So...Net Neutrality

[Zanza]

But it will also reduce the amount of new content available?

Of course. It will change the balance between the content providers and the internet service providers in favor of the latter. So the ISPs will get a bigger share of the total revenue, which in turn means that the content providers get less and thus have less budget to produce new content.

It also limits the possibilities of start ups to offer a competitive new service as they cannot pay Comcast or so to let their traffic through the fast lane.

[Zanza]

Zanza says the opposite, but we'll see how the market swings when this comes down.

Same thing really. Either you pay the same for worse service or pay more for same service.

[Syt]

I believe IPs will try to pass the cost onto the companies, which will have to eat it or pass it to their customers. Don't think it will affect user-experience much besides price. But it will reduce competition because of increased costs for bandwith-hungry services.

I'm sure there'll be services that will buy bulk bandwidth and then offer portions to small upstarts. But yeah, still drives up final cost, and I doubt it will go into any improvement of services.

[viper37]

Why do Siege and company support this?

Because Siege and company are morons who don't understand most of the issues on which they vote beyond "they're Republicans" ?

It's fairly easy to draw a parallel with the development of the phone network.

The US forced AT&T to split and provided grounds to insure free market competiton for a while.
Canada maintained regional monopolies well into the 90s and only gradually allowed competition to enter various fields.

The US had a faster technological development than Canada and you still (for now) pay less for telecoms (cell phones, local phones, maybe not long distance calls, internet) than us.  Internet and cell coverage is still very spotty.  I still can't get any decent cell signal in my office and outside around the buildings.  Driving 200m and I hit a total dead zone, no signal at all for 200 more meters.  Some of my employees don't have access to high speed internet, event though they are only a few km away from me.  Some places were we work have no high speed internet and no cell phone coverage at all.  I'm only 150km away from Quebec city.  I don't expect full coverage in the middle of the artic, but still, I wouldn't call where I live "remote".  Well, not that remote.

[Valmy]

Why do Siege and company support this?

Because Siege and company are morons who don't understand most of the issues on which they vote beyond "they're Republicans" ?

He said something like it was political propaganda or something that made no sense, so probably true as far as he is concerned. Like net neutrality meant Hillary got as much internet as Trump or something.

But the people who have been eager to dismantle this thing are surely motivated by more than just a few more bucks to Comcast at consumer's expense.

[viper37]

But the people who have been eager to dismantle this thing are surely motivated by more than just a few more bucks to Comcast at consumer's expense.

Comcast& others have invested fucktons of money into lobbying the Republicans to fight net neutrality.

Even in the theoritically liberal Sillicion valley, tech entrepreneurs gave more money to Republican congresspeople than Democrats.

The big telecoms have invested lots of money into their network, and if given the choice, they'd rather milk their consumers for higher profit margins than face competition.

I don't think AT&T was all that eager to face competition for land phone lines back in the 70s-80s.

[viper37]

I can't find my links, but I thought I posted about it here, in the computer sections, maybe.  There was an interesting interview with the former FCC head about the subject.

[CountDeMoney]

Now the customer's got the ISP as a partner. Any problems, he goes to the ISP. Trouble with the bill? He can go to the ISP. Trouble with the connection, the cable box, the DVR, he can call the ISP. But now the guy's gotta come up with the ISP's money every month, no matter what. Buffering bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had bad streaming? Fuck you, pay me. Couldn't download the content without timing out, huh? Fuck you, pay me.

[FunkMonk]

But emails tho

Emails

[garbon]

Now the customer's got the ISP as a partner. Any problems, he goes to the ISP. Trouble with the bill? He can go to the ISP. Trouble with the connection, the cable box, the DVR, he can call the ISP. But now the guy's gotta come up with the ISP's money every month, no matter what. Buffering bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had bad streaming? Fuck you, pay me. Couldn't download the content without timing out, huh? Fuck you, pay me.

What? If they had all of a customer's business then they would be totally inspired to make sure that customer had the best experience because...reasons.

[LaCroix]

so, are long term projections within or outside 4-8 years?

[dps]

Nobody knows exactly what will happen but I'm reasonably sure this is accurate:

It will change the balance between the content providers and the internet service providers in favor of the latter. So the ISPs will get a bigger share of the total revenue

Beyond that, how it will impact consumers I don't know.  My guess is that it the impact it has on what a customer pays for internet service depends on whether or not it leads to there being fewer ISPs available to that customer.  And I have even less idea what impact it will have internet speed.  I don't really see any way that ending internet neutrality will help the consumer, but I'm not sure that the average consumer will see any real negative change, either.

[frunk]

I think some of the big content providers will get squeezed pretty bad (Netflix, Hulu), but I'm mainly worried about the little guys.  I'm assuming little providers and hosting companies won't be able to afford top tier rates, and so will probably be priced out of anything other than serving up simple web pages.

[CountDeMoney]

Nobody knows exactly what will happen but I'm reasonably sure this is accurate:

It will change the balance between the content providers and the internet service providers in favor of the latter. So the ISPs will get a bigger share of the total revenue

Beyond that, how it will impact consumers I don't know.  My guess is that it the impact it has on what a customer pays for internet service depends on whether or not it leads to there being fewer ISPs available to that customer.  And I have even less idea what impact it will have internet speed.  I don't really see any way that ending internet neutrality will help the consumer, but I'm not sure that the average consumer will see any real negative change, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_throttling

You want speed for your content, you're going to pay for speed.  You don't want to pay for premium speed, enjoy your tiling and buffering icon.
Now that, I'm reasonably sure is accurate.

[Grey Fox]

It won't only be speed, it will also be access to entire genre of websites.

Want to access Languish? That's a forum with no deal with us, 5$/month.