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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Net Neutrality was struck down by 3 Judges on Jan 14th
 
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GulMadred
Oct 20, 2005

I don't understand how you can be so mistaken.

Kalman posted:

The problem is that the "we could make you hate it" here isn't "we could make you hate it in a way that makes it better for other people", it's "we could make you hate it in a way that just makes everything lovely for everyone."
But... that makes it a more useful threat:
  • enacting the Sword of Damocles option would be harmful to ISPs but beneficial to taxpayers (i.e. voters)
    • this option can be trotted out whenever the administration wants to distract from a scandal, and may be activated when the President needs a boost in poll numbers (e.g. election season)
    • ISPs have no reason to cooperate, because they see activation as a foregone conclusion. Their rational course of action is to increase their market share (and/or gouge consumers) as much as possible before the inevitable shift in regulations takes effect.
  • enacting the Sword of Damocales option would be harmful to everyone
    • the option will exist as a threat, but would not conceivably be activated except to curtail a greater ill (e.g. Comcast bans porno; millions riot immediately; economy crippled)
    • ISPs know that they can avoid the MAD scenario by limiting fuckery to acceptable levels (e.g. throttle BitTorrent, but don't openly sabotage municipal fiber projects; gobble up competitors to create regional monopolies, but don't jack up rates until at least 12 months after the acquisition is complete)
* # ¿ Feb 28, 2015 02:33
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# ¿ May 15, 2024 09:32
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GulMadred
Oct 20, 2005

I don't understand how you can be so mistaken.

Kalman posted:

they'd have gone ahead with 706 regulation
706 regulation was toothless. The circuit court ruled that it could not impose anything equivalent to common-carrier burdens upon providers. The FCC would need to carve out some (as-yet-undefined) standard for "unreasonable discrimination." And this standard would (like Cellco V. FCC) presumably need to include a multifactor test for commercial reasonableness, which leaves companies plenty of room for plausible deniability: "It may look like we're throttling Youtube traffic to the Midwest in order to encourage customers to upgrade to our new Premium Plus Ultra Highspeed plan. In fact, we're just upgrading a lot of switching stations to support new rural fibre connections, and that's left 50% of our equipment out of service. No, we're not going to show you the maintenance records. gently caress off."

At best, the Court's opinion on 706 would allow providers to charge extra for various levels of tiered/throttled service, so long as they still delivered some minimal level of bandwidth to anyone who refused to pay the vig. That may have been the smart path for the FCC: it lets everyone claim victory, minimizes political opposition, follows judicial recommendations, generates high compliance without imposing heavy burdens, and avoids disruption of established businesses. But it's not Net Neutrality.

To be fair, 706 rulemaking could also force Comcast to periodically submit a report which declares (in fifty pages of incomprehensible technobabble and legalese):

"Hey, broadband customers! We've been stealthily throttling your Youtube streams to 480p in order to encourage you to upgrade to the 'Premium HighSpeed Deluxe' package. Please feel free to switch to Time Warner Cable if you don't like it. Oops, we just bought them out. Neener neener!"

So it's not completely toothless.


Fake Edit: I'll agree that 706 regulation would have been the appropriate choice as a stopgap measure. If there was a reasonable expectation that Congress was going to write a new statute which addressed everyone's concerns and struck new compromises in important areas, then a sudden shift in regulatory posture would be inappropriate and counterproductive. But I'll echo Sydin's sentiments - it was unreasonable to expect a legislative resolution.

* # ¿ Feb 28, 2015 05:20
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Net Neutrality was struck down by 3 Judges on Jan 14th