RE: The War against the already Open Internet (Part 2)
Fundamentally, thank you for your passion. While I disagree and will refute your assertions, I want you to know that this discourse is extremely healthy when people refrain from making personal attacks toward one another.
"Net neutrality once again for the slow witted among us is a regulation that says all internet traffic must be treated equally." <--- This is a false argument. It claims that internet traffic has inherent rights. It doesn't. People have rights. If you want better access, find a competitor. If you can't because of zoning laws, then get out there and get vocal to your local community and local government.
"There also is nothing about net neutrality that helps or hurts the regional monopolies so it is kind of a shiny object argument." <--- Except for the fact that it's government regulation of the internet. Everyone keeps playing "just the tip" and pretending the government doesn't absolutely love to make up reasons to fear-monger you into supporting their control of whatever.
If you're unwilling to find out about your local governments zoning laws and how it impacts you, then you're merely parroting what the government wants you to.
Net Neutrality needs to be killed off. Adding government to anything creates more problems.
Thank you for being understanding about my tone at times. This is an issue that I sometimes get frustrated over, especially when the arguments being made are either counter factual or fundamentally misstate or misunderstand the issues. I too want to thank you for articulating a position beyond the "light touch" argument that Ajit Pai constantly relies on. With regards to your rebuttal, however, you are wrong. First, your discussion about inherent rights and internet traffic does nothing to inform the argument. How is that declaration relevant to the debate? You also go back to the counter factual argument that there is choice in the broadband market. I was particular in my initial comments that if in the future the ISP market was more diverse and choice was an option we should revisit the net neutrality question, but as long as the regional monopolies were the dominant market condition then net neutrality and governement enforcement is necessary.
I am very aware of the issues pertaining to local regulation of the right of ways. It is a major problem and needs to be addressed. Again, however, it has nothing to do with how internet traffic is treated. What is the connection you are making? It has everything to do with those pesky monoplies. But who lobbied for those regulations and who is working overtime to make sure they are strictly enforced? The ISPs!!!! They are using them as a sword to attack hopeful competitors such as Google Fiber. ATT has crews shadowing Google crews as they install fiber so that they can call in the local government to stop Google from installing its fiber dues to minor and inconsequential "violations" of those regulation. But again none of this bears directly on the question of whether net neutrality should be revoked in a few days.
I am curious, why do you have faith that the ISPs won't abuse their monopolies? Or do you believe they should be able to treat internet traffic differently? If so, how is that in the public interest?
"But who lobbied for those regulations and who is working overtime to make sure they are strictly enforced? The ISPs!!!!" <--- You're right. Just remember, at the end of the day however, it's the government politicians who are saying yes to corporations when they should be saying no.
"I am curious, why do you have faith that the ISPs won't abuse their monopolies?" <--- I don't. They always do when they have no competition. But since governments created the problems that lead to both Ma Bell and to the current few ISP's (using, ironically, extremely similar regulations), I have to put the blame squarely where it belongs... in this case... local government.
"Or do you believe they should be able to treat internet traffic differently?" <--- Yes. Business owners who put billions of dollars into building their own infrastructure can charge whatever they want for whatever they want. That doesn't mean people will pay it. But they have every right to try.
Obviously, without competition they can charge what they want since, for the consumer, there's nowhere else to go to. However, the moment there's competition prices naturally lower and quality tends to goes up.
The only thing corporations fear more than anything else is losing a customer to a competitor. Why else would they spend so much money convincing government to give them a monopoly?