The people have spoken, and the Government has Listened. FCC "saves" the Internet!

I love how the only example you ever hear of throttling is Netflix. As if the only noble cause behind this is the Constitutional right to an unadulterated stream of Mad Men piped directly into your head.

 

Netflix is the canary in the coal mine on issues like this because it is omnipresent in the online media stream. If Netflix can't get a level playing ground how can smaller companies hope to achieve that result?

 

So now instead of big corporations having the ability to use the internet for their own gain against competitors, the government can. Problem solved? Lois Lerner anyone?

 

Yes, that sounds all very nice .... except that it's entirely manufactured - all borne out of the natural angst suffered by government bureaucrats when something is beyond reach, and the abiding (read: blind) faith some have in those angels of mercy. Such that they would run around, hair on fire, screaming, "canary in the coal mine, canary in the coal mine!!!!!" I doubt you've ever ripped your flat screen off the wall in frustration while re-watching season two of Alf, all because someone is "throttling down" your guilty pleasure. And, if Netflix and YouTube are taking up 50% of the bandwidth during primetime viewing hours, the notion that you're not going to have to pay for that somehow; that we can have a government agency step in and make sure "everyone is equal" without any cost leaking out at any end, or any negative unintended result, well, I think that's just a tad naive.

 

This is really the whole issue bundled into a single sentence. It's a question of where people along the political spectrum put their faith. For the left, it's abhorrent that "Big Corporations" can operate untouched on something used by the public at large (because, after all, if only a small handful of people used the Internet there'd be no point), and only government has the heft to control. On the right, government is the worse option, because faceless bureaucrats make self-interested choices just like faceless corporate employees, and there is no one competing with the DMV for customers. There's a consumer cost no matter which way you choose. What everyone should find objectionable is that we're now "fixing" problems that don't exist with regulation, and there isn't really a consensus on what we're fixing. That's not me who says that, by the way - that's the FCC. But, on one hand, you have mute, concerned about "throttling" and just plain happy that the voices of millions of Netflix users has been heard. On the other hand, Br4d weeps for the young go-getter who, armed with nothing but a laptop and a dream, won't be able to crack through and reach the American Dream. Or something. Either way, whatever that problem, great it'll finally be fixed. Just don't get distracted by the exponential growth of the Interwebz over the last 20 years, not to mention the fortunes that were made by college dropouts like Bill Gates and that Facebook creep. And those might be the worst two examples. Smoke and mirrors, man.

 

Yeah, but what color is your dress today, Jack?

 

They tried but the FCC censored it.

/sarcasm

 

I have no clue what that's supposed to be saying. I know it's wrong, though.

 

Hehe. I watched. Cute clip, but perhaps not so hot relying on a 13-minute comedy bit for a factual explanation of the issue. Or a very compelling argument. He does certainly talk about net neutrality here and there, between the funny. And, like everyone else dying for new regs, he's all animated about Netflix. Br4d's "canary." But he also wraps humor around the FCC needing to step in and fix a problem that doesn't exist. Honest, at least.

"It's just so simple," you say. "Just MAKE them treat all data equally." It's the short-sighted notion that consumer costs somehow evaporate if goverment steps in and compels something - anything - to make it "fair." I doubt you'll find an economist willing to put his credentials on the line on that one. There are millions of teenagers with their pants around their ankles and their dicks in their hands demanding an uninterrupted stream of granny porn and SOMEONE has to pay to make that happen.

 

Tough to tell. I'm being throttled.

 

This is all new and wonderful. You're wringing your hands over problems that don't exist - which the FCC acknowledges - and putting all your hopes and dreams in some sort of magic pixie dust that will pay for providers to keep developing and expanding the infrastructure. But down here on planet earth the unregulated internet was free and open enough to allow any number of billion dollar companies to grow out of dorm rooms and parents' basements. And large semi-evil corporations needed to invest huge sums to develop the infrastructure and surprisingly need to charge users for return on its investment. If some single user - oh, say, Netflix - consumes more than a third of that capacity at certain times of day, the way the world typically works in a market economy is that they get charged for using all that additional capacity. You have very simple thoughts on how all this gets done and paid for.

 

If you think things are complicated now, just wait until IP6v REALLY takes off. For those that don't know, IP6v has enough IP address for every network addressable object on earth several times over. What that means is, the day is coming when your entire home will be on-net along with your car, your phone, your streets, all your personal data. Big Brother will be replaced by The Net. There will no longer be anything such thing as Off-Net unless you're dead and even then, there will be some record of your death in a database.

Bandwidth will be at a premium. It will be more valuable than gold in some places. He who controls The Net will control the world and without bandwidth, there is no NET. We're just now scratching the surface of data transmission. Big Telecom is jockeying for position and politicians are lining their pockets with gold.

The battle for Net Neutraltiy is just the beginning.

 

You just have a very simplified view of the world, unable to adequately identify any "problem" solved by these new wonderful regs. You know you hate something; you're just not real sure what it is. Except that Netflix was throttled down - the horror. As I said, you can rest easy that the FCC couldn't identify any imminent problem either. It mentions several problems that "might" occur, which is really cool. It doesn't go as far as you do, with this wild claim about how this will "increase competition and innovation," and this great leap you take that the money fairy will come make everything better. Because that's all just silly. The FCC is much more sober with its enthusiasm. All the FCC tells us is that it is stepping in to prevent problems that "might" happen as a result of the existing incentives in the industry, and that it will take a "light touch" approach with these new regulations so they won't have any negative effect. Very comforting.