Net Neutrality Lawsuit Threatens Netflix, YouTube

[Guest]

A court ruling may soon settle the question of net neutrality. But what exactly is net neutrality, and how will its absence affect you?

Net Neutrality Lawsuit Threatens Netflix, YouTube : Read more

 

[bambiboom]

Gentlemen?,

I believe that future historians of technology will place the Internet in the same category as the invention of the printing press. When books were produced in mass rather than as unique works of art, the world was unlocked, and the resulting communication made history, science, technology, philosophy, art, literature, and entertainment available where and to whom it had never before gone. Would democracy ever have existed without printed books?

And, the Internet is the printing press gone to light speed, allowing access to information that has changed the World, a kind of mega-democracy, one place of a reasonably untextured, level playing field.

The impending case is, by the self-interested parties, today made to seem a simple idea of moderate controls and a reasonable charging more for more services, but it's the tip of the iceberg and seven-eighths of the long-term intention is unseen. If the FCC is judged to not have regulatory standing, the floodgates are open and the Internet will be in effect privatized and at the whim of a few companies with Billions of $ waiting to tell you what you can see, what you can say, and to whom, what you should feel, think, and buy, and then charge you extra for the privilege of being part of their private techno-herd.

If the Internet is sublimated to the greed machine, it's whole foundation, the whole idea of the floating maelstrom of ideas will fall to censorship, micromanagement, monitoring, and complex, inflated billing that will make us all frightened of the access and expression that has changed the World.

We've seen historically, the results of the burning of books, let's not let five corporations burn the Internet.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

- Gosh! As soon as I typed this, my Internet speed just dropped from 130 to 17Mb/s!

 

[spentshells]

Pay more for what you already pay to much for. This should go over well with the consumer, I can see it now.

Verizon, Comcast and ATT feel they have to many customers? Someone will come in and fill your shoes no matter how big your feet are.

 

[knight_of_baawa]

"Customers, the ISPs argue, should be allowed to pay for just the kind of Internet they want, and not for services and applications they never use."

Given that many ISPs are CableCos/offer TV, why don't they take that argument and look at themselves? Why aren't they offering a la carte TV channels?

 

[mforce2]

I do believe something is really wrong with ISPs in the USA.
First of all their services just suck big time and they're also expensive.
Instead of fixing their problem with the infrastructure so their networks will work better for everyone and anything they're not thinking of ways to hide their incompetence and greed.
In other parts of the world including in Romania where I live the internet is cheap ( $10-20 ), fast ( >100 Mbps ) and it just works.
Everything works fine no matter what people use, the infrastructure is designed to handle a much greater load than it needs to so there are no problems.

 

[joneb]

So will the end of net neutrality mean customers would have to maybe pay twice or even three times for some services. The internet is just a virtual highway now. You pay a toll to travel and if you want to access certain services you pay to get in the door. Will ISP control mean you need to pay for basic internet, then for the use of video streaming or gaming, then pay the video streaming service such as Netflix or Lovefilm? This is bad news as costs will soon spiral so that the privileged can only afford the whole service just like premium cable prices.

 

[daship]

LOL, the first clue is the claim this is whats best for the customers. What is best for the customers is to leave it the way it is, and the price that it is. It already cost to much. They are loosing millions of subscribers form cable because of these affordable internet solutions. All the major networks now have their own online shows. If cable don't get on board, they will loose everyone to the internet and they know it. Verizon AT&T and Comcast are the most crooked companies in America, if you think for one minute they have the customers best interest in mind you are nuts.

I can see it now. You will have to buy a modem from them with a 2 year contract and only get 10GB of usage for $70 month plus $40 access fee per computer. Then you have to pay extra for more data, and premium services. No thank you.

 

[curiosul]

Let's say this passes. Let's say the customers will pay more for youtube (or whatever site). Assuming there will be XX moths contracts, there are some questions:
1: what happens if youtube (or whatever site) goes down?
2: what happens if youtube (or whatever site) is closed (CISPA/ACTA anyone)?
3: what happens when another similar site gets to be more popular (anyone remembers stage6)?
4: what happens is people start using TOR?

The sad thing is that people in charge of deciding technical questions have (almost) ZERO knowledge about how the system works and they'll screw it up for everyone. Just as sad is the fact that they were voted (directly or not) by people just as knowledgeable ...

 

[PraxGTI]

When things like this happen, I have to ask: Why do consumers put up with this? Everyone on these ISPs such as Verizon should be calling and immediately cancelling their plans and switching to pay-as-you-go. Let's put these companies out of business and send a message to these corporate fat-heads.

 

[TeraMedia]

I fear we may have but one hope. If the ISPs get reclassified as common carriers, then at least regulations can be used to go after them.

If net neutrality ends, then it is truly a frightening thought. Imagine TimeWarner signing an exclusivity deal with Disney, for example. Now imagine being a TWC customer: your TV channels become primarily Disney, ABC and FOX. Along with that, so is the news you get, the advertising you see and the programming you have access to. Now imagine that your internet access is controlled in the same way as your cable access. Want CBS? Sorry - that costs extra. Trying to get it from elsewhere? Oh... I think their network must be down. Want Netflix? Use ours instead - it's more reliable (since we don't deliberately throttle and drop packets to it)!

This is just bad. Scary bad.

 

[sgteich]

I pay for X amount of bandwith - what difference does it make what data is carried over that bandwith? It doesn't matter if it's a stream from youtube, netflix or a linux iso - how does one cost more than the other? As far as I know - Comcast doesn't write a check to youtube so I can view the content - they don't write a check to netflix so I can watch their content - and they don't send a check to linux mint so I can download their iso's.

 

[ram1009]

Greed will win out eventually. Hopefully not in my lifetime.

 

[f-14]

this was already handled back in the 1990's when aol was blocking websites from competition or other webpages they didn't want you viewing.

IMO the courts already ruled on this and should throw that previous ruling in verizons face and fine them millions if they so much as lift a finger to block anything.

 

[canadianvice]

This is why America does not deserve custody of so much of critical world infrastructure - they're utterly incapable of being responsible with it.

I just hope this doesn't affect me in Canada in any way, shape or form. The states can rot for all I care, but I don't want to suffer for it.

 

[Pherule]

TL;DR

But paying for something that Youtube provides for free? Whatever it is that requires payment must die, and Youtube must survive.

And then Youtube must die for forcing people to register Google+ accounts and for censorship and for blocking videos in certain countries and for a lot of other crap, and a 100% free Youtube-like service must spring up focusing on absolute freedom.

Sadly this will never happen as the world, but especially large companies, seems to hate freedom.

 

[jtsyo]

Seems to me, we just need a law giving the FCC explicit right to regulate the internet. I don't see how the internet is not a critical part of our infrastructure.

 

[catfishtx]

Back when landlines still ruled the telecom world, phone companies tried to charge a premium for modem or fax calls. That was stopped because the argument was a call is a call, whether it is human to human or computer to computer.

Fast forward several decades, we come to a similar issue. I think logic and precedent will win the day but with the money these companies throw around nowadays, you never know. As much as I hate to admit it, I think Internet bandwidth is a public domain that needs some regulation that promotes everyone and favors no one.

 

[Buddy Couch]

Okay if ISPs argue you should be able to buy what you want that makes ZERO sense because it exactly what ISPs don't do now. Try buying ESPN and HBO from Comcast see what they tell you. Try buying just this and just that from Verizon. You will find it doesn't happen. They are lying if they say thats what they want to offer customer. They want to charge more for people streaming video versus someone checking emails.

 

[jezus53]

"In another scenario, ISPs could tell online businesses that they could pay extra for certain services the ISPs might want to offer them. The ISPs could speed up network connections so that end users load those businesses' sites or services faster. Conversely, those online services who haven't paid extra might experience poor network performance."

Anyone else think this sounds like the mob or dirty cops going around collecting protection money?


"ISPs have argued that net neutrality is ultimately unfair to end users, because big Web companies such as Yahoo, Netflix, and Google can grow and build up profits, while consumers are left footing the bill for the resulting necessary Internet infrastructure expansion."

What about their own profits? Huh? Explain that one. Why don't they absorb the cost then if they care about the customer so much? And how about this, if they cared about the end user so much then why did they switch their shared data plan? And why is it still so much money? I hope the judge consider common sense in this case because it would be a no brainer to side with the FCC.

 

[derekullo]

"And then Youtube must die for forcing people to register Google+ accounts and for censorship and for blocking videos in certain countries and for a lot of other crap, and a 100% free Youtube-like service must spring up focusing on absolute freedom."

Youtube doesn't block access to countries.
Countries block access to youtube.