Google Facebook George Soros . . . and a lot of YOU support Net Neutrality. Why??

in politics •  7 years ago 

Google Facebook George Soros . . . and a lot of YOU support Net Neutrality. Why?? | NerdJock Vid 310

Just putting up my rambling thoughts in this vlog of political internet interest on how I see the Net Neutrality debate and wondering how the vast majority of you (the supporters) see it, because it just does not add up to a good thing when I look into it.

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Ok, so aside from your assumption that any government effort is a bad thing, can you point to how these rules are actually bad?

You're not wrong, government IS inefficient. But that doesn't mean the laws put in place are ALL negative. It's like stating theft laws aren't needed because everyone knows stealing is wrong.

If you can point out how Net Neutrality rules are negatively affecting things, I'm all ears and for revision. I have yet to see any downside though, and pure speculation is not a good reason to change things. Yes, these laws may have come into place based on speculation (though if I recall correctly the ISPs were in fact planning to roll out throttling, but citizens wouldn't have it). Now they are in place, we shouldn't remove them without good cause.

The only reason to take action to remove these rules is to allow ISPs to throttle like we feared they would.

Just to touch on why I'm on the same side as Facebook et. all, it's because we want the same regulations for different reasons. I want to have unfettered access to the content I want, like Steem. They don't want to have to dish out potentially millions of dollars to ISPs just to make sure they don't get throttled. It's clearly in their financial interest, and clearly in my interest. Probably nothing shady, and again, if you have a non-speculative argument for why it is shady I'm all ears.

To clarify my stance, government shouldn't make changes if there is no problem. This might have been true before Net Neutrality rules, it's certainly true now.

Well, AT&T caps data, verizon throttles, sprint throttles, and these are just the ones that I found with a quick search of their sites openly admitting it (in their size 1 font fine print), so what has Net Neutrality done for us? Added government involvement means added government cost. The government does not make money, they take it in taxes. Businesses never foot that bill, even if they, ostensibly, are the ones required to pay it. It's we, the consumers, that pay it in higher rates and those wonderful "regulatory taxes" on the bills where they bother to show it.

But yes, you're right, I'm speculating, and have what I consider a reasonable skepticism of government at any level of involvement in our lives. I also don't see an issue of ISPs charging websites like facebook millions for priority speed/access. If that were to happen, the ISP would suffer with fewer people signing up for them. They can't go after the "big dog" sites for money because they need those sites to bring in customers for their service. That wouldn't even make sense to charge them more because it would hurt their own business as other service providers (which ARE making inroads into the ISP monopoly regions through new fiber installations or plans for widespread wireless service down the road) who would give those sites the best speed/access so as to steal customers from the first ISP.

And that's where the proven fact of government interference is- in the fact that the ISPs have had the monopolies and lack of competition up to this point, granted by the government because they paid them off to stop anyone else trying to compete in the first place with government regulations/red tape BS. We need less government interference which will allow even more competition and ISPs would then not even dare to have caps or throttle as it would be suicide.

To flip that coin, though, just thinking out loud here, who's to say throttling a site would be bad? If they are going to charge millions to facebook so facebook says we won't be available on your ISP, that actually would give a smaller site a chance to move in, fill that gap, and maybe even turn out to be a better site where as now facebook dominates with its ubiquitous reach. The ISP couldn't hope to charge the upstart social media site like it would facebook, and could even set up a deal to improve its chances by helping drive customers to it (starting out, how many users would just automatically know the site existed? The ISP would need to help it advertise) and that would raise its status and awareness level and maybe users on another ISP would start to demand it.

Yeah, a lot of speculation, but it's not speculation that free markets offer more competition and typically lower prices for consumers with better service than when government gets involved. And it's not speculation that government is corrupt and that the big ISPs are buying off officials to have their way written into laws. Again, that's how we ended up in this situation in the first place. So, no, nothing pinpoint wrong with the IDEA of NN, but the implementation of it as a government regulation is guaranteed, in the long run, to drag another industry down. There's no speculation on government meddling in the markets. They pick winners and losers based on who pays them the most and then grab for more control at every chance they get and encroach on our freedoms daily.

I guess it comes down to me seeing it like this- if the ISPs can be trusted on their own, then let them be. If they can't, letting the government get mixed in only adds an extra layer of corruption, inefficiency, and cost to users in the end.