Looks like the battle to protect net neutrality is going to continue.

TisMyDroid

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Once again, the net neutrality rules that ensure the content we receive over the internet is delivered to us equally & unbiased is on the chopping block. The chairman of the FCC seems to believe that allowing ISP's the option of controlling the speed and the content we receive over the internet is good for ISP's. Yeah, it is but it's not good for consumers.

FCC chairman sets out to repeal 'net neutrality' rules
FCC chairman sets out to repeal 'net neutrality' rules

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LoneWolfArcher

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I know this issue gets emotional and people end up trading insults if you happen to have an opposing view. However, I thought this was an interesting article on the subject:

Am I The Only Techie Against Net Neutrality?

In general I am anti-government regulations. I say let the free market decide. However, more government regulation (mostly local) needs to come down for that to happen. Right now in my area I can only get Comcast for home internet. That has to change.

But still, I have to be consistent in not wanting more government regulation to fix bad government regulation. Just remove it all and let the ISPs compete.
 

lloydstrans

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The basis of any legislation assumes that all parties involved will play fair and to the spirit of the law. The first thing that will happen is that the mega big parties will hire lawyers to hunt for loopholes. This is why we can't have a simple law, "thou shall not kill", "honest judge, I didn't kill him, he ran full speed into a pipe I was holding". Second thing that will happen is backroom shady deals, payola for preferential treatment. Third thing is to sue the "other guys" for not playing fair. All I see of this happening is just like the cable companies. Facebook didn't grease my palm this month so I will delay their posts.

I'm 99 percent certain the government is incapable of managing anything efficiently. I'm 100 per cent corporate America is totally incapable of managing anything. Greed is evil. And we all know there isn't enough money for all the players involved.
 

xeene

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I know this issue gets emotional and people end up trading insults if you happen to have an opposing view. However, I thought this was an interesting article on the subject:

Am I The Only Techie Against Net Neutrality?

In general I am anti-government regulations. I say let the free market decide. However, more government regulation (mostly local) needs to come down for that to happen. Right now in my area I can only get Comcast for home internet. That has to change.

But still, I have to be consistent in not wanting more government regulation to fix bad government regulation. Just remove it all and let the ISPs compete.
That article is 3.5 years old. In tech world that's a difference between dinosaurs and spaceships. All the issues he presented for removal of net neutrality are either hopes or dreams that in real world have shown do not and will never work.

In my opinion, anything that big corporations hate is good for us regular citizens.
 

lloydstrans

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I was going to mention the time lag on the article but the key board was getting lazy.

Can you imagine how Google, AT$T, Verizon and the ilk would fight over how to divide the .00001 cent ad placement fee. And then our government trying to levy a tax on such. We know the government always rounds up. So Verizon for every .0000025 cents you make, we'll call it an even penny. I know it would be an accumulative total but you never know with our rulers when it comes with money.

All that aside this is just a way for the government to tax the internet. We will need a bureaucracy to stem the infighting amongst the tech giants and how can we pay for mediation services? TAXES.
 

LoneWolfArcher

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The basis of any legislation assumes that all parties involved will play fair and to the spirit of the law. The first thing that will happen is that the mega big parties will hire lawyers to hunt for loopholes. This is why we can't have a simple law, "thou shall not kill", "honest judge, I didn't kill him, he ran full speed into a pipe I was holding". Second thing that will happen is backroom shady deals, payola for preferential treatment. Third thing is to sue the "other guys" for not playing fair. All I see of this happening is just like the cable companies. Facebook didn't grease my palm this month so I will delay their posts.

I'm 99 percent certain the government is incapable of managing anything efficiently. I'm 100 per cent corporate America is totally incapable of managing anything. Greed is evil. And we all know there isn't enough money for all the players involved.

Nothing in the article is any different than when it was written 3.5 years ago. To me it boils down to either you are okay with government regulations or you aren't. I say the fewer the better. As I stated it would be less of an issue if the local governments didn't get to regulate what ISPs were available (and get kickbacks from the one that is).

And in the battle of Big Business vs Big Government, I'll take Big Business every time.
 
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TisMyDroid

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Although Lonewolfarcher's article is three years old, it does give an opposing view as relevant now as it was then. I do not agree with the author's argument that net neutrality limits competition or infringes on our freedom. Quite, the opposite. So many entrepreneurs that have succeeded using the internet would have never had a chance at succeeding or competing with those that have big bucks to promote their internet product and buy their piece of the internet. Net neutrality has made it possible for the little guy to promote his innovations successfully because it was something useful for others. If he had to compete with those that had money to buy their spot on the web, then chances are, his/ her ideas would have never been known.

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tech_head

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Nothing in the article is any different than when it was written 3.5 years ago. To me it boils down to either you are okay with government regulations or you aren't. I say the fewer the better. As I stated it would be less of an issue if the local governments didn't get to regulate what ISPs were available (and get kickbacks from the one that is).

And in the battle of Big Business vs Big Government, I'll take Big Business every time.

I disagree.
Fewer unnecessary regulations the better. The key is that regulation of some sort for businesses is always necessary.
Businesses just like governments have interests and agendas; they do not have morals. Regulations exist to keep them from doing horrible things to the detriment of customers, competitors and the environment.
I'm sure we can agree that regulations on most monopolies are good. Business has shown that they cannot trusted to have unchecked monopoly power. In Ca. we have PG&E and if they were not regulated by the PUC (what little they do) we would have more gas pipelines rupturing and people dying, we would have more fires like the one in Napa/Sonoma as they choose profits over maint. They will do what is right for shareholders and rarely what is right for people or the environment.

Ajit Pai is a guy that was General Counsel for Verizon.
There are two roads a person like that can take. He can, because he's seen what the ugly underbelly of the beast, be a champion for the people or he can be a shill for the people that used to pay him. Ajit Pay and shown that he is the latter not the former. He has done everything while sitting on the FCC to dismantle every consumer protection that he put his hands on. Ending rural requirements for equivalent service, desire to reclassify broadband, etc.

He never met a consumer protection he didn't hate.
 

PereDroid

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Excellent TisMyDroid. I came here today on an off day of work to post a News article about this and start a discussion. And what a great discussion, so far.

First, @The Author of that Forbes article: YES. You are the ONLY Techie against NN. I'm sorry....but he's wrong. He doesn't like monopolies. That's exactly why you should be pro NN.
He wants more competition. You cannot want MORE competition and be anti NN. This makes no sense. NOT having NN is going to destroy competition. Case in point, AndroidPolice (never understood that name, but what evs) is a much larger website then us. Probably makes a alot more profit than this site does. Let's just say it does. Without NN they can pay Comcast to make sure their pages download and display on the fast lane internet. We don't have the budget for that so we get stuck on the slow lane. Yes, that's the world with no NN. Wold you switch to Bing if Google suddenly got slower?

This could be our world WITHOUT NN:
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In his summary, he says: Internet bandwidth is, at least currently, a finite resource and has to be allocated somehow. We can let politicians decide, or we can let you and me decide by leaving it up to the free market.

A finite resource? Really? So we can run out? Ok, so let's say it IS: we should let the companies willing to pay the most get allocated the most? Come on.
The free market. The same free market that only gives me ONE internet provider to choose from? This is who you want to leave it up to? "I don't want more laws" is a ridiculous reason, imo, to give ISP's the ability to decide (by getting PAID) which sites should be faster.

Comcast wants to control what you do online. Do you want to let them?
I've written my Representatives.

Net Neutrality: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (At the very least, start at 9.41)
 
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pc747

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FCC ignored your net neutrality comment, unless you made a ‘serious’ legal argument


I don't think it's a losing battle, I just think they only want to listen to the people with enough money to grease their pockets. All the petitions, all the tweets, the person making the decision can care less about.

So what can we do now, nothing and just let it happen?

I say we still have a voice but it comes in two forms. One to let your voice be known. And second all the companies pushing for net neutrality we leave feedback to their retention people that you will go somewhere else and be willing to cut the service to make that point.

Problem is that sadly not enough people is aware enough about the issue to make a dent. But hopefully we use this time to spread the word.

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PereDroid

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"Regular people" are completely unaware. We need to get this out in Facebook, too, people.

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