You know what communicated the perils of Net Brutality to me? Images like this one:

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2009/10/29/net-neutrality-what-it-cou...

Websites being reduced to cable-like add ons. Just terrible.

Edit: I followed the chain of blog spam attribution all the way back to the original source of the Net Neutrality graphic:

http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/9yj1f/heres_a_new_scen...

Edit2: Another similar example: http://images.appleinsider.com/netneutrality091808.png

Apparently this was a big deal in 2009.

It's even worse than that. Cable companies have to pay a portion of that add-on fee to the channels for their content. In this case of (not) throttling bandwidth, the ISPs are keeping all of the fees since you're not paying for the content, just access to it.

This is worthwhile read that makes some good points.

But it should be noted that net neutrality is only a restriction on data carriers. It is not a restriction on sites or hosting services.

FTA:

> And combined with geographical data, I could do some serious discrimination on the internet. For example, I could compile an IP block list of the most conservative places in the country, and prevent them from accessing my site. I could use demographics to do this in some very exotic ways. I could block districts that have high percentages of minorities, or the highest rates of heterosexual couples, or the youngest population, or the highest percentage of mental health problems.

And he could still do all that even if net neutrality were enforced by law/regulation. Comcast couldn't do it, but he could.

The big difference being that Comcast is (in many places) a monopoly. Neocities isn't.

I like the term Net Brutality. Every said in here is possible and likely at some point. Once roadblocks become easy to create and maintain our ability to recognize, comment and affect change is easily stopped.

I think I'm out of the loop a bit on the chain of events. Last I heard, the FCC were the ones holding back the tide by classifying ISPs in a way that prevented them from limiting bandwidth. And then recently a court stripped them of this ability, opening the gates for ISPs to manage their bandwidth how they wanted. Is there a step somewhere after this that I missed where the FCC turned into the enemy? It seems strange to be protesting the FCC like this, when afaik they were the ones who were on our side for so long.

But please, someone correct me if I am wrong. I'm not as knowledgeable as I'd like to be on this.

The only way content providers can emulate the restriction of data carriers net neutrality abuses is to get more content providers on board.

This needs larger scope to have an impact. Get a bunch of content providers to throttle all of DC. Have a banner to display on all websites:

'Accessing from DC? Yea it is slow. This is the world without net neutrality if we were unable to pay data carriers for a fast lane. Save the internet, act now @ ____. '

I think the idea's expressed are correct, but the example we need to be touting is wrong. Politicians are raising an increasing amount of their campaign dollars from their internet sites and threatening them cuts to the heart of the issue.

Ok, thought exercise. Comcast's owner decides that he doesn't like the KKK or any anti-semitic group. And Comcast starts charging them extra, or throttling their traffic or blocking them outright. Should they be allowed to?

> Ok, thought exercise. Comcast's owner decides that he doesn't like the KKK or any anti-semitic group. And Comcast starts charging them extra, or throttling their traffic or blocking them outright. Should they be allowed to?

No, for the same reasons that the government shouldn't be allowed to.

Try a different thought experiment. It's 1910 and the government regulates the operation of printing presses such that only one press is operated in each state. Should the government be able to set out regulations with that result and then give the press operator carte blanche to choose whose words can be printed? Should you care whether the thing they're refusing to print is from the KKK or the NAACP?

Under the FCC proposal, Comcast would not be allowed to throttle or block the KKK.

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

Good luck with government regulation of your network.

I'm not sure what you're getting at...

I can at the very least vote for the people who are writing laws and making policy. The people, via democratic government, have (theoretically) some influence on how the network is to be administered and regulated.

If rules are left to the whims of a single monopoly or a small oligopoly of network providers, the only options are "take it" or "leave it."

The government is a monopoly. The network providers that currently hold monopolies only do so due to government protection. When it comes to the government itself, the only option is "take it", so that's even worse.

You realize the entire internet was fostered along from its infancy by that very government.

I think the takeaway is that good government is good, bad government is bad. I'm not sure why this is so difficult.

That is true, however it does not follow that the government was necessary to create it. "Good" government is "bad" if you believe monopolies are "bad".

> "Good" government is "bad" if you believe monopolies are "bad".

It sounds like there's some loanable funds thinking lurking behind that statement.

Can you explain? I'm not familiar with "loanable funds thinking"

The belief that government spending is zero-sum wrt private spending.