CountOnAlex wrote:Double Helix wrote:Different data plan options tailored to different lifestyles for $4.99 per month? Sign me up to end net neutrality! Wait. What?
This really isn't what net neutrality is largely about to be honest. Net neutrality is more about the telecom companies who own the internet infrastructure making use of the foresight they had in investing into the internet infrastructure decades ago by exerting control over third party companies and doing things like allowing video from their own platforms not to count at all against data plans as a way to entice new consumers. This idea and others like it outrages the companies who would be faced to compete against that now and into the future.
The whole net neutrality "movement" is basically the dot com companies, and the smaller telecoms who don't own a ton of other interests, arguing that the largest telecoms who do will exert their influence to offer free services in their other interests that don't count as data the same way other services would. In other words, they're concerned that Time Warner could create a Netflix like streaming site for example with all of Time Warner's media properties and make that available to AT&T users (which Time Warner owns) and have it be so that any subscribers who also have AT&T plans could access that service on their phones at no additional charge (or a reduced data plan charge) in order to drive more sales to their properties. Or that same company could buy Twitter and then tell all their users that Twitter won't count as data if you get your phone from them. Basically, Net neutrality is about the smaller companies pre-preemptively making the case that the largest ones with investments in internet infrastructure and telecommunications have unfair competition advantages to launch their own competing products and streaming sites by making the data count differently for some than for others.
However, this same coalition of smaller companies knows that to get the public on their side it can't just be about their desire to make it impossible for the larger ones to offer similar service offerings and make their own cheaper. It has to seem more about policing the internet so Net neutrality has morphed into this disingenuous "We are the 99%" type of movement in order to make the average citizen think they're out to shape the internet and ensure freedom of speech and limit policing and reduce privacy concerns. In reality it's a coalition of a bunch of billion dollar businesses creating a grass roots movement to better compete against a smaller group of trillion dollar businesses who will enjoy an unfair competitive advantage based on their ability to control the flow of data as a result of their earlier purchases in internet infrastructure and telecommunications internet infrastructure over data combined with their other business interests.
i don't think you quite understand the ramifications of net neutrality as much as you think you do.
providers give you access to data. 1mb of data is 1mb of data, it doesn't matter what that source of data is and that's the way it should be, forever.
I understand it fully. I'm pointing out the one aspect of this that's been undersold to the public, which is that the movement is largely a consortium of billion dollar tech companies fighting over the competitive advantage of a smaller consortium of trillion dollar tech companies, and sold to the public as you versus them with a lot of fear mongering.
In a truly free tech market, particularly one where things will move more and more away from the costly start-up infrastructure of wired home connections and more to satellites, air and towers, new providers would beat the status quo with superior offerings. If the issue is price fixing then investigate and improve that. If the issue is that there's not enough providers then issue new licenses and implement new restrictions on mergers and acquisitions.
The problem I have with the gigantic eraser that the net neutrality community wants to wield on all of the internet is that in order to appease the Facebooks and Twitters of the world governments will create rules that will inadvertently create sweeping changes that will invite a new wave of net-driven crime impossible for future law enforcement agencies and intelligence communities to keep up with. They'll be neutered in the future if the pendulum swings too far the other way. You're scared about rising internet costs? What about sweeping changes worked into the fine print that make it harder to catch, monitor, or police against a growing movement of pedophiles who meet through the internet and decide to work together as organized crime, hiring lawyers well-versed in these new net neutrality laws who claim the evidence gathered against them is not admissible as a result of net neutrality issues that lead to it being obtained in the first place. Imagine a future society where terror groups are airing their beheadings and rapes and tortures livestreamed or on ads and internet service providers aren't allowed to block that because of net neutrality that went too far the other way. Imagine a murder of someone you care about fully plotted out online and the internet service provider being unable to access that potential evidence in any way, or make it available to police because of some sweeping net neutrality laws.
There's been plenty said about trivial fears related to rising costs and our ability to watch TV shows but what about real, life-changing harm that could be headed our way if in our pursuit of a totally free internet we simply empower predators of all kind to organize and systematically target in ways we currently can't imagine, all the while making it harder than ever before to convict. People are going to exist more and more online. We need more restrictions and policing similar to that which exists in the real world to protect the most vulnerable among us. Not a Wild West "Screw it! Anything goes! Let the strongest among us survive!" approach. That's what I see heading our way if the pendulum on privacy swings too far the other way and that's a far more justifiable fear for the future of society than anything closely related to big brother or 1984. I'm more scared of the people who'd seek to hurt us through any number of acts gaining a massive advantage in recruitment, organization, propaganda, and in combatting legal action against them then I am of Canada becoming China. I have faith in our democratic pillars and our ability to fight possible over-reach if it happens when it happens. I don't have faith that the worst among us in society have made use of the internet to enact pain anywhere near what they'll be able to do in future years so I think it's very important that we do not swing the pendulum too far the other way and completely neuter our ability to police serious crime and evidence online. The day the first organized pedophile crime ring years from now has their lawyer successfully argue in front of the victims' parents that the evidence against them is inadmissible because it violated their clients privacy rights under sweeping net neutrality laws is a day I hope never occurs.
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