Net Neutrality

[HeyMorpheus]

I want to make certain I understand the overall concept.

 

"Internet service providers will put access to different websites into "tiers", and then charge varying fees to access each tier of sites. Similar to the way cable television offers access to more channels depending on what subscription you have. This is a bad thing and must be stopped by government coercion."

 

 

Do I understand this correctly or is there more to it than this?

 

 

[Prairie]

In the scenario envisioned, instead of price being based on the bandwidth, without reference to the site using it (e.g. randomwebsite.com versus disney.com), it would be based on how much a provider could get the site to pay. Especially if the site offers services that compete with the provider (e.g. Time Warner cable versus Netflix streaming), there would be incentive to charge more.

 

Obviously, though, the barrel of a gun is no way to make it any better, even if the above scenario played out in full effect.

[dsayers]

It's a difficult situation because communications isn't all that competitive due to State interference. As a result, without State interference to provide net neutrality, we may very well see ISP's gouging as statists predict would happen in a free market. Since ISP's taking steps customers do not like would not accrue to them by way of competition thanks to State interference.

[NumberSix]

I think a free market solution would be to sell wireless routers (layer 2 switches) that also self organize to create an internet backbone (layer 3 TCP IP).  Most people already own wireless routers and are paying for electricity to run them, so why not have those devices replace ISP's. I'm still working out the details of this idea.

[FriendlyHacker]

Internet is getting cheaper and cheaper at the same rate it becomes faster, Internet providers will be out of business in a few years, they need to milk that money cow to the bone before it is gone.

I think a free market solution would be to sell wireless routers (layer 2 switches) that also self organize to create an internet backbone (layer 3 TCP IP).  Most people already own wireless routers and are paying for electricity to run them, so why not have those devices replace ISP's. I'm still working out the details of this idea.

 

It's already commercially viable for individuals to put satellites in orbit, if you have 40k usd to spend on that, google is also working on using cheap balloons as internet providers, and other people are working on wireless transfer of both electricity and internet from light bulbs, which again makes internet and electricity distribution much much cheaper.

 

I for one have ideas about making internet connected devices so cheap, that they can be distributed for free. The business model on that would be to profit from software sales and ads.

 

In the future the words internet and computer will be meaninglessness, because you automatically assume everything is connected to computers and internet, if a word can mean anything, it becomes useless.

[HeyMorpheus]

It's a difficult situation because communications isn't all that competitive due to State interference. As a result, without State interference to provide net neutrality, we may very well see ISP's gouging as statists predict would happen in a free market. Since ISP's taking steps customers do not like would not accrue to them by way of competition thanks to State interference.

 

This is where my thinking always takes me. The current state of internet services, bandwidth, etc, has been influenced by state interference. It's really hard to know what the telecom landscape would look like in a completely voluntary society.