011/06/united-nations-wik...
"If I want to download at full speed 24/7, I should be able to do that"
Why exactly? Replace your reasoning with any other commodity and does it still make sense? What makes data streaming so holy?
Why exactly? Replace your reasoning with any other commodity and does it still make sense? What makes data streaming so holy?
Another comment answered correctly: Because I am buying "unlimited" bandwidth.
If they want to sell limited bandwidth, that's fine. But if they're selling me a product that claims it's unlimited, then they should be prepared to actually offer that product.
What commodity DOESN'T operate in the manner it's advertised?
If they want to sell limited bandwidth, that's fine. But if they're selling me a product that claims it's unlimited, then they should be prepared to actually offer that product.
What commodity DOESN'T operate in the manner it's advertised?
Because ISP's are selling unlimited bandwidth packages. If they don't want people downloading 24/7 then they should go back to selling limited bandwidth packages - and not divide the internet into a fast/slow lane.
That's a separate issue: fraud or false advertisement. You'll notice that they probably don't actually sell you unlimited bandwidth.
Explanation via analogy: imagine that your water utility had to charge the same price regardless of how much water you used. The price for water service would be set at a little above average cost per customer. Now imagine that 30% of water was used by people with pools in their back yard (Netflix users.) The pool owners would have an extremely subsidized service, while everybody else would be paying extra. This is bad for non-pool owners, and also bad for the utility who could be charging pool owners a lot more money.
Now imagine the poorest household in town has to decide if they can afford water service. They would like to purchase a small amount of water for showers and cleaning, but must buy an unlimited supply of water just like everybody else. Some households may choose to go without water to pay for food. This is bad for the poor and bad for the utility who loses out on would-be customers.
Now imagine if the utility proposed a variable rate structure. The businesses that sell products that are consumed along side water, like sprinklers or fish tanks, (Silicon Valley) would fight hard against the utility!
Now imagine the poorest household in town has to decide if they can afford water service. They would like to purchase a small amount of water for showers and cleaning, but must buy an unlimited supply of water just like everybody else. Some households may choose to go without water to pay for food. This is bad for the poor and bad for the utility who loses out on would-be customers.
Now imagine if the utility proposed a variable rate structure. The businesses that sell products that are consumed along side water, like sprinklers or fish tanks, (Silicon Valley) would fight hard against the utility!
Net Neutrality does not require ISPs to charge the same price regardless of how much bandwidth a customer is using, and it does not prohibit ISPs from having rates on a sliding scale in order to penalize heavy users (as some water utilities do).
Water utilities btw have "pipe neutrality", i.e. it's none of their business what you do with the water you are paying for, and they certainly can't shake down dishwasher manufacturers for money to compensate them for the water that's being used by their customer's dishwashers :-)
Water utilities btw have "pipe neutrality", i.e. it's none of their business what you do with the water you are paying for, and they certainly can't shake down dishwasher manufacturers for money to compensate them for the water that's being used by their customer's dishwashers :-)
Water is a physical commodity with a limited supply. Bandwidth is a use-it-or-lose-it proposition. I don't see how your 2-party (supplier, consumer) limited commodity example relates to the 3-party (supplier, transport, consumer) non-commodity example.
> My issue isn't with Stripe. It's with the language around net neutrality. Basically 1000+ entrepreneurs and VC's who generally bemoan all things government are now asking that this area be protected from market forces. Very awkward.
Right. There's a good argument to be made that ISPs have local monopolies (due either to natural failings of utility markets, or to crony government intervention, depending on your political persuasion) and therefore government regulation is a necessary evil that can be accepted in this case even by people who are generally free-market oriented. But that distinction must be made clear by anyone who wants to salvage their free-market credentials. Likewise, they must acknowledge that net neutrality will unfortunately destroy benefits that would naturally accrue in a without government regulation: the ability for users who need it to pay a premium for fast or reliable service, a la first class mail. (You can try to carve out exceptions for this with even more complex regulation, but the serious downsides of this must too be acknowledged.)
Right. There's a good argument to be made that ISPs have local monopolies (due either to natural failings of utility markets, or to crony government intervention, depending on your political persuasion) and therefore government regulation is a necessary evil that can be accepted in this case even by people who are generally free-market oriented. But that distinction must be made clear by anyone who wants to salvage their free-market credentials. Likewise, they must acknowledge that net neutrality will unfortunately destroy benefits that would naturally accrue in a without government regulation: the ability for users who need it to pay a premium for fast or reliable service, a la first class mail. (You can try to carve out exceptions for this with even more complex regulation, but the serious downsides of this must too be acknowledged.)
Spot on thank you.
> the ability for users who need it to pay a premium for fast or reliable service, a la first class mail
So in that analogy, did the postal service also begin to mishandle regular mail that was being sent to certain specific apartments and office suites, in order to force people to buy first-class?
So in that analogy, did the postal service also begin to mishandle regular mail that was being sent to certain specific apartments and office suites, in order to force people to buy first-class?
> the ability for users who need it to pay a premium for fast or reliable service, a la first class mail
Net Neutrality does not prohibit an ISP from charging their customers more for a faster or more reliable Internet connection; it simply prohibits the ISP from accepting money from Dominos to speed up access to their website (or slow down or even block access to Pizza Hut's website).
Net Neutrality does not prohibit an ISP from charging their customers more for a faster or more reliable Internet connection; it simply prohibits the ISP from accepting money from Dominos to speed up access to their website (or slow down or even block access to Pizza Hut's website).
But I only want to pay a premium for a fast connection to certain websites, and I don't want to have to renegotiate with Comcast every time I'd like to connect to a new website that is worth enhancing with a fast connection. Nor, in a perfect world, should it be illegal for a website to cover this fee if the website can derive unusual profits from it.
If net neutrality applied to mail, then it would be illegal for Amazon to send me pre-paid first-class envelopes for returns. (This turns out not to be useful for mail, but the analogous case could be very useful for data.)
If net neutrality applied to mail, then it would be illegal for Amazon to send me pre-paid first-class envelopes for returns. (This turns out not to be useful for mail, but the analogous case could be very useful for data.)
> But I only want to pay a premium for a fast connection to certain websites
What the cable companies are trying to do isn't about you, the user, paying a premium for faster access; it's about you, the user, and the web service provider, both paying a premium to your ISP for faster access--even though the service provider is already paying a premium to their own ISP for faster access to the Internet as a whole.
From the ISP's point of view, selling you faster access only to certain websites would probably be a lot harder, technically, than selling you faster access to the whole Internet, because the ISP would have to inspect every packet you send or receive to see whether it was part of a connection with a website you want faster access to. Plus, you would have to have the physical bandwidth present anyway, which means you could just as easily get faster access to the entire Internet. So I don't see how an ISP could sell you faster access to a limited set of sites any more cheaply than faster access to the Internet as a whole; in fact it seems to me that it would be more expensive to do the former.
> Nor, in a perfect world, should it be illegal for a website to cover this fee if the website can derive unusual profits from it.
Websites that can benefit from faster access already do this in the real world: they put their content on CDNs--or in extreme cases, like Google or Facebook, they build their own CDNs--and spend extra resources in other ways to give users faster access to their content.
What I think you're missing in all this is that the cable ISPs do not (currently) own the entire Internet; they only own their own networks. That means they can only extract artificial scarcity rents from their own customers, not from the rest of the Internet. What they would like to do is to effectively own the entire Internet so they can extract artificial scarcity rents from everybody.
What the cable companies are trying to do isn't about you, the user, paying a premium for faster access; it's about you, the user, and the web service provider, both paying a premium to your ISP for faster access--even though the service provider is already paying a premium to their own ISP for faster access to the Internet as a whole.
From the ISP's point of view, selling you faster access only to certain websites would probably be a lot harder, technically, than selling you faster access to the whole Internet, because the ISP would have to inspect every packet you send or receive to see whether it was part of a connection with a website you want faster access to. Plus, you would have to have the physical bandwidth present anyway, which means you could just as easily get faster access to the entire Internet. So I don't see how an ISP could sell you faster access to a limited set of sites any more cheaply than faster access to the Internet as a whole; in fact it seems to me that it would be more expensive to do the former.
> Nor, in a perfect world, should it be illegal for a website to cover this fee if the website can derive unusual profits from it.
Websites that can benefit from faster access already do this in the real world: they put their content on CDNs--or in extreme cases, like Google or Facebook, they build their own CDNs--and spend extra resources in other ways to give users faster access to their content.
What I think you're missing in all this is that the cable ISPs do not (currently) own the entire Internet; they only own their own networks. That means they can only extract artificial scarcity rents from their own customers, not from the rest of the Internet. What they would like to do is to effectively own the entire Internet so they can extract artificial scarcity rents from everybody.
I don't think your analogy really makes sense. Allowing companies to pick and choose which content to deliver to customers already paying for access to said content is more like the post office saying "I know you paid for this mail already, but since you are a popular source of mail we want you to pay more."
I can't imagine Ebay or Stamps.com getting charged MORE from USPS because they have higher shipment volume.
You're effectively arguing in favor of spending more money for the same service you are currently getting (as the service providers getting charged are going to transfer that burden to you the consumer and Comcast will not lower rates to you).
I can't imagine Ebay or Stamps.com getting charged MORE from USPS because they have higher shipment volume.
You're effectively arguing in favor of spending more money for the same service you are currently getting (as the service providers getting charged are going to transfer that burden to you the consumer and Comcast will not lower rates to you).
> they must acknowledge that net neutrality will unfortunately destroy benefits that would naturally accrue in a without government regulation: the ability for users who need it to pay a premium for fast or reliable service, a la first class mail.
You must be joking. First class mail service has consistently gotten more and more expensive for poorer and poorer service, while private companies like FedEx and UPS have consistently gotten cheaper for better and better service. Are you maintaining that this would not have happened if the rule that only the US Postal Service could carry first class mail had been abolished? It seems to me that, if anything, abolishing that regulation would have given us cheaper FedEx and UPS sooner.
You must be joking. First class mail service has consistently gotten more and more expensive for poorer and poorer service, while private companies like FedEx and UPS have consistently gotten cheaper for better and better service. Are you maintaining that this would not have happened if the rule that only the US Postal Service could carry first class mail had been abolished? It seems to me that, if anything, abolishing that regulation would have given us cheaper FedEx and UPS sooner.
They are asking that this area be protected from artificial scarcity (which is illegal in all markets), not 'market forces'.
> Any half way decent free market economist will tell you that every non Netflix user is subsidizing the crap out of Netflix users under the current set up and that's not very free marketish.
Note that no form of net neutrality regulation that the FCC has ever proposed prohibited metered rates for broadband. You don't need the absence of neutrality to correct any problem with high-use users being subsidized by low-use users in the current "pay for peak bandwidth" system.
But metering is more visible to customers and less effective and capturing the specific and proven profits of particular content firms than per-source tolls to the content firms.
Note that no form of net neutrality regulation that the FCC has ever proposed prohibited metered rates for broadband. You don't need the absence of neutrality to correct any problem with high-use users being subsidized by low-use users in the current "pay for peak bandwidth" system.
But metering is more visible to customers and less effective and capturing the specific and proven profits of particular content firms than per-source tolls to the content firms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
Trust-busting and anti-collusion laws aren't "anti-capitalist", even though you could argue backroom deals are just the free market at work. The same goes for regulation of a natural monopoly.
Trust-busting and anti-collusion laws aren't "anti-capitalist", even though you could argue backroom deals are just the free market at work. The same goes for regulation of a natural monopoly.
> Trust-busting and anti-collusion laws aren't "anti-capitalist"
Sure they are. They are specifically directed at preventing capitalists from combining in certain ways to advance their interests as capitalists, and can't be anything but anti-capitalist.
Sure they are. They are specifically directed at preventing capitalists from combining in certain ways to advance their interests as capitalists, and can't be anything but anti-capitalist.
That depends on whether you parse 'anti-capitalist' as 'anti-people-who-are-capitalists' or 'anti-markets-which-are-capitalist'.
Completely unregulated markets aren't very friendly to capitalism (although some individual capitalists may end up on top of the heap) either as they don't stay capitalist, so most capitalists go along with trust busting and anti collusion regulations as they (correctly) assume that their individual odds of ending up as the apex predator in a dog-eat-dog world are not very good.
Completely unregulated markets aren't very friendly to capitalism (although some individual capitalists may end up on top of the heap) either as they don't stay capitalist, so most capitalists go along with trust busting and anti collusion regulations as they (correctly) assume that their individual odds of ending up as the apex predator in a dog-eat-dog world are not very good.
> Completely unregulated markets aren't very friendly to capitalism
No, but markets which are regulated in favor of capitalists rather than restraining them are -- which is the feature of "capitalism" for which the system was named by its 19th century critics.
(Of course, "capitalism" gets abused to mean "a system with whatever features of modern mixed economies the speaker likes but without those which the speaker does not like" frequently enough that it is getting close to the point of being a completely useless term.)
No, but markets which are regulated in favor of capitalists rather than restraining them are -- which is the feature of "capitalism" for which the system was named by its 19th century critics.
(Of course, "capitalism" gets abused to mean "a system with whatever features of modern mixed economies the speaker likes but without those which the speaker does not like" frequently enough that it is getting close to the point of being a completely useless term.)
I think you're glossing over the point that markets that at least minimally restrain capitalists to keep them from screwing over other capitalists is a basic feature of capitalism-friendliness (at least to the extent that you agree capitalism-friendliness requires that a market be prevented from devolving into some form of feudalism).
That said, yes, I am aware of the 'what do you mean by capitalism' issue. I've found this article interesting in that vein: http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2011/08/libertarian-ant...
That said, yes, I am aware of the 'what do you mean by capitalism' issue. I've found this article interesting in that vein: http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2011/08/libertarian-ant...
Comparing themselves to an ISP does not do anybody any favors. It just confuses the issue. ISPs should treat all their customers (and their traffic) the same for reasons that do not apply to Stripe, and do not apply to the market Stripe is in.
For sure; they're different -- our argument isn't that ISPs should treat traffic equally for reasons that apply to Stripe. In mentioning Stripe, I think Jon was simply saying that we spend a lot of time thinking about platform neutrality in general since it's an issue that does (in other ways) have a bearing on what we do.
Typically I'm very anti-regulation -- but it seems proven ISP's need to be regulated to some degree. An ISP should do nothing more (or less) than just pass data from point A to point B (aka. "dumb pipes"). We are in the Information Age and unhindered access to information should be a commodity.
It's a conflict of interest to be both an ISP and a content provider.
It's a conflict of interest to be both an ISP and a content provider.
Until we find a way to truly achieve network neutrality which also means (from service provider's perspective) to throttle and keep in reasonable usage limit applications such as video streaming, specifically illegal torrent usage which chokes carriers bandwidth and prevents normal users too, this debate will continue. I don't see any thing principally wrong with providers point of view (i might be biased because i work in the industry that provides these tools/software. But logically, the word "neutral" to me should equate both sides - not prioritizing some high paying customer's traffic, but at the same time not allowing a regular user to eat every one else's bandwidth to download his favorite pirated content. I feel the discussion on the topic is mostly targeted at the former only. A side effect of such capability could also be better utilization of network resources i.e. charging customers ONLY when and what they use - there by decreasing costs as well.
The Internet is already divided into fast lanes and slow lanes. Netflix is currently paying Comcast for a fast lane, after previously having been cast into the slow lane.
Whether the FCC plan goes forward or not, will change nothing about what Comcast and others are doing. Courtesy of an extremely accommodating Obama Administration, Comcast has joined the government protected monopoly crew, with Verizon and AT&T. They are now untouchable, which is why there is nearly zero political opposition to their acquisition of a cable monopoly. They're going to continue to degrade major services as they see fit to exact fast lane tolls, and there is no political group that is going to stand up and do anything about it.
The people fighting this fight, are waging a war they lost a long time ago. An entirely new approach to dealing with the FCC, the Internet, and the monopoly telecom providers is necessary.
Whether the FCC plan goes forward or not, will change nothing about what Comcast and others are doing. Courtesy of an extremely accommodating Obama Administration, Comcast has joined the government protected monopoly crew, with Verizon and AT&T. They are now untouchable, which is why there is nearly zero political opposition to their acquisition of a cable monopoly. They're going to continue to degrade major services as they see fit to exact fast lane tolls, and there is no political group that is going to stand up and do anything about it.
The people fighting this fight, are waging a war they lost a long time ago. An entirely new approach to dealing with the FCC, the Internet, and the monopoly telecom providers is necessary.
the vote is tomorrow, but I haven't seen a widespread, concerted effort to make a visible and effective protest online, as was done successfully with SOPA.
I wish all interested players (including the huge ones, especially Google!) had agreed to slow down all USA internet users to "dialup speed" for the day, explaining why it is being done, and prompting people to phone/email the FCC about it.
I wish all interested players (including the huge ones, especially Google!) had agreed to slow down all USA internet users to "dialup speed" for the day, explaining why it is being done, and prompting people to phone/email the FCC about it.
Even if this plan is not approved this is not over. Telecoms will just try again and again.
It's all very well to talk about "platforms", but wanting to separate mechanism and policy is one thing, outlawing policy is something much more serious.
Where is the primary source for the actual proposal the FCC is voting on?
Meeting information:
http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-hold-open-commission-meeting...
Related Topic Info: http://www.fcc.gov/guides/open-internet
Related Topic Info: http://www.fcc.gov/guides/open-internet
This is the most succinct explanation I have seen, most attempts make people's eyes glaze over from specifics.
The issue of Net Neutrality is consistently misrepresented. ISPs are not trying to extort the little guys (who have no money), they want to throttle YouTube and Netflix. The giant corporations have convinced average people to join their cause so they don't have to pay for their bandwidth hogs (which does cost ISPs more money than small sites).
>The issue of Net Neutrality is consistently misrepresented.
This is not only not true, but the problem is typically understated.
I'm paying for the bandwidth to my house. I pay extra to get a higher bandwidth capacity, in fact.
Under absolutely no circumstances is it OK for my ISP to throttle YouTube or Netflix or any other site just because it's popular.
They are double-dipping, it's that simple. I've already paid them for a pipe (allegedly) of a certain size. If I want to watch YouTube, then give me the bits at the rate that fit in the pipe I paid for.
If I want to watch SomeOtherVideoStreamingSite, then I want it to stream to the limits of the pipe I'm paying for, whether or not SomeOtherVideoStreamingSite has coughed up extortion money.
In markets where there are one or two ISPs available, if all available ISPs are engaging in this extortion, then my experience is degraded any time my ISP hasn't extracted its shakedown money from the site I want to visit. And that is abuse of a monopoly position, plain and simple.
This is not only not true, but the problem is typically understated.
I'm paying for the bandwidth to my house. I pay extra to get a higher bandwidth capacity, in fact.
Under absolutely no circumstances is it OK for my ISP to throttle YouTube or Netflix or any other site just because it's popular.
They are double-dipping, it's that simple. I've already paid them for a pipe (allegedly) of a certain size. If I want to watch YouTube, then give me the bits at the rate that fit in the pipe I paid for.
If I want to watch SomeOtherVideoStreamingSite, then I want it to stream to the limits of the pipe I'm paying for, whether or not SomeOtherVideoStreamingSite has coughed up extortion money.
In markets where there are one or two ISPs available, if all available ISPs are engaging in this extortion, then my experience is degraded any time my ISP hasn't extracted its shakedown money from the site I want to visit. And that is abuse of a monopoly position, plain and simple.
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I agree it's unfair to the customer, but the message is still being twisted to serve corporate interests. ISPs have been throttling bittorrent for a while now and no one was making a fuss about net neutrality then...
> ISPs have been throttling bittorrent for a while now
That's because bittorrent uses a lot of upstream bandwidth, and the ISPs' contracts with their customers already explicitly limited upstream bandwidth to be much smaller than downstream bandwidth. With services like Netflix, the vast majority of the bandwidth is downstream.
(That's not to say that I'm in favor of the standard ISP contracts: basically the ISPs want their customers to be passive consumers of content, not active creators of it, which has been a big factor in creating the system of highly centralized services we have today, rather than a much more robust system of decentralized services that was the original vision for the Internet. But that's a whole other argument.)
That's because bittorrent uses a lot of upstream bandwidth, and the ISPs' contracts with their customers already explicitly limited upstream bandwidth to be much smaller than downstream bandwidth. With services like Netflix, the vast majority of the bandwidth is downstream.
(That's not to say that I'm in favor of the standard ISP contracts: basically the ISPs want their customers to be passive consumers of content, not active creators of it, which has been a big factor in creating the system of highly centralized services we have today, rather than a much more robust system of decentralized services that was the original vision for the Internet. But that's a whole other argument.)
If the corporate interests align with my interests, I'm fine with them standing up for my rights by accident, as it were.
I'd like to see a world with no BitTorrent throttling too, but given that I don't watch BitTorrent video in real time (or even use it for the most part), it's harder for me to get worked up about that.
Don't get me wrong: I support the concept of complete net neutrality. It's just harder to achieve a political goal when only a small minority of people are affected.
I'd like to see a world with no BitTorrent throttling too, but given that I don't watch BitTorrent video in real time (or even use it for the most part), it's harder for me to get worked up about that.
Don't get me wrong: I support the concept of complete net neutrality. It's just harder to achieve a political goal when only a small minority of people are affected.
> ISPs are not trying to extort the little guys (who have no money), they want to throttle YouTube and Netflix.
Right. They only want to impose tolls and kill competitors that have already spent the money to develop a market and show how to serve it, so that they can use the tolls to capture the profits, throttle the incumbent, and use the proceeds to deliver their own implementation.
So it won't necessary be bad for "little guys" directly, except insofar as it kills competition in any market with lots of money in it (including ones that the little guys may be customers of), limiting customer (consumer or business) choice, and limiting the ability of little guys to ever become big without themselves getting killed by tolls so that the dominant broadband providers can steal their market.
Right. They only want to impose tolls and kill competitors that have already spent the money to develop a market and show how to serve it, so that they can use the tolls to capture the profits, throttle the incumbent, and use the proceeds to deliver their own implementation.
So it won't necessary be bad for "little guys" directly, except insofar as it kills competition in any market with lots of money in it (including ones that the little guys may be customers of), limiting customer (consumer or business) choice, and limiting the ability of little guys to ever become big without themselves getting killed by tolls so that the dominant broadband providers can steal their market.
Everyone is already paying for the bandwidth they use, on both ends. ISP subscribers pay their monthly subscription fee to get however much bandwidth they're allowed. Content providers pay their (quite substantial) fees to CDN and transit providers for the bandwidth they use.
Nobody is getting a free ride here.
Nobody is getting a free ride here.
Every business tries to maximize profits and minimize costs. Google has certainly done their fair share of exploiting people (e.g. knowingly selling ads for scams, stealing content from Yelp, etc.) for profit, so it's hard to feel bad for them now that they are getting squeezed.
The "bandwidth hogs" are more commonly called customers, and they pay for their internet service.
Why are there customers getting an internet connection other than "YouTube and Netflix"? The reason they and other services are "bandwidth hogs" is because they are popular and people want them. Those bytes just don't show up at customer's computers without the request.
No, they want to charge YouTube and Netflix for not throttling them. That makes a big difference. How can the ISPs make that kind of deal without throttling everyone else? Otherwise there's no incentive for YouTube etc. to pay.
> No, they want to charge YouTube and Netflix for not throttling them. That makes a big difference. How can the ISPs make that kind of deal without throttling everyone else?
By selectively throttling YouTube and Netflix.
By selectively throttling YouTube and Netflix.
Sure, but that means a small site needs more money to become widespread. This will force earlier decisions to raise revenue. Whether it be desperate attempts at ad-based revenue, premature fundraising, or hurting adoption by asking for paying customers, it all amounts to stifling innovation.
This is the misinformation mentioned. Small sites won't pay until they reach the size of YouTube/Netflix.
"Why Net Neutrality Regulation is the Path to Ending Net Neutrality"
http://hustlebear.com/2011/01/05/why-net-neutrality-regulati...
Article is from 2011, but still pertinent.
http://hustlebear.com/2011/01/05/why-net-neutrality-regulati...
Article is from 2011, but still pertinent.
Judd is deeply stupid.
Further:
And comcast costs $65/mo where I live for just internet. And they're looking at neflix and google and all those other internet businesses and chomping at the bit to steal some money from them.
Also, weirdly enough, my internet bill keeps going up but the speed doesn't. Feel the competition!
So… greedy companies “might” restrict us from things, or they “might”
prioritize content delivery to the highest payer.
Further:
One problem with the diagram above is that our homes are not connected to
just one big ISP. The FCC’s own data shows that as of June 2008, 98 percent
of zip codes have at least 2 broadband providers, and 88% of zip codes have
at least 4 broadband providers
And comcast costs $65/mo where I live for just internet. And they're looking at neflix and google and all those other internet businesses and chomping at the bit to steal some money from them.
Also, weirdly enough, my internet bill keeps going up but the speed doesn't. Feel the competition!
Also, just because a zip code has 2 broadband providers, does that mean the entire population residing within that zip code has that access?
Not at all. dsl speed strongly varies based on distance from who-knows-what; all I know is that it tops out at 1.5MB/368K where I live in the peninsula (in Belmont, CA -- between the valley and sf for people not from the area).
> FACT: The Net Neutrality cause is a response to a hypothetical problem.
Except, it's out of date as we've had ISPs intentionally manipulating their networks to their own advantage (and more importantly their customers disadvantage) for at least a year. Even when this article was written, overzealous throttling of select services was/is common. (Youtube in particular)
The condescending tone of the article is pretty entertaining given the level of ignorance he willfully displayed even then.
Except, it's out of date as we've had ISPs intentionally manipulating their networks to their own advantage (and more importantly their customers disadvantage) for at least a year. Even when this article was written, overzealous throttling of select services was/is common. (Youtube in particular)
The condescending tone of the article is pretty entertaining given the level of ignorance he willfully displayed even then.
> Article is from 2011, but still pertinent.
Except for the whole part where what he decries as non-existent (ISPs slowing down traffic for non-payers) which thus does not need regulating is happening right now.
Except for the whole part where what he decries as non-existent (ISPs slowing down traffic for non-payers) which thus does not need regulating is happening right now.
Since they set up the comparison themselves, I wonder if Stripe would be in favor of legislation that forced them to forever treat all their customers neutrally vs. us just trusting them to "work hard to ensure" that end. Perhaps making it illegal to offer sweetheart deals to bigger clients for example? Arguably payments is the next most fundamental piece to a functioning internet after bandwidth, so its not unreasonable to request. If MegaCorp A received much lower rates on credit card processing than little Startup B, how could we have fair competition after all?