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This essay from Stratechery, and the accompanying podcast, I think sums up the way I feel about it and gets into how emotional people get over this topic [1]. I'm always going to be skeptical of whatever the ISPs are telling me, but I think Thompson's point here about how we don't know what things in the future won't exist if we mandate NN is worth at least considering, so I tend to agree that light-touch is probably a better approach.

[1] https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/




I think the overall point of the article is solid, but this sentence is laughable:

"Again, zero-rating is not explicitly a net-neutrality issue: T-Mobile treats all data the same, some data just doesn’t cost money."

Right. Interesting definition of "same".


I don't see how that's wrong? Nothing is being done to the packets.


Except that they're charging you for some of them? There is no structural difference between zero rating certain traffic and adding surcharges for certain traffic.


At the risk of splitting hairs, Thompson actually argued in favor of mandating net neutrality, but against the stringent Title II regulations. He also argued that re-classifying ISPs would not necessarily lead to the end of net neutrality.


You're correct, and I was perhaps assuming too much that people have kept up with his writing on this topic.


That is definitely assuming too much when answering an explain it like I'm 5 type question.




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