WOW just saw the anti net-neutrality "mumbo jumbo" ad

[bobman0330]

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They haven't had an excuse, or a perceived reason. Now with the popularity of Skype, online video games, VOIP, etc. they have a fear of increased use by the consumer. The problem is that they didn't sell you your bandwidth at X GB down per month, because they never thought you'd hit it. They sold you unlimited. Most people used very little bandwidth, and overpaid. A few people might have actually used $Y worth of bandwidth or more. So now that technology is more consumer friendly and you're actually using what you paid for, they're looking for other places to make up some revenues without admitting to the consumer that your connection isn't unlimited.

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This is exactly true. If we had our current net infrastructure, and everyone was still sending text emails over their dial-up lines, NN would work fine. It would make sense to think of the internet as a big magical cloud that sends data around. The problem is that people are now doing more high-bandwidth apps like Skype, online gaming, and streaming video. Furthermore, broader audiences are incorporating some high-bandwidth uses into "average" internet use. (So it's not efficient to just require the high-bandwidth users to purchase more bandwidth.) As a result, there are resource allocation problems. The most efficient way to solve them is to allow market pricing of information transmission. Make the content producer internalize the cost of distributing the content. On the other end, that will give the infrastructure owners incentives to boost their transmission capacity.

What I don't understand is that this is an absolutely ancient economic problem. Proclaiming by fiat that everyone has the same access to bandwidth will not produce economic efficiency. In early England, they enclosed common grazing land and put it under private ownership. The result was the Agricultural Revolution and a huge increase in food production. In Soviet Russia, they collectivized agricultural land and refused to allow anyone to buy or sell. The result was starvation and a country that was unable to meet its own food needs.

[ShakeZula06]

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There are a lot of crypto-fascists masquerading as libertarians here.

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ZOMG! The jigs up!

[Barcalounger]

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The most efficient way to solve them is to allow market pricing of information transmission. Make the content producer internalize the cost of distributing the content. On the other end, that will give the infrastructure owners incentives to boost their transmission capacity.

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I agree, and content producers already pay for all their bandwidth for information transmission. Almost all of them pay on a X GB down per month for $Y type contract, so they pay EXACTLY for what they use. Market pricing for bit transmission. That's what net neutrality is trying to protect.

What it's protecting against, is the information transmitters from opening up the packets during transmission and making a judgment call on how fast or if at all the information should be sent along. At that point they are violating the free market by augmenting your service not by how much you paid for it, but by the types of information being exchanged.

Using the grocery store analogy from before, it'd be like if one of the truckers that delivers the product to the store decided to open every box in his truck, and not deliver any boxes with cheese in it until 2 days later unless the dairy farmers send him a check. Then add in the fact that every box has to travel on at least 3 different trucks on the way to the store, and you never know when that renegade cheese hating truck driver might be one of them.

[pvn]

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Natural monopolies are a myth.

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Along with the holocaust, a spherical earth, and the female orgasm?

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Maybe you can provide an example.

[ShakeZula06]

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Natural monopolies are a myth.

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Along with the holocaust, a spherical earth, and the female orgasm?

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Maybe you can provide an example.

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BOOM HEADSHOT!

[pvn]

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Using the grocery store analogy from before, it'd be like if one of the truckers that delivers the product to the store decided to open every box in his truck, and not deliver any boxes with cheese in it until 2 days later unless the dairy farmers send him a check. Then add in the fact that every box has to travel on at least 3 different trucks on the way to the store, and you never know when that renegade cheese hating truck driver might be one of them.

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And if that happened, how long do you think it would take for someone to offer "we deliver when you want it delivered" service and get all the cheese business (along with the business of all the other guys who don't want truckers opening their boxes)?

[Barcalounger]

Possible aside:

I've always seen The Internet as a pretty much libertarian society. People have the individual freedom to go where they want, say what they want, and do consensual business with whoever they want. You can put up a forum website such as this, make whatever rules you need, enforce them, and discuss questionably legal activities such as online poker all day long. There is the all important access to information, which is frequently cited as essential for the existence of a libertarian society. You can even form voluntary groups and there's no overriding Internet government taxing or threatening violence against you. Just Service Providers.

Now there's a proposed government regulation to keep The Internet that way. And a lot of the libertarian leaning members of these boards come out of the woodwork to denounce it, because regulation = bad. Expected and consistent. But does it give you just a little bit of pause that fighting against regulation in this decidedly non-libertarian real world could help bring down the libertarianism of The Internet?

Honest random thoughts after a couple beers on a Thursday. Feel free to rip apart my theory that The Internet is pretty much a libertarian society, just don't be nitty. (I can't post kiddie pr0n! You call that individual freedom?)

[pvn]

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People have the individual freedom to go where they want, say what they want, and do consensual business with whoever they want.

...

Now there's a proposed government regulation to keep The Internet that way.

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By forcing people to do business in a particuarl manner. Very consensual.

[Barcalounger]

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Using the grocery store analogy from before, it'd be like if one of the truckers that delivers the product to the store decided to open every box in his truck, and not deliver any boxes with cheese in it until 2 days later unless the dairy farmers send him a check. Then add in the fact that every box has to travel on at least 3 different trucks on the way to the store, and you never know when that renegade cheese hating truck driver might be one of them.

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And if that happened, how long do you think it would take for someone to offer "we deliver when you want it delivered" service and get all the cheese business (along with the business of all the other guys who don't want truckers opening their boxes)?

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A very long time, considering the new company would have to replicate the entire Internet backbone from point A to point B, redesign how the web works to make sure packets stayed on their equipment, and get it out to everybody who "doesn't want the truckers opening thier boxes". That's measured in the trillions of dollars, and I think it'll take you awhile to save up that kind of scratch.

[Barcalounger]

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People have the individual freedom to go where they want, say what they want, and do consensual business with whoever they want.

...

Now there's a proposed government regulation to keep The Internet that way.

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By forcing people to do business in an open market. Very consensual.

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FYP