Net Neutrality and Stack Overflow / Stack Exchange

Question

It's July 12th! (2017) (in Coordinated Universal Stack Exchange Time)

Today we're gonna be showing a banner directing readers to the blog post (and thus, indirectly, this discussion) from every Stack Exchange site.

Special thanks to Jon Chan for whipping up a dismissible banner for this, so we didn't get stuck abusing system messages for it.

BIG thanks to everyone who has participated in this discussion thus far; there's a lot of good information and debate here, I've learned a lot from it and I hope y'all did too.

This discussion started as a way to help me focus my thoughts while I was working with Kaitlin on the blog post to announce this company's support for Fight for the Future's Internet-Wide Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality.

In particular, I want to get a better feel for why would anyone be against this. To better understand both why folks feel it's important and what gives them pause when asked to support it.

So if you've got something to add, please do write an answer!

A bit of background

Back in 2014, the United States Federal Communication Commission, in response to numerous complaints and concerns, implemented a set of rules that prohibit Internet Service Providers from blocking specific content providers or charging them for access to their networks. Essentially, a set of rules that prevent an ISP from double-dipping on service they're already being paid for, or blocking access to specific websites just for the hell of it.

In order to do this, they had to change how ISPs were classified, moving them from a "Title I" classification to "Title II" - more or less the same framework for regulation that's been in place for phone companies for decades, establishing them as a so-called "common carrier" - that is to say, one which may not discriminate between customers. If you already assumed that this is how the Internet worked, you're not alone; however, due to how they were classified previously the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) had been unable to enforce rules that would ensure that traffic over the Internet would continue be allowed to work as, well, traffic over the Internet was expected to work.

In 2016, US President Donald Trump appointed Ajit Pai as Chairman of the FCC. Pai is former Associate General Counsel for Verizon and he is leading the Net Neutrality rollback.

If this all sounds really boring and procedural... Well, it is. The bit that's gotten so many people worked up is that there are companies and officials actively fighting against it, including the current chairman of the FCC.

The reason to get interested in this now

I'm gonna save some space here and link to a couple of relevant sites:

• The proposed rule change from the FCC
• A fairly thorough article on Ars Technica covering this proposed change

I strongly encourage reading both of them if you wanna get a better feel for what this is about, but the short version is: fairly soon, the FCC will vote on these proposed changes. So if there's a chance at influencing the outcome of that vote, we gotta speak out now.

Your thoughts

So why bring this up for discussion? Because this is something that has the potential to directly affect Stack Overflow, both the company and anyone using the site. Even folks who aren't based in the US have probably benefited from the work of those who are at one point or another; if nothing else, this is where our servers live so any additional headaches when it comes to providing access are gonna be a problem.

More than that though... As many of you have observed at one point or another, y'all are smarter than me. Better informed. So if this is something Stack Overflow is gonna be involved in, it should be your voices that are heard, whether in support of this campaign or especially if you have objections. As I said a few months back, we need more of this sort of discussion here on meta, and this is a prime example of an issue where informed public discussion is critical.

So let's hear it: why should or shouldn't we all head over to https://www.battleforthenet.com/ right now and use the handy form to send a letter to the FCC?

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Hat-tip to Alexander O'Mara for digging up two fascinating questions on net neutrality from Network Engineering and Economics:

• Network Neutrality, how does it actually work, technically speaking?

• Is net neutrality not important in a competitive market of internet providers?

Hat-tip to BobbyA for sharing this Ars Technica piece on How to write a meaningful FCC comment supporting net neutrality

Special thanks to EBrown for writing a detailed response here, including advice for folks who don't live in the US.

And props to Ben Collins for writing at length about why he believes the government shouldn't be involved in this.

Procedural note: I'm gonna be clearing comments on the question (deleting them) periodically as a practical measure - please leave an answer if you've something useful to add here. Alternately, join me in chat.

Answer 1

In Russia, not only don't we have laws specifically restricting ISPs from doing such nasty things, but also Internet censorship is actively put to practice by one of our federal services, Roskomnadzor.

Most of the ISPs in Russia don't even have means of DPI, which is why sites are primarily blocked by IP addresses, which often leads to catastrophic consequences. For example, they are not hesitant to add IP addresses from pools of Amazon and such, which can effectively block thousands of websites. Not to mention that some social networks (e.g. DeviantArt) and blogging platforms (e.g. Blogger and Tumblr) are blocked entirely just because some small fraction of their users post something "inappropriate for children" (but it's blocked for everyone, not just children).

We've lost this battle a long time ago, and now it became a guerilla war: recently Russian Internet-freedom activists started to sabotage censorship by buying blacklisted domains and setting their DNS records to IP addresses of Roskomnadzor sites, *.gov.ru sites, and some of the most popular resources out there (Wikipedia, Google, etc.). Many smaller ISPs directly add IPs from DNS records to their blacklists, and as a result, they blocked those websites.

With that being said, I honestly envy you guys in the USA. First, you still have a chance to affect the decision of the FCC. Second, you are, as far as I can see, much more politically active in general compared to us Russians.

Don't give them any chances to limit your rights. If they will have a chance to use censorship of any kind, they most definitely will, as the law of the instrument says.

Good luck.

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Note for net neutrality naysayers and those who are pro-censorship.

You are welcome to visit Russia. If at some point your MacBook will stop receiving updates, or your favorite news site doesn't work, it's probably because they accidentally blocked some IP address from a floating IP address pool or something like that. Enjoy the pain.

@Machavity And yes, they have already blocked Google at least once, that time by accident.

Answer 2

Summary

Absolutely encourage people to vote to continue the "common carrier" enforcement of ISP's. We do it for telephone companies, we should do it for all communication companies. (Including TV, radio, Internet, etc.)

But...

However, we need to empower the people to understand what the broader effect of the lack of net neutrality is. The comments on Patric Hoffman's answer help indicate that even some high-profile users here don't quite get it, and I think a big portion of that is coming from persons outside the U.S., having lived here for my entire life, and growing up through the net-neutrality discussion, it's easy for me to visualize, but we need a good explanation and information for our foreign friends. You cannot ask this many people to support something of this magnitude without helping them understand it. You absolutely have to teach them, even if it takes a little while, why it's necessary.

We need a good potential example, how Stack Exchange (and the broader Internet community) would be affected by this change. How ISP's could begin extorting Stack Exchange for additional money for any arbitrary reason, how the entire Internet as a whole could be negatively affected. Hell, according to this article up to 70% of Internet traffic comes through Northern Virginia^{No idea on accuracy, but if it's even halfway decent that's still roughly 35% of all Internet traffic, coming through the U.S., which makes this a global issue}.

If we empower the users to make this decision with the right information, we can set a global example for a solution to a problem that could end up being very dangerous. Even the most basic example of competitor sites bribing ISP's (which is acceptable without net-neutrality) to put their traffic over SO/SE could be devastating. Consider the number of developers who visit the Stack Exchange sites daily. It's literally millions of hits. That's a lot. We can't just sit in the corner of the Internet and ignore everyone, we need to set an example for how the Internet can be protected and used as a tool, and we need to help the users understand it. If the U.S. removes the net-neutrality laws, the global community will suffer and they need to understand that. This is one of the very few U.S. political actions that I absolutely encourage international persons to participate in. This affects us all!

Stack Exchange is not an Internet Service Provider, they're at the whim of the people who service them traffic. We cannot forget that, we need to do everything in our power to protect our community, or it could very shortly end existence. Don't discount your users, we're an international community which means for some of us this is the first time we've heard of 'net-neutrality' and 'common carrier', explain it like I'm five.

Let's turn Stack Overflow into the poster-whatever for how a lack of net-neutrality in the United States is a bad thing™!

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Regarding Foreigners

Some might say that "foreigners" (non-U.S. persons) might not have a say in this, but as I said above this is one of the few times I encourage them to. The scope of this is too large. If the FCC pushes and has net-neutrality redacted, we're literally talking about the possibility for the U.S. ISP's (if they really wanted to) to start de-prioritizing international traffic. That's the actual scope of this issue. So every site that you use as a non-U.S. citizen (including Canadian, Central and Latin American, etc.) can be crippled or shut down for you.

If you don't think that'll happen, and you don't think our ISP's will abuse this if it comes back, you really haven't paid attention to the U.S. for the last few months and I feel like you have a significantly larger amount of faith in my government than I do. As a foreigner you all have the same responsibility in this manner that we do: speak up. If you say nothing you've effectively aligned with the idea that we don't need net-neutrality, and you've said it's O.K. for carriers to prioritize traffic for any reason, even arbitrary ones like "we don't like your nation because you [won't give us a good deal on _____ | support person _____ whom we don't | just aren't a nation we like], so no more Internet for you."

So as a foreigner, the specific form Shog9 linked to won't let you fill it out and send a letter to the FCC as you need a United States address, but the FCC has a contact page, so you can still tell them to suck-it (figuratively speaking). You can also view official comments on this proceeding and add your own, simply click "+ New Filing" or "+ Express". (You can even upload documents if you click "+ New Filing".) And if for some reason that link quits working, search for proceeding "17-108", that's the "Restoring Internet Freedom" proposal to eliminate net-neutrality.

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An Example

As for a concrete example, use an analogy.

You're at a barbecue with your friends, two of your friends are really close to the guy handing out food. Well you, you're really good friends with the woman on the grill. So you ask her if she can give you one of the best burgers to come off the grill. She says "of course!", you're friends after all. So she tells the gentleman handing out food that "these two are for my friend." Well you and your friends already paid him off, but he gives them the good burgers and you the burnt one. Why? You all paid your fair share.

If we discontinue net-neutrality that is the grim world we can look forward to. A world where the person you get service from can arbitrarily change the quality of your service to benefit someone else.

Answer 3

I've only found one article about Net Neutrality that clearly explains the case in favor and the case against, gives actual quotations from articulate and high-profile proponents and opponents, and does not attempt to force the reader into agreeing with one side of the issue. For anyone who feels you are missing some orientation to why this is even under debate...

...why would anyone be against this? —Shog9

...I highly recommend "A Tangled Web" by Price Colman.

If you're in a hurry, just read the section headed "Good, Bad and Ugly."*

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Here is one excerpt, just to show the reservations that are held by some high profile proponents of net neutrality. (Emphasis added.)

Many in the tech sector are leery of government and regulatory intrusion. While they endorse the “bright line” and transparency rules, they have reservations about other aspects of the order.

“I think the order did the right thing,” said Corynne McSherry of Electronic Frontier Foundation, a longtime advocate of Net Neutrality and the protection of personal privacy on the Net.

For the EFF, Net Neutrality is “pretty fundamental,” McSherry said. “Think of all the ways in which we use the Internet—to organize, communicate, get jobs, get educated. We depend on the Internet for so many things. That means we need a fair Internet.”

But, she says, the order gives the FCC leeway to crack down on ISPs’ practices that violate the spirit of the order, but aren’t specifically addressed in the order. That worries her.

“It seems like [the FCC] has given itself a bigger window for overregulation. The signal to us is that we have to pressure the FCC to do the right thing.”

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Personally, I am in favor of Net Neutrality, but I regard the FCC itself as a necessary evil that must be kept closely in check. I do not trust government appointees to "do the right thing" and I find it odd when people loudly arguing that corporate executives are "evil" and are "only profit-driven," place implicit trust in government appointees to rein in such evil tendencies. "Who will watch the watchers?"

I am also informed enough to know that there are many aspects of FCC regulation that I don't understand, and I am leery of oversimplification, especially by those who themselves fail to see other points of view.

A call to action without a commensurate call to get informed, I would regard as a disservice.

That said...if you want to make a blog post such as you describe, I think that sounds like a wonderful idea. Just, please:

1. Avoid the embarrassing ad hominem attacks on those who disagree that imbue so many of the answers on this very page. This is a very multi-faceted issue.
2. Avoid inflammatory language (which should go without saying).
3. Avoid oversimplifying the issue.
4. Please make some effort to really consider and understand opposing views, and be sure you are not presenting "straw man" arguments in the guise of "presenting both sides." The evil "fast lane" scenarios are not seriously advanced by anyone (and certainly no one high profile) as a desirable future.

Well, I'm not gonna lie - I think revoking the current rules is a bad idea, and I'm gonna say that. I'm not gonna say you suck if you're against 'em, but I am gonna ask folks to come here and elaborate on their reasoning. —Shog9

Although I am in favor of Net Neutrality, I'm in favor with certain reservations. I have hereby elaborated upon my reasoning. :)

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_{*If you're writing a lengthy blog post on the subject, though, you don't qualify as "in a hurry." ;)}

Answer 4

As you note (and as is clear from some of the comments and answers), there needs to be an educational component to this effort -- many people don't understand net neutrality in the abstract or the practical consequences of losing it. People have questions.

SE is a place for questions.

Perhaps we should use our own sites to ask and answer questions about this (questions that people actually have, I mean), and collect links to the ones with good answers in that blog post or some other central place.

There's no one site where these questions might arise. Depending on the question, people might be asking on Law, Information Security, Tor, Webmasters, Politics, Travel, User Experience, Skeptics, or others. Most of us won't see most of that on our own.

Answer 5

As you work on the post, I think it would be useful to be very careful about how you frame the various points of fact. For example, the regulation of "common carriers" goes quite far beyond "[not] discriminat[ing] between customers", and the biggest objections to the FCC proposal from free-enterprise advocates as well as from the providers themselves center largely on aspects of that regulatory framework that you don't mention at all (here). Not a big deal in this post, of course - you're soliciting feedback. But in an explanatory post, which essentially would be a position paper, if you do the same thing you'd be failing to address the primary objections which would make the whole exercise kind of pointless in my view.

Also, it's worth noting that the FCC rules under discussion have a complicated history, and effectively have only ever been proposals. The most controversial idea is the one that suggests the FCC should re-classify ISPs as "title II carriers" - and it's only ever been an idea. Like you say: procedural and boring (although if there was a crowd with an interest in arcana and detail, this is probably it). But I suggest that if you're going to delve into that part of it, handle the facts carefully. One big takeaway from an accurate understanding of all this is kind of important: "Net Neutrality", as people currently understand it, has only very recently been a thing in the US. It has historically not been effectively regulated either by statute or regulatory rule - which means that all this time the internet has been working pretty well without it. That's not necessarily dispositive proof that no action is needed, or that Stack Overflow's position isn't valid, but it also helps us understand that this is not a scenario wherein we return to the Bad Old Days if the "Net Neutrality" position doesn't prevail, or that we will achieve Internet Nirvana if it does. This is not doomsday one way or the other.

For a detailed perspective into a lot of this nuance, I recommend Episode 72 of the "Political Economy", here: https://ricochet.com/podcast/net-neutrality/. Brent Skorup does a pretty decent job of laying out the broad view of what proponents of net neutrality are trying to achieve by relying on the Title II classification of ISPs and FCC power to arbitrate violations of it.

<opinion>

Cards on the table

So, I'll put more of my cards on the table, since the direct questions were "why should or shouldn't we.." and "why would anyone be against this?" I'm opposed to the Title II classification, and I don't think Stack Overflow has a strong case to be for it from a business perspective. Political perspectives of people in the company are what they are, and I don't view them as particularly relevant here because I'll not be changing any strongly-held opinions in this one post - but maybe I can take a shot at answering the questions at hand from my own perspective.

Note: for context, this is all very US-centric.

I think any scenario where the government doesn't need to be involved is the better scenario. So in a pragmatic approach to this issue, it kind of boils down to demonstrating need (and the contrapositive, demonstrating that regardless of need, there is a downside to government involvement).

The need (or lack)

The primary common argument for net neutrality, as I understand it, is that ISPs might block or throttle lawful traffic, or charge for prioritization ("fast lanes").

I don't know of many cases of this actually happening. There is the one famous instance between Netflix and Comcast (which they resolved without the help of regulators).

More to the point, ISPs don't have much incentive to do this. There are indeed areas were there is only one option for broadband access - but I think those are getting fewer and fewer - and this trend is only going to accelerate as more wireless ISPs come online: both fixed wireless and 5g/Wimax/Mmmmmagic. Available options are only going to become more plentiful.

Despite the common refrain of a lack of competition, that complaint is mostly from a consumer point of view. From, say, Comcast's point of view, there is plenty of competition. In any major market, they are competing with other major providers like Verizon and AT&T, who also offer multiple modes of access: DSL, Fiber, Wireless. There are many consumers who do actually have a choice. In my view, it's enough to prevent egregiously anti-competitive behavior from providers.

And indeed - anti-competitive behavior seems to be the primary concern. But this is already regulated. The Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission already enforce these laws and have always been able to prosecute in the courts bad actors who violate antitrust laws as they occur.

Antitrust law and the standards applied by courts have been developed and refined over decades. In comparison, new regulations contain untested definitions and standards, which would be interpreted and enforced by constantly rotating commission.

Antitrust law governs the conduct of all participants in the internet marketplace uniformly, and prosecutes conduct once it occurs on a case-by-case basis and determines whether parties actually engaged in improper conduct. Regulation would only apply to a select group of entities, and is a one-size-fits-all approach that creates a burden on everyone regardless of whether they are acting unlawfully. And consumers often ultimately bear the cost of this regulation." (some paraphrasing)

http://thehill.com/special-reports/net-neutrality-september-16-2014/217862-use-antitrust-laws-not-regulations-to

To address Stack Overflow's interest directly: I think it is exceedingly unlikely that an ISP would apply the aforementioned bad practices. There is simply no reason, and no business model for them to do so.

Update: It seems like a good idea to address the claim of a lack of competition as a reason for Title II classifications - that somehow, the state of things in Internetlandia resembles the telephone networks and AT&T from the 1930s. I just don't see any evidence to suggest this is actually true. According to broadbandmap.gov:

It looks to me like there are actually very few people who have fewer than 4 providers available to them. I don't see why that's not enough to prevent the kind of bad behavior envisioned by proponents, in the main. It also bears repeating: improvements in wireless technology are changing this a lot, and for the better (in terms of access).

The downside

There are a few, but let's start with forbearance. Broadly speaking, government entities that have had the power to do something eventually do it. So the FCC promised to forbear from applying the most stringent parts of Title II (say, like rate fixing - which would be a disaster) - but I just don't trust that promise at all. Maybe Mr. Wheeler (the chairman in 2015) meant it earnestly, and it appears that he and the commission abided by that promise. Good for them. What happens when an entirely different commission decides, arbitrarily, that they will no longer forbear - something I view as all but inevitable if the rules stay in place? Do we want them to have arbitrary and capricious power over such an important part of the national infrastructure, and a service that over half the country has come to rely on? I don't.

Skorup makes a extends this argument further with a helpful example in National Affairs:

The FCC's tendencies, in the words of economist and judge Richard Posner, result in "unprincipled compromises of Rube Goldberg complexity among contending interest groups viewed merely as clamoring suppliants who have somehow to be conciliated." The discretion it reserves for itself undermines its work because its approval processes are frequently sidetracked by powerful interests in and outside of government. For example, one wireless company, LightSquared, spent billions of dollars converting satellite spectrum for use as mobile broadband, in the hopes of competing with AT&T and Verizon. The FCC tentatively encouraged that costly process for a few years before rescinding crucial permissions under intense political pressure. The bureaucratic shift immediately bankrupted LightSquared and deprived Americans of the benefits of another major wireless operator.

If the neutrality rules stick, I think it's likely that ISPs will lobby to have content providers regulated as well because in some respects they compete (say, Xfinity vs Netflix - or even Google vs Bing - or how about CDNs, which are effectively fast lanes) and they're going to work to negate competitive advantages that are held over them. The coiner of the term Net Neutrality also "argued in congressional testimony that the FCC should be charged with "protecting an open society," "safeguarding the political process," and prohibiting media companies from silencing political viewpoints." Another way to put that is: tell media companies (which would include Stack Overflow) what they are and are not allowed to publish on their distribution networks. I'm not for that.

Even "Lawrence Lessig penned a piece in 2008 for Newsweek titled, "It's Time to Demolish the FCC," in which he bemoaned the problems of industry capture and the FCC's increased politicization. Echoing many conservative complaints, he concluded that, when it comes to technology, there's an urgent need to "remove the government from the mix as much as possible."

Also, David Clark amusingly pointed out that a legal regime of net neutrality is seriously anti-investment, which is a common argument against it.

The way I prefer to think of it

My view is that the prior regime of antitrust enforcement coupled with letting free markets figure things out is the superior approach.

Part of why I think the blanket regulatory approach is a bad idea is that the nuts and bolts of how all this boils out is completely opaque to most people. How many people understand how peering works? What about CDNs? Datacenters? How do these things apply where all this stuff comes together? Was the Netflix v Comcast thing really an instance of bad behavior vis-à-vis network neutrality, or was it just an instance of a major provider trying its best to make its network work better, and a participant got its finger caught in the door (so to speak)? Did anyone notice that there weren't any antitrust enforcement actions against Comcast in that case - to me signifying that the way it ultimately worked out was far better than every internet participant having to shoulder the burden of blanket regulation.

To add to this point, definitions are very tricky too. Why isn't a CDN the same thing as "paid prioritization"? When Bittorrent was a really "impolite" program and absolutely crushing consumer networks, was it an anti-competitive action for ISPs to throttle it? Even the basic statement of principle on battleforthenet.com doesn't stand up to very much scrutiny: "Internet providers should not control what we see and do online". Taken literally, that would mean they couldn't manage their networks effectively.

Kayne and Layton very interestingly note in US News that Denmark, consistently a leader in connectivity and telecom services to consumers, doesn't have a centralized regulator like the FCC. They dismantled their centralized telecom regulator in 2011. "That Denmark's broadband market has flourished without centralized government regulation should be instructive to the United States. Clearly, top-down rules are not the only way to produce consumer friendly outcomes. "

To me this is a solution in search of a problem. Real problems include:

• lack of deeper broadband penetration
• lack of consumer choice

There are definitely others, but these are the ones that come to mind. The net neutrality rules don't help these problems, and I think I could make a case that they make them worse (regulatory capture, yadda yadda). Instead, we could try to figure out how to let municipalities build last-mile broadband infrastructure. We can get the FCC to auction off more of the wireless spectrum that the government is currently hogging. There are other better approaches to real problems that I think would have a more positive effect. They just take more work.

Anyway, there it is. I could go on and on and on, but this is already a wall o' text that only Shog is going to read anyway :-) Just to be clear, I am not wound up and anxious about this, and I don't think histrionics are appropriate responses to policy questions. If the FCC keeps the rules, we will muddle through. I think things will be a little worse if they do, but it's not the end of everything good and right. If they don't keep the rules, I think it's a step in the right direction, but that's about all.

P.S. - my apologies to upvoters who may now want to retract their votes (which is totally fine)

</opinion>

One last thing: good luck. Politics is hard.

Answer 6

I've always had trouble explaining what Net Neutrality is to people who do not work in tech. To aid in that explanation, I made this flyer which imagines a world where 'Neutrality' did not exist for electricity providers.

Here's a high quality PDF if you are more into that:

https://github.com/ryanpcmcquen/ryanpcmcquen.github.io/raw/master/assets/a_net_neutrality_analogy.pdf

Answer 7

Net Neutrality is really important, and I don't disagree with your motives. But I just have to call this out:

So if there's a chance at influencing the outcome of that vote, we gotta speak out now.

There isn't any such chance.

Republicans, both in Congress and on the FCC, have been consistently opposed to Net Neutrality in its current form (Title II) since at least 2015 if not substantially earlier. The current FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai, strongly criticized the Title II plan both before and after it passed, and has been specifically planning this repeal since at least April.

But let's suppose one of the other two Republicans on the Commission somehow defects (one of them voted the same way as Pai in 2015, and the other worked under him, so this is wildly unlikely). Then what happens?

The White House doesn't seem to like Net Neutrality. Neither do the Republicans who control both houses of Congress. At any time, they could pass a law rescinding Net Neutrality from the FCC's purview. If by some miracle the FCC fails to repeal the regulations directly, Congress will certainly attempt this course of action. Whether they would succeed is a bit of an open question, seeing as the Democratic caucus controls 48 seats in the Senate (incl. Independents) and can filibuster.

Regardless, however, the chances for Net Neutrality look pretty grim right now. So what can we do about it?

• This is a marathon, not a sprint: We should be planning ahead for 2018, 2020, and beyond. Focusing too much on the present is liable to leave us fatigued and discouraged when it comes time for a more winnable battle.
• Net Neutrality was never the whole solution: Improving the broadband market will never be down to a single policy or a single vote. There are other proposals we can and should draw attention to, such as last-mile unbundling. Unbundling in particular is more easily sold to consumers, who may not be receptive to the indirect, market-driven benefits of Net Neutrality (but can easily understand "you'll have more broadband options").
• Go state-by-state: If the feds are against you, work on the states. A number of states currently have laws prohibiting municipal broadband. Previously, the FCC tried to preempt these laws, but failed in the courts. So this battle has to be fought at the state level anyway.

Answer 8

What about non-US citizens?

It's like the whole internet is forgetting there are people from other countries out there who don't have any say (or at least it doesn't seem like they do) in these "letters to important people in power". What can we do?

I've read on many reddit threads that if you're not a USian, you can donate to EFF, but I'm not sure about that either.

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What can we do if this doesn't work out?

It seems like we're going to a gun fight with a tiny plastic butter knife from a child's toy house set, if even that. But in this metaphor it's our internet comments vs very real and substantial money deals between large corporations and institutions. Do you think we can simply convince them with our words?

And as a pessimist, at this point in history of the world and the US in particular (talkin bout politics, yes) I'm more interested in the ways around this issue, should shit hit the fan.

The current structure of internet entities, as it is described even in this post, suggests that with all the decentralization that should in theory have been the base of every online service and site, doesn't exist in practice, and is a rare exception instead. Like this bit of technical info from the question:

[…] this is where our servers live so any additional headaches when it comes to providing access are gonna be a problem.

And it's not a secret that a lot of the US has only one or at best two ISPs in the area to connect to the rest of the world with. It's bad for competition and it's especially bad for when all of your 1 or 2 available providers turn evil and block or slow you down.

So, should every important site and service on the internet decentralize so that problems in one node don't result in problems everywhere?

I'm not an internet architechnician, but I'd like to learn about this aspect of the problem. Just to be better informed and possibly even prepared.

Answer 9

In India

Facebook introduced a scheme called Freebasics in which Facebook and some other sites will cooperate with a carrier called Reliance and provide free access to selected sites. At that time, around 70 sites. Many carriers, as well as websites, come against this saying it will kill net neutrality. They gave free access to some sites for users of specific carriers.

Later the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) asked them to stop doing this. The TRAI is an authority run under Indian Government and control everything related to Telecom (The Internet as well).

In India, there are some rules, but India never supports a Priority-based speed for customers.

Another one is JIO

Mukesh Ambany introduced a Telecom Company called JIO which provided everything for free for more than a year. First, they provided free service to their employees (in beta phase). Then, to people having selected brand smartphones (Samsung and LYF). Finally, it is opened to the public.

Sometime later, all other companies united and complained to TRAI and TRAI first refused it. Afterward, all companies cut off their prices in order to keep their customers with them.

Because JIO gave free internet (100 Mbps while tested, and 24-26 Mbps in the production phase), free voice and video calls, 100's of free TV channels, free music, movies, and everything, TRAI asked JIO to stop this plan in May and then JIO changed the name of the plan and giving it also for free.

India doesn't have such very strict rules on the Internet

However, if the ISP is able to prioritize users based on the amount they pay and serve them data based on that,

It will kill the internet. It will not only affect SO

It will affect many big companies having the server located in the US only.

And for sure, it will not only affect the US citizen. All of us. People from all over the world.

Answer 10

Here's an attempt to distill all this down to a few sentences:

I want my ISP to invest my money in making my connection faster. Not spend it finding ways to make more money by selectively making my connection slower.

That's what we need regulation to prevent. Because if we don't prevent it, they're not going to leave that money on the table. You might think competition would make this an impossible business plan. It would, if we had that.

Answer 11

I am sorry but I have a hard time understanding how this influences Stack Overflow and me as an user of the site (from outside the US in my case). I have read the article but it is still a bit unclear to me.

What exactly does it mean if the rules change? Does it influence businesses (aka SO), does it influence US citizens or everyone else too? Does this go further than a political standpoint as we have seen in the past of SO? What is the part of the proposal that should worry me?

I would gladly give my opinion on this, but I don't feel I am qualified enough to do so at this moment.

Answer 12

Let me preface this by stating that I am all for net neutrality. However, I am strongly against the government defining, requiring, regulating, or enforcing it.

History

Back in the '90s this debate raged as well. However, it had a different focus. Dialup ISPs competed for your business by offering lower prices, better features, or faster speed. Some of them, noticing a market need, even advertised that they were 'net neutral', promising the same priority to site X as to site Y, at no additional cost. Net neutrality was a good thing, and was willfully adopted by ISPs seeking to attract subscribers.

The Effect

Why did this happen? Why were ISPs bending over backward? The answer is competition. You could easily take your business literally to any ISP you wanted in less than an hour of time spent on the phone.

Why does this no longer happen? What is it now that makes ISPs complacent, threatening higher costs for certain services, limiting your bandwidth, and generally assuming you won't be taking your business elsewhere? The answer as you might expect, is the complete lack of competition. You can't take your business elsewhere. Everyone knows that if you want respectable internet speeds, you have to go with cable (or fiber in some places). Unfortunately, that means you have only one option, and depending on your location, that single option is going to be Comcast, Mediacom, or if you're kinda lucky, some local cable outfit. This is because there is only one cable provider in any given area.

The Cause

There are SO MANY CAUSES as to why we each only get one company to choose from when we want cable internet. Or DSL. Or some of us now, fiber. Some of it dates back 80+ years to regulations that were implemented federally to prevent too many carriers from running too many wires between towns, and between houses and businesses. Some of it is related to city regulation and planning under those same auspices, resulting in bidding wars and ultimately one choice. Some of it also is due to corruption (Legal, usually, but still corruption. See: 'kickbacks')

Like so many other well-intentioned regulations, the net neutrality regulations will bring us worse internet for more money. Or at the very least, hold us back technologically. Building out infrastructure that can support half an ISP's clients using Netflix simultaneously requires lots of money. Ideally, those that are causing the need for that infrastructure improvement would pay for it (be that Netflix, the ISP's subscribers who use it, or both). Mandating net neutrality basically ensures that ALL the ISP clients will pay, whether they use it or not, and Netflix doesn't need to do anything.

The Solution

So what's the answer? Asking the FCC to mandate net neutrality is like asking the guy who broke your arm (whether on purpose or by accident) to build you a cast for it. It would have been better to not have the broken arm in the first place, and the guy we're asking is probably the least qualified to fix it anyway. He'll likely just break your other arm when he's done, all the while asking, "You have a cast now. Isn't that better?"

We need to look beyond the net neutrality regulation's initial perceived benefit. Removing it is a good thing, but it's only part of the solution. The petition to the FCC shouldn't be to leave 'Net Neutrality' instated, but to remove the other regulations that are leaving us without choices.

We also need to be outraged at any city government who would trade individual choice for kickbacks, or who would hide behind the net neutrality debate as a way of dodging the criticism they've earned themselves.

Conclusion

There's a way out of this. However, too many people are espousing actions too similar to the ones that got us here in the first place. It's easy to say, "Yeah, the internet should be 'net neutral'." But until the landscape of our infrastructure regulation changes, it's impossible to say, "You know what? I'm taking my dollars to the company who gives me the most value." We've seen this problem solved before, but now we're asking the wrong people to solve it again in the wrong way.

Net neutrality has existed in the wild before, and I think we're smart enough to get back to it without asking the perpetrators of its demise to mandate its blessing. There would be so many benefits to doing it this way.

Answer 13

One note regarding the execution of whatever the result will be of this discussion: make sure you're anticipating that small subset of the user base who do not agree with consensus/eventual decision. There are even users who feel oppressed when SO publicly endorses civil rights, so it should be expected that a non-trivial amount of people will disagree with what I expect will turn out to be a site-wide vast support of net neutrality.

You will either have to act in a way that doesn't implicitly represent users who disagree, or be prepared to lose them. This divide has arisen multiple times (whenever SO the company made official statements outside of programming or other relevant scopes). Any decision of the company to handle this conflict is fine, but it should be a conscious one.

Answer 14

For folks getting their viewpoints from insular sources (StackExchange being one of them), please consider reading these two articles written from a different viewpoint.

In The FCC’s ‘Open Internet Rules’ Make the Internet Less Open, Ian Tuttle, writing for the National Review, asserts:

Relevant portion:

Net neutrality was always a solution looking for a problem. When, in 2010, the FCC announced its first extensive regulations on ISPs (what would become the core of the 2015 rules), it could cite just four examples of anticompetitive behavior, all relatively minor. In 2005, for example, a North Carolina telephone company blocked the Internet phone service Vonage. In 2007, Comcast slowed down (“throttled”) the operations of file-sharing service BitTorrent.

and its potential dangerous impact:

None of this was necessary. There was very little evidence that ISPs were engaging in the sorts of malpractice that net neutrality was designed to prevent — and even if they had been, it would not have followed that reclassification was the proper remedy. In fact, a more honest appraisal of the sequence of events is that the Obama administration and left-wing activists succeeded in pressuring the FCC into a maximal power-grab that is likely to do much more damage to Internet freedom than Comcast was doing. Why is the FCC’s monopoly not as concerning as that of any given ISP?

In A Truly ‘Open Internet’ Would Be Free of Burdensome FCC Regulation, Brent Skorup, writing for the National Review, observes:

The substance of the new rules is almost immaterial, save one, the “general conduct” rule, which with vague language swallows all the others and allows the agency to investigate and prohibit any online service, app, or business practice that it determines is “unreasonable.” When asked which activities the Internet-conduct standard could regulate, the FCC’s then-Democratic chairman replied that “we don’t really know.”

That quote, from then-FCC chairman Tom Wheeler at a press conference shortly after the current rules went into effect when questioned on the general conduct rule, reads in full:

We don’t really know. We don’t know where things will go next. We have created a playing field where there are known rules, and the FCC will sit there as a referee and will throw the flag.

(source: Obamanet’s Regulatory Farrago, L. Gordon Crovitz writing for WSJ's "Information age" opinion section)

Answer 15

The practical downside for YOU

Many people fail to see the practical application of this. Here it is:

From the consumer side, ISPs could:

• charge you money to access certain sites (google, facebook, etc)
• slow block sites that they don't like (sites for net neutrality, etc.)
• slow down sites that they compete with (making netflix lag so their streaming service is faster)

From the website owner side, ISPs could (for US-based sites):

• Threaten (legally) to prioritize a competitor's website unless they pay (SO/SE is really slow, ExpertsExchange is fast)
• Block incoming traffic altogether for certain sites (like battleforthenet.com or SE) because they don't like them

But I'm not in America, so this doesn't affect me!

Wrong. Do you use any sites that use American servers? (yes you do, you are viewing this.) Therefore you can and will be affected.

Answer 16

tl;dr- Net neutrality's core economic value is that it regulates a common service that everyone uses to operate in a manner that's generally palatable to all. This saves everyone tons of time-and-effort at minimal opportunity cost.

Any proposed change to net neutrality should demonstrate that it:

1. Has a real economic benefit, e.g. by significantly increasing the positive correlation between desired market behavior and profit maximization.

2. Doesn't impart a large economic penalty on consumers, e.g. by minimally complicating the economic question of "Which ISP, if any, is right for me?" for the vast majority of consumers.

3. Doesn't impart a large societal penalty, e.g. by minimally causing social/political/legal conflict, or, ideally, reducing such conflict. Both society and the market take huge hits whenever such battles rage.

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Ideal market vs. real market

In principle, it'd be better if all market participants were free to do whatever they want, allowing rational consumers to engage in the economy as they desire. Then, arguably, some regulations could exist to prevent blatantly unethical behaviors, e.g. organized crime.

In reality, people aren't "rational consumers" because we're cognitively limited. We're not able to research-and-analyze all of our options at length, then come to an optimal decision after eons of careful consideration. Any market based on the notion that consumers have infinite time to consider all options is going to fail under the weight of reality.

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Costs vs. benefits

The core economic value of net neutrality is to remove the extensive cost of considering highly complex options that could appear if ISP's were suddenly able to start doing whatever the heck they want, including throttling particular sites, users, etc., at different times, rate plans, etc.. Seriously, you'd have to get a Ph.D. in your local ISP's practices to even begin to make an optimal decision for yourself, and the market simply can't bear everyone spending that much time on a single economic decision.

The core economic cost of net neutrality is that ISP's and users can't arrive at optimal, customized plans, as they could in an ideal free market where everyone had the time to research-and-analyze all of their options.

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Value of regulation = benefits - costs

The value of regulation is the reduction in decision complexity less the opportunity cost of the prohibited alternatives.

For net neutrality, we're enjoying far more simplicity in choosing ISP's and ISP's engaging with customers. Additionally, we help ensure free speech, saving us the costs of defending it when infringed.

For losses, we have cases where services like Netflix can use an out-sized portion of bandwidth, then that cost is distributed to all users.

While the losses are losses, the actual economic detriment from them appears to be pretty modest, while the economic benefit of everyone not having to police their own ISP is huge. Overall, the net economic value of net neutrality appears to be hugely positive.

Personally, I'm glad that I don't have to watch out for what my ISP might be doing; that'd be a real annoyance! Especially since I've lived in lots of areas where there was literally just one viable ISP.

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Relaxing net neutrality

Conceivably, we might want to relax net neutrality in some limited, carefully considered ways.

Under the economic principle of coupling desired market behavior to profit maximization, relaxations to net neutrality should allow people to take options that they realistically have time to consider in a manner that better couples costs to benefits, increasing market freedoms.

This retreat from market neutrality makes sense in, say, cellular networks if bandwidth can be too limited. Then, we'd want carriers to better reflect real costs in their pricing plans.

The danger here is that our system currently allows anti-market practices, e.g. artificial market segmentation and exploitation of pricing power. These behaviors are anti-market. No capitalist who believes in the primacy of the free market should want to live in a world where such corrupt tactics are used because these tactics demonstrably result in a decoupling of utility vs. profit maximization. Any relaxation of net neutrality should ensure that customers don't have to watch their ISP's for such bad behavior.

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The issue of censorship

Since the internet is a primary mechanism for information transit, any modification to it can be used to effect some sort of censorship, even if partial.

Some might argue that censorship could be illegal and fought in the courts. However, having to fight minor acts of censorship in court would be a gross economic burden. Our court systems are already expensive and overburdened; we don't need more of that, nor do we want to effectively require that everyone have to get involved in suing their ISP over such issues.

Answer 17

I recommend moving this discussion to a Stack Exchange forum that's germane to the topic and not pursue this as advocacy.

Many people are sick to death of companies inserting themselves into political debates. Many or most participants in the Stack Exchange community won't care about your views and would prefer to not be involved.

Answer 18

I am against Net Neutrality. Instead of writing a long post that will be ignored and downvoted I will summarize my thoughts. Also, with all do respect to Shog9 but asking for discussion on this biased forum is a little naive.

The problem that Net Neutrality is trying to solve is ISP charging (or slowing/restricting) access to a given content provider. It is not about censorship, don't confuse the two problems. The issues I have are two fold.

Is this really a problem?

The current standard for broadband and mobile data is to charge a rate for a minimum speed and amount of data transfer, ie 10 GB @ min 25 MBs. No one seems to think this is outrageous and gladly pays their cellphone/cable bills. You may not like the price but you don't mind paying for the service. Saying that AT&T or Comcast should not charge for faster speeds or more data is like saying fast food and fine dining should cost the same. Should content providers be except from the same pricing model the consumer pays? If Netflix was forced to pay for more bandwidth they may invest in a better way to compress/deliver digital video over the internet or invent the futurenet.

What is the solution?

Making a regulation that says "play nice" is ridiculous on it's face. Is the answer to regulate all ISP's to cap profits at 10%? To say they all must provide 100 MB/s download speeds everywhere? Let's examine the first one. If Comcast is capped at 10% profit they can have a healthy business and never upgrade equipment or coverage area. There is no incentive for expansion. Instead of being "pro Net Neutrality", purpose a regulation that will work. Most of us are pro saving the fluffy bunny. Do we kill the cuddly rabbit to do it?

No proposed regulation I have read makes sense in terms innovation, expansion and profit. To argue that ISP's should only charge the consumer is fine. The content providers will pay nothing. So the entire cost of faster networks to accommodate the higher quality (both in terms of data and reliability) now must fall on the consumer. Let the free market determine the future of the internet. It did fine in determining the present growth of the internet.

Answer 19

I believe that Stack Exchange fails to serve the needs of their core community. Those interested about why I think so can find a detailed explanation here.

Because of that, I am uncomfortable about SE taking a stand in political, social, ethical, etc. matters pretending to represent the community (which, as I said, I believe they fail to serve).

The above also applies to Net Neutrality. I would much appreciate it if SE abstain from statements that can be interpreted as representing the community.

Answer 20

In general I agree that Net Neutrality is a good thing, or let's put it the other way round: The fundamental lack of Net Neutrality would be a very bad thing. This way around makes more sense, as something that protects you from evil is not necessarily good; the enemy of your enemy is not your friend, just because you share some common interests.

There are two things I'd like to point out in this discussion:

1. Most people have the incorrect belief that the Internet has always been neutral until recent and now the big companies try to change that. The truth is: The Internet has never been neutral. The Internet, as we know it, which emerged from the ARPANET sometimes in the 80s, had no guarantee for neutrality in USA prior to February 26, 2015 when then FCC reclassified broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service. Prior to that date, the Internet may or may not have been more or less neutral as there was no regulation that would force ISPs to be neutral and traffic prioritization at Universities for example (the earliest civil Internet members of all) used to be the norm as bandwidth was scare and expensive at that time. In other parts of the world, the Internet may have always been neutral, never been neutral up to today, or not have been neutral until recently. The fact that despite the lack of any regulation in that area most people always had a rather neutral access in most parts of the western world shows that even without regulation the neutrality doesn't have to be in danger.

2. The consequence of (1) is that by forcing Net Neutrality upon the Internet means, the Internet as we used to know it from the 80s to 2015 won't be the Internet of the years to come. Forcing neutrality is not preserving the status quo, it is creating something new, it is a change. Or let's say it was a change in 2015, as since that day neutrality is the new status quo. Still, it's a pretty fresh change and change is not a synonym for improvement, it only means things will be different and different is no synonym for better. While I'm pretty sure the positive aspects outnumber the negative by far, I'm not neglecting that there might be negative aspects if neutrality is forced without any valid exceptions, e.g. increasing prices, loss of competition, or a decrease in capital investment. As for you the Internet is just a communication medium, but for the companies that keep it alive, it is business.

Keep in mind that use is not the same as abuse. If we'd forbid to sell anything that can be abused, some stores would be pretty empty. The opposite of neutrality is also not censorship. Censorship breaks neutrality but traffic prioritization does as well, just like selectively charging for traffic. I'm strictly against censorship and I'm strictly against any kind of market abuse and Net Neutrality fights both, but it's not a strict necessity to fight both.

All the negative aspects ISPs mention about Net Neutrality are actually true. The fact that most here would wish they were not or don't like to hear them doesn't make these claims false. Well, of course, they are exaggerating the situation a lot, they fear for their income, especially the loss of existing of future income sources, so there's also a lot of whining, take it with a grain of salt; but at its core the statements are not lies. This enforcement will have consequences and it already had a few negative consequences for some people. If the "business" Internet access becomes unattractive, most companies can easily give up on it and concentrate on something else, it's their former customer that will have a problem then.

In an ideal world, there would be plenty of ISPs available everywhere you can just choose from and the competition would give us all low prices and high bandwidths. In an ideal world, we could vote by feet, we wouldn't need a law forcing neutrality; if we desire neutrality and one ISP is not offering it, we go to a competitor. No ISP can survive without customers, so they would have become neutral if that is what customers demand. Yeah, in an ideal world... just that the world is nowhere near as ideal. And the enforced Net Neutrality, for example, won't do anything to improve that situation, it will not change anything there (best case) or it will make it even worse for some people (worst case).

There cannot be light without shadow. And it's okay to accept some shadow. I just cannot stand it when people pretend that the shadow doesn't exist because they want to make their point of view to look even better than it actually is, despite the fact that they are already in the stronger position. It's okay to admit that a solution is not perfect, I mean, what is perfect anyway? Just my 2 cent.

Answer 21

I'm not living in U.S., why do I see this banner on every SO site I visit, SO-on-Russian included?
Upd: on every device.

It is internal U.S. politics, please keep it internal.

I don't want foreigners to meddle with my country, so why do you ask a foreigner like me to put pressure on the government of your country?

Gathering a cheering mob of bystanders has nothing to do with democracy. There isn't much of a difference between using unrelated people and using shills.

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Inb4 "but what if U.S. regulations would affect SO in a bad way"?
A: it's their [U.S.] business, I have no say in that.

Answer 22

If we allow any government intervention, it should be to support the free market system.

If I go to the grocery store and they don't have a certain brand of milk that I want, then i will go to a different grocery store to get the milk. similarly, if my ISP won't let me watch netflix, then i'll go to a different ISP.

any government intervention should be to support the anti-monopolization of ISPs, instead of telling the ISPs what products they are required to offer

furthermore, if i start my own ISP and i want to block all porn content, or severely slow it down, why should i not have this right? if you want porn, then i would suspect that you do not want to be my customer. i'm not going to sue you for that.

What If I want content from both ISP A and ISP B? The direct and rapid response to this would be the emergence of ISP aggregators, that will serve the exact content that we want, at the exact speed that we pay for.

Why should I have to pay for porn to be streamed to millions of users, when I don't even use it?

Answer 23

I thought I'd just say this: being in New Zealand, the Great American Net Neutrality Debate seems to be a symptom of a far bigger issue with infrastructure, regulation, and competition. In short, the NZ consensus is:

Its pretty much a non issue here because our system isnt sh*t

https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/6cffdy/net_neutrality_in_nz/

While you're lobbying for net neutrality, you could also try to get your local loops unbundled properly (NZ did this in 2003) to bring prices down and improve competition and service:

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-there-no-Local-loop-unbundling-in-the-USA

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/we-dont-need-net-neutrality-we-need-competition/

By the way, most of NZ has fibre now thanks to a public-private partnership. Result: insanely fast internet for everyone and overall benefits for the economy. Maybe you could also lobby for that too.

In short, blazingly fast internet, the ability to choose from a myriad of ISPs, investment in infrastructure, and robust competition (and a government competition watchdog that jumps on anything that even smells like anti-competitiveness) seem to obviate this issue. Maybe I've totally got the wrong end of the stick but that's how it seems to me.

Answer 24

Why all giants coming together only for net-neutrality in US?

If all the giants are coming together for this cause then why only target US? You guys have power to draw the potential of 90% of Internet users, then why only target it towards FCC (concerning only specific country)? Majority of these users will be non-US residents/citizen and will still have to fight for the net-neutrality separately in there own country with much less power, where all these tech giants won't even care to support/highlight the movement.

Things going on around the world:

Fight for this same cause has gained much momentum all round the world. For example, this is what happened in India in the fight for net-neutrality. You can also go and watch videos (majority of them in English) made by various online content creators to support the cause and educate people on how they can stop government form doing bad sending email.

I am sure just like here in India, many other countries have gone through this. Why didn't these same tech giants come together to change things there. Mind well netizens, here is one more US agenda movement where these same companies will go back inside their caves once their goal is achieved in just the US.

I would like to call upon all the people to share how citizens in their countries fought for net-neutrality and let the companies running because us know that their is a whole big world out there beyond US.

Broaden the scope of this movement to each and every country and I will be the first one to stand there with you in the front to take the bullet.

Answer 25

IMO the whole net neutrality thing is a band-aid for a bigger problem.

The real problem is vertical integration. Last-mile communications to homes and small buisnesses is a natural monoploy. When last-mile communications service is vertically integrated with ISP service the ISPs can get away with treating their customers like shit.

Furthermore in some cases the last mile access providers are integrated with tier 1 transit providers. Tier 1 providers don't have to buy any transit and hence have little motivation to set up any new peering.

I think the fears of this affecting foriegners access to american websites are largely unfounded. Hosting is a much more competitive market incentivising the providers to treat their customers well. Hosting providers in turn have a wide spectrum of transit providers to choose from for their international connectivity needs.

Answer 26

So let's hear it: why should or shouldn't we all head over to https://www.battleforthenet.com/ right now and use the handy form to send a letter to the FCC?

An aspect of this question which I've not seen or heard discussed is the right-of-way that was granted decades ago (in the US) to private companies (phone company, electric company) to run wire through municipalities on utility poles and from there to houses and apartment buildings.

Maybe someone here knows the legalities? Is there anything local municipalities can do, vis-a-vis that legal right-of-way that was granted decades ago, to demand that those who have the right-of-way not restrict content or favor the content of one content-provider over another? Is there some federal law governing the terms and conditions of that right-of-way, or is it still subject to state and local law?

Answer 27

What exactly are you going to do in the Day of Action, July 12?

Will you have a special system wide banner with some message?

Will you shut down SE for a day as sign of protest, so that the authorities will notice?

"Day of Action" sounds good and promising, but I really have no idea what is really behind this, so getting more details of what will actually happen will be nice.

_{^{(I was going to post this as comment on the blog post, but you closed it for comments after getting whole two comments, which makes tons of sense.)}}

Answer 28

I hope it's okay to use this to ask questions to learn more about net neutrality here.

A common concern I hear about net neutrality that I haven't heard properly address, is that it may make it more difficult for new ISPs to enter the market, making the monopolies stronger. This seems analogous to a lot of regulations I've seen intended to regulate big players, but ultimately being ineffective to address the core issue, monopolies. Does net neutrality do anything to reduce the monopolization of ISPs?

Answer 29

Every citizen in his right mind who understands what is going on should be Standing Up for Net Neutrality and Defending the Internet from being Piratized (more fitting term than Privatized).

The Internet was built using our (USA) tax dollars. Now we have ethically challenged corporations and their lapdog corrupt politicians trying to claim it as their private domain and figure out ways to charge us ever more for using it. This is their modus operandi, socialize the risks, piratize the gains.

The Internet either belongs to no one or belongs to everyone. It is a public resource and belongs in the public domain.

Should we allow private companies to facilitate Internet Access, Yes.

Should we allow private companies to monopolize local Internet access, No, it's not theirs.

There are costs to run the Internet, but why are American paying so much more for less bandwidth?

Easy, because we don't have competitive options for Internet Access at the local level. We don't have competition because private companies claim ownership of the network of optical fibers, coaxial cables, twisted-pair telephone wires, and yes even in some cases wireless spectrum rights that are necessary for physical layer access to the network.

Other countries typically don't have this hodgepodge of private interests laying claim to sectors of a public network. The telecommunications networks, postal service, Internet are all public and run by the government or public non-profit organization typically called the PTT.

This article outlines some solutions on cost-effective Internet Access, both in rural and urban areas. The key is creating options for Internet access to break the ISP monopolies. This would include both technology methods and preventing the municipalities from granting monopolies, and rolling back local laws and ordinances that granted the monopolies. It would include rolling back state and local laws that allows private companies to claim ownership of the network infrastructure mentioned. These should be owned by the municipality and all citizens in the municipality should have equal right to connect, upload, and download.

Free wifi networks set up by the townships and schools should be encouraged.

While we should all be contacting our congress legislators and the FCC to protect Net Neutrality, our greater effort and fight is at our municipalities and townships. We must keep in mind that while most of us are too busy with our personal lives to follow Internet Access legislation at the state and local level, this is not the case with industry lobbyists like ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) that are dealing with our state and local politicians full time to push through legislation that benefits the ISPs but to our detriment.

If we can take back access to the Internet at the local level, the private interests will have much more difficulty in corrupting net neutrality. They are doing this now because they can.

Answer 30

Special thanks to Jon Chan for whipping up a dismissible banner for this, so we didn't get stuck abusing system messages for it.

Feedback for the future: the banner was dismissible on a per-site basis. That meant that anyone who uses several sites had to dismiss it several times. I started to get annoyed at that design about the third time I dismissed the banner. You use network-wide cookies for other things such as authentication or advertising: why not for this?