Explain it like I'm 5: What benefits will I be seeing when net neutrality ends next month?

the most striking thing i’ve seen in the last few years was this pic. i edited it and took out the names of the porn sites. pretty interesting, no?

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oh… I sincerely apologize. It’s a combative place here and I admit to being in the defensive mode. You and so arnt exactly friends.

But a Christmas soccer truce… ok.

Yeah… I have a firestick on one TV, another smart TV with prime programmed, and then my (albeit small screen) phone. Yep. I like it. And music too, although I generally stream pandora.

Except it isn’t like that.

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It’s great if you can afford to pay extra for internet services - not so great if you can’t.

It’s really bad for small business owners who try to compete online with the Amazon and Walmart’s of the world.

Their web sites will load much slower than ones who afford to pay for faster service.

MAGA!!!

Hey, that gives those bigger companies more money to pay Cohen for play!

tell us how it is

I could have used better terms. By “systems”, I meant net neutrality and NOT net neutrality. :slight_smile:

I fully understand all the concepts involved.

However, what NOBODY knows is how the market will ultimately settle out and reach equilibrium after net neutrality is withdrawn. Not something that can be modeled with any degree of accuracy.

The only way that we will know for sure what will happen is to go ahead and let it happen.

In any event, that is the whole concept of the free market, discovery.

There will be winners and losers. People will get hurt. People will benefit.

Nothing to do at this point but wait and see.

And the hope that more ISPS would pop up in more places to fill the gap.
Again no one seems to blame the states and cities for not allowing more ISPS in their areas. They local governments made deals with certain providers and blocked smaller ones.

Ideally, the liberal media conglomerates that own just about everything will finally give competitive conservative media exactly what they desire.

Realistically, sites like Crunchyroll will get slower so you have an incentive to watch whatever garbage is provided by your ISPs in-house content creators.

We already saw what it looked like…before Net Neutrality was implemented. We saw the direction ISPs and Telecomms were headed. We waited and saw, and and NN was the reaction to that.

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I might be okay with removing net neutrality if there were actual broadband competition.

But we don’t. Not yet. How about we talk about repeal of net neutrality when that happens?

The only case I know of on which net neutrality became an issue was back circa 2002.

Fiber optic was available then, but limited and expensive. Comcast found that a HUGE (by standards then) % of their bandwidth or whatever was being used by a small number of customers (causing log jams and higher prices for everyone.)

They had expected that among their business clients (who already paid a higher rate,) but found most of that handful were residential customers, internet addicts, using a handful of pirate sites, gaming sites and porn.

They kept things neutral to their customers, but started putting limiting the flow of data from those sites, specifically targeting BitTorrent coming from those sites.

A few months later they had enough infraso in place and lifted the blockage but conspiracy type “what if” scenarios began circling in chat rooms, (some of which seem easily susceptible to we-never-landed-on-the-moon type conspiracies) and the “what if” scenarios grew legs.

“What if Rupert Murdoch buys up all the cable and reduces flow from FOXNews competitors etc…”

There is not a single recorded instance of such actually happening, but the legislation that came up in the wake of those fears, NOT ONLY made such practices illegal, BUT ALSO added a whole layer of beauracracy and defacto legislative and judicial power to tbe federal executive branch. Think:
Net Neutrality = King George’s appointees will define ‘neutral,’ the same King George appointees will enforce the definition, and the same King George appointees will adjudicate if they behavex correctly.

I don’t know of actual problems caused but people fight revolutions over giving a single group of government executives so much power.

Bandwidth has gotten cheap enough where the things you mention are no longer issues.

Technology has matured, prices have dropped and in any event, we never got to an equilibrium situation previously, so we don’t know what the final result might have been.

This time around, we should be patient.

There’s an old saying that goes “it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.”

It’s also much harder to take away power than it is to make sure too much power isn’t granted in the first place.

There’s literally no harm in erring on the side of caution when it comes to ISPs and big Telecomms. There’s LOTS of potential harm in letting them go so far, then trying to undo that.

Corporations will be able to make more money.

Here you go.

Bob pays Pipe Company X to deliver water to his house through their pipes. Pipe Company X doesn’t make the water, or have anything to do with its production, they just give Bob a way to get it to his house. If Bob wants more water each month, or wants it quicker, he pays Pipe Company X more since they’ll have to install and maintain additional pipes for Bob to get what he wants, and other customers to still get their water.

With “pipe neutrality,” if Bob decides he wants some of his water from Water Company A and some from Water Company B, he still only pays Pipe Company X for the use of their pipes and the volume/speed of water delivery. It’s the same cost to Pipe Company X to deliver the water from Water Company A as the water from Water Company B. Pipe Company X isn’t allowed to charge more for delivery, or limit the water from a specific water company.

After “pipe neutrality” is repealed, Pipe Company X continues to charge Bob based on the use of their pipes. However, Pipe Company X can now charge Bob more if he wants water from Water Company B. Furthermore, if Pipe Company X doesn’t particularly like Water Company B, they can limit or remove the ability of Bob to get water from them at all. It still costs Pipe Company X the same amount to deliver water from any company, but now they can pick and choose which water companies Bob will get his water from, and how much it’ll cost.

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Yeah. Just another way to squeeze the forgotten man.

Think of the internet soon being run the way many video game companies now run things.

You’ll buy base access to the internet just like you buy the game. Then there will be all kinds of future DLC content for more money if you want the full experience. And gazillions of microtransactions along the way if you want faster access to certain sites, ability to post on social media, streaming video access, etc.

A la carte cable TV services for the internet… You want Netflix? There’s a streamers package for $19.99/mo. Like Facebook? $5.99 gets you that package. You want to Google? That’s another $5.99. Or you can just use what we tell you for no additional charge.