Obama saves net neutrality, orders broadband be classified as vital service

[King]

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102129727

Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Obama.

[Mehmentum]

Freedom president.

[Free Bird]

Credit where credit is due

[Bandit3 the Worker]

This is good, but it won't do any good if the FCC doesn't implement it.

Executive order time, maybe?

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Obama 2016

[Paul Kemp]

Meanwhile...

"Net Neutrality' is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government," Cruz wrote on Twitter.

[Flake]

Meanwhile...

"Net Neutrality' is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government," Cruz wrote on Twitter.

ing Ted Cruz

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Meanwhile...

"Net Neutrality' is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government," Cruz wrote on Twitter.

[user12345]

Nice to see him standing up on this issue. Hopefully we get to see this side of him more often on the issues over the next two years.

[tpfkaw]

Question for you all:

Suppose that hamburgers were classified as a vital service, and a policy of "hamburger neutrality" were imposed. Instead of McDonalds, Wendy's, In-N-Out etc. being able to sell hamburgers a la carte in the quantity the customer wants to eat, it would instead be legally mandated that each customer pay a flat fee in exchange for access to buffet, where each customer would be entitled to take as many hamburgers as he or she wants.

1. Do you think this will decrease, or increase, the cost of going out for burgers to the average person? By a lot, or a little?

2. Do you think that this will increase, or decrease, the typical quality of hamburgers? Will the quality of burger joints' customer service increase, or decrease?

[bedstuy]

Question for you all:

Suppose that hamburgers were classified as a vital service, and a policy of "hamburger neutrality" were imposed. Instead of McDonalds, Wendy's, In-N-Out etc. being able to sell hamburgers a la carte in the quantity the customer wants to eat, it would instead be legally mandated that each customer pay a flat fee in exchange for access to buffet, where each customer would be entitled to take as many hamburgers as he or she wants.

1. Do you think this will decrease, or increase, the cost of going out for burgers to the average person? By a lot, or a little?

2. Do you think that this will increase, or decrease, the typical quality of hamburgers? Will the quality of burger joints' customer service increase, or decrease?

That's a terrible analogy.  If that's how you look at net neutrality, you don't understand the internet.

The internet is not like a consumer product, it's like infrastructure.  You don't want corporate conglomerates to police our basic infrastructure and create the rules of the road so to speak.  We know that the big telecommunications companies are monopolistic and have a their own agenda, economic, political and otherwise.  We know these big corporations want to use the control of basic infrastructure to create barriers to entry and crush competition.  The reason that the internet has been such a greater driver of innovation is that new companies with better ideas have been able to compete on an open playing field. 

And, just look at it this way, the biggest monopolistic corporations who have everything to gain are the people opposed to net neutrality.  The engineers, scientists who created the internet and other experts seem to be all in favor of net neutrality.

[Lief 🗽]

Wormyguy is the ted Cruz Obamacare analogy of Atlas posters.

[King]

As we all know, all-you-can-eat buffets are notoriously unprofitable. Brilliant analogy.

[SteveRogers]

Question for you all:

Suppose that hamburgers were classified as a vital service, and a policy of "hamburger neutrality" were imposed. Instead of McDonalds, Wendy's, In-N-Out etc. being able to sell hamburgers a la carte in the quantity the customer wants to eat, it would instead be legally mandated that each customer pay a flat fee in exchange for access to buffet, where each customer would be entitled to take as many hamburgers as he or she wants.

1. Do you think this will decrease, or increase, the cost of going out for burgers to the average person? By a lot, or a little?

2. Do you think that this will increase, or decrease, the typical quality of hamburgers? Will the quality of burger joints' customer service increase, or decrease?

But you do not eat part of a road when you drive through it.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Question for you all:

Suppose that hamburgers were classified as a vital service, and a policy of "hamburger neutrality" were imposed. Instead of McDonalds, Wendy's, In-N-Out etc. being able to sell hamburgers a la carte in the quantity the customer wants to eat, it would instead be legally mandated that each customer pay a flat fee in exchange for access to buffet, where each customer would be entitled to take as many hamburgers as he or she wants.

1. Do you think this will decrease, or increase, the cost of going out for burgers to the average person? By a lot, or a little?

2. Do you think that this will increase, or decrease, the typical quality of hamburgers? Will the quality of burger joints' customer service increase, or decrease?

"I'll have two Internets. Medium combo with fries and a Coke."

[tpfkaw]

That's a terrible analogy.  If that's how you look at net neutrality, you don't understand the internet.

The internet is not like a consumer product, it's like infrastructure.  You don't want corporate conglomerates to police our basic infrastructure and create the rules of the road so to speak.  We know that the big telecommunications companies are monopolistic and have a their own agenda, economic, political and otherwise.  We know these big corporations want to use the control of basic infrastructure to create barriers to entry and crush competition.  The reason that the internet has been such a greater driver of innovation is that new companies with better ideas have been able to compete on an open playing field. 

And, just look at it this way, the biggest monopolistic corporations who have everything to gain are the people opposed to net neutrality.  The engineers, scientists who created the internet and other experts seem to be all in favor of net neutrality.

Repeating the phrase "big corporations" 20 times does not an argument make, neither here nor there.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the internet is "like infrastructure." I assume this means that you don't support congestion charges, tolls, usage fees, gas taxes, or any other method where customers are charged according to their usage of infrastructure. That'd be a tremendous incentive for "sprawl," pollution, and congestion, traditionally liberal bugbears, but to each his own I suppose.

If you don't like my hamburger analogy, I'll use an infrastructure one. Actually more of an exact analogy anyways.

The Panama canal currently operates on the model that each ship is charged for each time it uses the canal, and larger ships are charged a higher fee than smaller ones. Suppose that the Panamanian government adopted a different business model: each ship, no matter how big or small, that wants to use the canal pays a flat fee every month, and can use the canal as many times as it wants.

1. Will this increase, or decrease, the cost for the average ship to use the Panama canal?
2. Does the Panamanian government now have more or less of an incentive to increase the canal's capacity? Do they now have an incentive against raising the canal's capacity?
3. Obviously, this is a stupid business model for the Panamanian government, a big guy. But other than them, who's hurt here? Big businesses, or small?

As we all know, all-you-can-eat buffets are notoriously unprofitable. Brilliant analogy.

And also, they still exist for the customers who demand them, even without a government mandate! Imagine that.

Nevertheless, you will note that the most successful restaurants, such as McDonalds et al, do not operate on the all-you-can-eat buffet model. That makes sense; all-you-can-eat buffets are generally more expensive than a fast food joint (unless you eat a piggish amount of food), and also generally serve lower-quality food.

[Lief 🗽]

Good news everyone!

[King]

And also, they still exist for the customers who demand them, even without a government mandate! Imagine that.

Have you used the internet before? An idea like net neutrality does not exist unless every ISP practiced it. If Time Warner played around with the bandwidth, (1) any smaller providers that rides on its infrastructure would be affected by its practices (2) any customer who tries to access a website on a server connected through Time Warner would be affected

A more relevant story for your restaurants analogy would be a McDonalds Open 24 Hours A Day located in a mall food court that closes at 9pm. Nobody can access this technically offered 24 hour service if the doors are locked by an interrelated force.

[bedstuy]

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the internet is "like infrastructure." I assume this means that you don't support congestion charges, tolls, usage fees, gas taxes, or any other method where customers are charged according to their usage of infrastructure. That'd be a tremendous incentive for "sprawl," pollution, and congestion, traditionally liberal bugbears, but to each his own I suppose.

If you don't like my hamburger analogy, I'll use an infrastructure one. Actually more of an exact analogy anyways.

The Panama canal currently operates on the model that each ship is charged for each time it uses the canal, and larger ships are charged a higher fee than smaller ones. Suppose that the Panamanian government adopted a different business model: each ship, no matter how big or small, that wants to use the canal pays a flat fee every month, and can use the canal as many times as it wants.

1. Will this increase, or decrease, the cost for the average ship to use the Panama canal?
2. Does the Panamanian government now have more or less of an incentive to increase the canal's capacity? Do they now have an incentive against raising the canal's capacity?
3. Obviously, this is a stupid business model for the Panamanian government, a big guy. But other than them, who's hurt here? Big businesses, or small?

The fact that our media and infrastructure that disseminates media is increasingly owned by a few giant  multinational corporations is not some abstract lefty concern.  It's a serious question of monopolistic manipulation, beyond the serious concerns for our democracy and our free press system.

As for your analogies, they're just not going to cut it.  The internet is not like a road or a burger joint or a canal.  If we're going to discuss this we need to talk about the actual properties of computing and the networks that make up the internet.  With your analogies I don't even know what represents what.

[King]

Remember, libertarians like wormyguy claim to be anti-corporatism.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Barry, you've once again reminded me why I love having you as our President.  What a fantastic decision. 

[Beet]

My data plan tells me I'm already charged more if I use more of the service. The more content I download, the more my monthly bill. Of course, there are unlimited data plans, but net neutrality does not seek to prohibit cost-for-amount-of-use contracts; e.g., a large ship going through a canal versus a small ship.

 But suppose instead that Panama had a political alliance with Indonesia and bad relations with Australia. Perhaps Indonesia has made monetary donations to corrupt Panamanian officials. Let's say it started delaying the opening of locks for ships bound to Australia by several more days to benefit Indonesian ports at the expense of Australian ones. Let's say it did this without necessarily informing ship operators of what it was doing, and let's say it had differential rates of delay for every country in the world depending on how many kickbacks Panamanian officials received. And let's say the Suez Canal and all other major canals in the world implemented similar policies. Would this be good or bad for global merchant trade?

[memphis]

As we all know, all-you-can-eat buffets are notoriously unprofitable. Brilliant analogy.

Also so expensive that only 1%ers can afford to go to the Golden Corral.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Remember, libertarians like wormyguy claim to be anti-corporatism.

This is a gift to Netflix.

[Free Bird]

Dammit Ted