Comcast says net neutrality supporters “create hysteria”

Thank you for this response.

You say hysteria, but maybe you can't see the forest for the trees. Do you remember the search engine ecosystem in the 90s before big G came around? Now to look for something online is to "google" something. People have no problem with it, but the very internet they see is already curated for them, that isn't a good thing. People have the option sure, but Google being the 800 pound gorilla in the room, everyone gravitates towards them. This is a battle fought for the every day user.

This is double speak. I can't tell if you're naive and don't understand the issue or truly believe this. It's not internet access that is driving this, but because of how ubiquitous it is, there are apps, websites, things that haven't been conceived of 10+ years ago that is now growing in the current ecosystem. It's not internet access, but innovation done with it that is taking root. Or are you going to tell me Netflix's rise to prominence and the rise of cord cutters is something thats been happening since the 90s.

Is your claim that internet content providers are more vulnerable to extortion from ISPs because internet traffic has become more centralized? That makes sense.

Again, this is a completely naive thing to say. They are evaluating a two tier internet as bandwith consumption has shot up as the years have gone on. Where they thought they had 20 years on their infrastructure, they see 10.

It makes sense that they'd want to find new ways to utilize old systems when their bandwidth neared capacity, but it's hard for me to believe that 1. Nobody thought of creating premium bandwidth or substandard bandwidth channels before. 2. The repercussions would be insufficient to deter attempts at blatant throttling. I know ISPs often have local monopolies, but I'd expect they care about public opinion, offering good services in areas where competition does exist, etc.

Basically, I think that if you're right there's so little preventing the nightmare scenario occurring, it should have already happened. Even if originally it didn't happen because nobody realized that this was a possible business model, once the possibility was discovered it should have spread rapidly. The abuses we've seen have been rare and not very intense, which makes me think there's got to be something preventing them.

How about the massive tax breaks we gave to all the telcos in the 90s where they just took that money and ran. If they ACTUALLY invested that money into infrastructure like they should have, rather than having banner years for their P&Ls we wouldn't be in this mess. We already PAID for the infrastructure upgrade, we just never got it. That's why I'm pissed. We paid for an upgrade, that we never got, that now we NEED, and now they all of a sudden are looking for more money.

I don't really understand the relevance of this and it comes across as general resentment of these companies. Even if you're right that the telcos screwed us over in the 90s, that doesn't have any implications I can see on the question of whether or not net neutrality is good.

When was the last time you took a business class? You understand paradigm shifts happen in commerce all the time and are usually one way. After prohibition, Anheuser Busch killed mom and pop shop brewers for decades, and it took a VERY hard push to get microbrews back in.

Okay, so that's your claim, but where's the evidence for it? Why do you believe there's been a paradigm shift? I don't think things have changed very much. The Netflix throttling was the only large problematic event that has occurred. It's possible to imagine it as the first of a huge wave of large acts of extortion, but it's also possible to see it as an outlier, and I don't know why you favor the former view.

Remember when Cable TV wasn't supposed to have commercials, because your subscription was already going to pay for the programming, how long did that last? Then they had an even more elite tier of channels, and so on and so on. People just accept it but it is the antithesis of how cable tv first started.

Really interesting anecdote, I hadn't heard of this before, thank you.

This is horrifying, given everything else in context. ISPs are already collecting all your data, selling it to marketers, and now they want to double dip where they can. This will kill innovation as smaller websites/apps cannot compete with prioritized bandwith.

I don't think this would necessarily occur. I can imagine a system where smaller websites band together to join some sort of group network for a fee that's small to each individual website but large when each website's added together. It would be in the ISPs interest to offer such services. It would be worse than the status quo for innovation though, granted.

This is commerce and utilities, no one is going to die, but you have to be naive and have been living under a rock for the past 100 years if you refuse to see the parallels and paradigm shifts in industry, if you think this is a good idea.

I definitely don't think it's a good idea, but was put off by all the assertions flying around without good arguments backing them. Thank you for writing a higher quality response than anyone else. I still think there are many people acting hysterically who don't really know what's going on, but I'm also starting to think I underestimated the problem.

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