Is John Oliver's Take on Net Neutrality Both Entertaining and Alarming?

[Greg Bernhardt]

If you haven't seen this yet, check it out. John Oliver gives us the low down on Net Neutrality "Colbert" style. It's great! and depressing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU

 

[SixNein]

I don't think a lot of people understand the issue here. I was talking to a few people in PM's, and they seem to be under the impression that the net neutrality issue is scare tactics. Another argument was a misunderstanding of how the internet is constructed. IE: who is responsible for what, who pays for what, etc.

Here is a good analogy for what is being proposed:

Broadband is a de facto utility and broadband providers appear to have monopoly power in many markets. Thus, there is a need for regulating what monopolists can and cannot do. Allowing for 'Internet fast lanes' is analogous to allowing an electricity provider to make deals with appliance or electronics manufacturers and to charge for electricity depending on the type or even equipment brand the end customer uses."

"Should customers be charged differently if they use a refrigerator from brand X vs. a light fixture from brand Y? Should one pay differently at a gas station if the purpose of their trip is business or leisure or if they drive an SUV vs. a minivan? Should the broadband provider be entitled to provide a different quality of service to a user accessing content on www.duke.edu versus accessing content on a commercial news site of the broadband provider's liking?

https://today.duke.edu/2014/05/tip-netneutrality

 

[Evo]

Net Neutrality is a very misunderstood agenda by politicians. CNN has millions of viewers, they need a lot of bandwidth and they want to provide a good experience,,so they pay for QOS (Quality of Service), they also pay for CDN (edge server), which is a service that caches static content at the edge of the cloud closest to the end user, PF pays for this service to make the website load faster.

Fred's bait shop can also get these services, but they are not free. If Fred can't pay for them, too bad. that is the way it is for ANY business service.

 

[SixNein]

Net Neutrality is a very misunderstood agenda by politicians. CNN has millions of viewers, they need a lot of bandwidth and they want to provide a good experience,,so they pay for QOS (Quality of Service), they also pay for CDN (edge server), which is a service that caches static content at the edge of the cloud closest to the end user, PF pays for this service to make the website load faster.

Fred's bait shop can also get these services, but they are not free. If Fred can't pay for them, too bad. that is the way it is for ANY business service.

The issue surrounding QoS is a little more complicated than you seem to believe. ISPs, computer scientists, and consumer advocates each want something different. ISP's want absolutely no regulation on QoS. Computer Scientists want moderate regulation on QoS, and consumer advocates want an outright ban on QoS. Finally, caches are a different animal because there are different market fundamentals behind them (IE: competition). The market works differently in monopolies or one step removed from a monopoly.

From an developer point of view, we have many different concerns. Some of those concerns are with the startup environment which is already http://www.technologyreview.com/news/527006/talk-of-an-internet-fast-lane-is-already-hurting-some-startups/ by talk of these current proposals. There are multiple reasons for this behavior. First, there is uncertainty on price structure. If a two-way price scheme is used over the current one-way price scheme, it could cause quite a bit of harm to the start up environment. Next, ISPs can avoid sharing QoS with any service that competes against their own products. In addition, they could offer QoS to competitors, but they could price it so high as to drive them out of business. They could make exclusive deals with a particular non-competing service that would lead to a similar effect. They could charge competitors different prices. All of these things can result in a very different internet from the one we have today.

And there exist economic theory behind why we worry about it. In fact, it's the application of the same theories ISPs use in their argument. See the following citation:

FARRELL,J.ANDWEISER, P. 2003. Modularity, vertical integration, and open access policies: Towards a convergence of antitrust and regulation in the Internet age.Harvard J. Law Technol. 17,
85–134. http://ssrn.com/abstract=452220.

In a basic nutshell, we want a continuation of one-way price scheme, and we want anti-discrimination regulations that are explicit.