Google Goes Against Net Neutrality

[GinandTonic]

I had a friend who contracted for AOL London. One of the projects there was to make skype not run properly over their ISP, in order that people who be forced to take up their pay version. EG breaking something so they can sell you the fix every month. No idea how far the project got.

 

[Mise]

I had a friend who contracted for AOL London. One of the projects there was to make skype not run properly over their ISP, in order that people who be forced to take up their pay version. EG breaking something so they can sell you the fix every month. No idea how far the project got.

That's freeriding and rentseeking on somebody else's product; that should be regulated away. If, on the other hand, AOL had a competing product, then I think it's okay for them to restrict access to Skype. There are, like, a million ISPs in the UK; as long as the backbone is treated as a utility (which it is) then it's okay for companies to do this sort of thing. Competitive pressure would ensure that it is self-regulating.

 

[GoodGame]

Okay, if you think that is a strawman, how about just good old fashioned supply and demand? Why should we interfere with market forces dictating things? I get the feeling all the arguments for net neutrality will just boil down to "it isn't fair". Well, life isn't.

The main reason why that is a strawman is that the internet is a mixture of private and public funding (not some spontaneous market-created and market driven entity), but that doesn't strictly apply to this Verizon situation, since that is about wireless licensing.

But on the wireless licensing aspect, it's like this: The government leases the right to something that is publicly owned---the air waves---to a private corp under certain terms. Those terms are what is up for debate in our democratic society. It's the same debate as if the government wanted to sell public lands for gas or lumber harvest. There's some debate over the terms of such. Citing "life isn't fair" just distracts from the discussion and seeks to diminish that everyone has a say in their government through their political representation.

EDIT: In terms of technology, I also wouldn't think about it as say t.v. broadcasting, but more like a telephone network. Sure a t.v. channel can take any legal business strategy it wants. But wireless subscription is more like telephone subscription. Now imagine you paid for your cell phone, but your service says you can't use your phone because you: 1. you want to call your mother who your service has arbitrarily banned, or 2. bans you from using the phone because you have previously used some word that they've chosen to censor; or 3. band you because of your affiliation (e.g. you belong to the wrong political party so they won't let you make phone call).

Bottom line: There's no denying that a private corp, staying within license terms that the government gave it, should have the freedom to operate. But the people also have input on the laws of licensing.

 

[GinandTonic]

That's freeriding and rentseeking on somebody else's product; that should be regulated away. If, on the other hand, AOL had a competing product, then I think it's okay for them to restrict access to Skype. There are, like, a million ISPs in the UK; as long as the backbone is treated as a utility (which it is) then it's okay for companies to do this sort of thing. Competitive pressure would ensure that it is self-regulating.

No they had their own subscription voip client. Their problem was that no-one was subscribing because they could have the same service free from skype. So they were thinking about ways to make skype not work well to create an incentive for customers to subscribe to their voip service.

 

[Mise]

No they had their own subscription voip client. Their problem was that no-one was subscribing because they could have the same service free from skype. So they were thinking about ways to make skype not work well to create an incentive for customers to subscribe to their voip service.

Ahh, well that's okay then. Just switch providers if you wanna use skype. There's enough competition among ISPs, in the UK at least, that this shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Cheetah]

You don't really understand what net neutrality is or at least what the implications of us losing it are, Cull.

I admit, I have absolutely no idea what's going on here. What's net neutrality? What do the bolding things mean? Can someone explain please?

Okay, if you think that is a strawman, how about just good old fashioned supply and demand? Why should we interfere with market forces dictating things? I get the feeling all the arguments for net neutrality will just boil down to "it isn't fair". Well, life isn't.

I'll try explaining this with some simple examples. Without Net Neutrality, the following may* happen:

- AT&T is given lots of money from Apple and a monopoly on the new iPhoneX, in exchange they prioritise traffic in their network such that iTunes Store traffic, 'Apple TV for mobiles' traffic and selected Apple-cooperating businesses' traffic are processed immediately, while competing services (say, 'Microsoft WMV TV' or certain Google services) are given a delay. 5 seconds maybe.

- Disney and Time Warner makes a deal with British Telecom to make sure their services and websites they provide is processed immediately, while competing providers are delayed a few seconds because "a large segment of the network capacity is always allocated to Disney and Time Warner, to make sure their services respond immediately".

- News Corp of course does the same and gets a deal with several of the largest ISPs in the US, Autralia and Europe to make sure their sites are shown immediately, and other sites and services are delayed.

- Comcast makes a deal with Amazon that Amazon's service will be the only webshop that will have its requests immediately processed through Comcast's network, and Comcast users will get a few percent off the prices at Amazon.

- Google offers ISPs a deal where the ISPs' products get high rankings on Google searches, while Google's gmail and search engine will be the only e-mail and search services that will not be delayed through those ISPs' networks.

Now, which network and which service suppliers do you want to lock yourself in with?

Note that the proponents for non-Net Neutrality is only talking about 'prioritising traffic' and not actively delay or sabotage other traffic.** But prioritising certain traffic on networks that by nature have limited capacity, other traffic will experience delays, more dropped packets and less reliable services.

If the next Page and Brin comes around with a really good idea, they may not be able to make it large because their traffic will be limited to serve the interests of established businesses.

To answer VRWCAgent's question, let me make the analogy to roads: The road network is also Neutral. There are no private businesses owning parts of the road network and allocating 3 lanes on a 4 lane highway for partner businesses to use to avoid congestion and whatnot. UPS can not pay for private access to one of those lanes while FedEx has to take the publicly available lane (which will always be congested of traffic).

In today's world, with a Neutral Internet, all traffic, no matter the source or destination, has the same priority and thus the network allows the free market to work. In a world without Net Neutrality, the free market will be destroyed, resulting in less innovation, worse services and higher prices for consumers.

* Read: Will happen.
** Though opening up for prioritising traffic up, also opens the possibility of prioritising traffic down...

 

[Rhymes]

In today's world, with a Neutral Internet, all traffic, no matter the source or destination, has the same priority and thus the network allows the free market to work. In a world without Net Neutrality, the free market will be destroyed, resulting in less innovation, worse services and higher prices for consumers.

* Read: Will happen.
** Though opening up for prioritising traffic up, also opens the possibility of prioritising traffic down...

I thought that free market stated that you have the right to pay to get a competitive advantage over your competition.
Every body having equal chances no matter what sounds more like communism to me!

 

[Cutlass]

You know, somebody has to pay for the internet. I am not sure why I should be opposed to net-NONneutrality.

I'm already paying for the net. I don't want someone to take away what I pay for just because they can offer a larger bribe.

 

[Mise]

@Cheetah: Thanks for the explanation.

I would assume that some of that extra money given to ISPs by these big internets companies would be used to lower fees for subscribers (the extent to which fees are lowered, of course, depends on the supply and demand relationship between ISPs and consumers; the more competition there is, the more the fees will go down by). If so, then I would have to make a choice between lower fees and greater freedom of access. I might decide to switch to a competitor, which is more expensive but gives me the access level that I want.

I don't see why this is necessarily a bad thing. I'm not opposed to regulation if it does become a bad thing, but I don't see why it should necessarily lead to 1984 censorship or whatever. It can all be solved by more competition among ISPs, which in the UK is in ample supply.

 

[warpus]

I admit, I have absolutely no idea what's going on here. What's net neutrality? What do the bolding things mean? Can someone explain please?

The way the internet is set up now, all traffic gets an equal amount of priority. It doesn't matter whether you direct your browser to google.com, warpusexcellentzebrawebsite.com, or facebook.com, all the packets returning to your browser are viewed as 'equal' by the routers and switches along the way. The only bottleneck here is your own personal web connection, and the speed/bandwidth/latency of the web server where your website is hosted. The tubes that the information flows down do not discriminate based on the origin of the packets - they do not care.. they just forward the information to other tubes, until the information reaches your PC.

This fuels innovation; everyone is on an equal playing field. Sure, google is able to pay for much more amazing and fast web servers, but aside from that everyone is able to compete with them equally. Got an amazing idea for a new web search service, or any other type of website? All you need to worry about is the web hosting - the tubes that carry your service to your customers are on an equal standing with google's service. It is thus easier for you to compete with google, or whoever. Sure, you need a good idea first,
but without net neutrality it would have been far more difficult for a site like facebook or youtube to go from "n00bish amateur website made by 2 guys" to "multibillion dollar company"

With net neutrality gone, innovation would suffer. Not only that, something like this could happen as well:

You would have different 'tiers' of priority (instead of just 1), and the routers/switches would forward traffic based on priority. So you could have a super-high speed priority, a medium one, and a regular one. All the big companies could afford the top 2 tiers, but everyone else would be forced to use the slowest one. This means that if you came up with the next facebook (or whatever), your service would be far slower than your competition's, unless you had big $ to pay for the top tiers, which would discourage people from innovating, and lead to a crappier internet overall.

edit: I wrote this without reading the rest of the thread, not sure what else has been said

 

[Cheetah]

I thought that free market stated that you have the right to pay to get a competitive advantage over your competition.
Every body having equal chances no matter what sounds more like communism to me!

Of course if one competitor can deliver a better product to a better price, then all is well.

The problem is that a free market must have an infrastructure open to everyone, or else the free market is not free! If only some companies can use the roads in your city, or other companies must pay extra to use the roads, then there is not a free market!

Making sure the playing field, during the actual play, is level is not communism, it is rationality.

@Cheetah: Thanks for the explanation.

I would assume that some of that extra money given to ISPs by these big internets companies would be used to lower fees for subscribers (the extent to which fees are lowered, of course, depends on the supply and demand relationship between ISPs and consumers; the more competition there is, the more the fees will go down by). If so, then I would have to make a choice between lower fees and greater freedom of access. I might decide to switch to a competitor, which is more expensive but gives me the access level that I want.

I don't see why this is necessarily a bad thing. I'm not opposed to regulation if it does become a bad thing, but I don't see why it should necessarily lead to 1984 censorship or whatever. It can all be solved by more competition among ISPs, which in the UK is in ample supply.

What if the deals include a worse user experience for Google users not coming from certain ISPs? What if you have to choose between an ISP with a good Google deal, or an ISP with a good Disney deal? Or a Time Warner deal?

Also, what warpus said.

 

[Mise]

I would probably choose the Google deal, but as I said, in a sufficiently competitive market, there will no doubt be ISPs that offer the level of service I desire at a price that represents the added cost of providing that service. The UK ISP market is sufficiently competitive; for example, some (mostly cheap) ISPs throttle P2P file sharing, whereas others don't.

Incidentally, I've chosen a phone with a good Google deal over a similar phone with a good iTunes deal.

 

[illram]

So you're OK with paying more for what you get right now?

 

[civver_764]

Yay capitalism!!!

 

[bernie14]

There is no way that is going to happen without Net Neutrality. Broadband companies will charge websites for faster loading speeds, which will severely hurt the efforts of anyone trying to make the next Google.

i'm sorry i am confused, dont really know how this "net neutrality" is really" supposed"to work, but AFAIK, it has not yet passed so how did google happen i the first place?

 

[civver_764]

i'm sorry i am confused, dont really know how this "net neutrality" is really" supposed"to work, but AFAIK, it has not yet passed so how did google happen i the first place?

Net neutrality means ISPs have to give every website has the same speed.

 

[bernie14]

ok, sorry for my ignorance lets make it real simple so i can understand, if we already have net neutrality why do we need a law to keep it?

 

[warpus]

web neutrality has been in place ever since the internet got started - which is one of the main reasons why we've seen so many success stories of people coming up with great ideas and turning them into very profitable businesses (google, facebook, youtube, etc.)

With web neutrality gone, the innovation that lead to the sites i just mentioned would be severely stifled.. the internet as a whole would suffer.

ok, sorry for my ignorance lets make it real simple so i can understand, if we already have net neutrality why do we need a law to keep it?

Because there are people out there who want it gone, so they can make more money.

 

[Cutlass]

@Cheetah: Thanks for the explanation.

I would assume that some of that extra money given to ISPs by these big internets companies would be used to lower fees for subscribers (the extent to which fees are lowered, of course, depends on the supply and demand relationship between ISPs and consumers; the more competition there is, the more the fees will go down by). If so, then I would have to make a choice between lower fees and greater freedom of access. I might decide to switch to a competitor, which is more expensive but gives me the access level that I want.

I don't see why this is necessarily a bad thing. I'm not opposed to regulation if it does become a bad thing, but I don't see why it should necessarily lead to 1984 censorship or whatever. It can all be solved by more competition among ISPs, which in the UK is in ample supply.

It's also an issue of forced advertising. Say you wanted to go to CFC and were redirected to Firaxis instead? Say you wanted to learn about a TV show or movie, but could not get to IMDB, Wiki, or a fan page, but instead were stuck going to the studio/network site?

Further, what competition? Having 2, at the maximum 3, internet choices does not provide meaningful competition. Particularly when you can't really separate those services from the other services the ISP provider also provides.

 

[Mise]

So you're OK with paying more for what you get right now?

1) The money given by <Generic Big Evil Internet Corporation> to <Generic Big Evil ISP> would partly go towards reducing subscription fees for customers; the degree to which this happened depends on the supply/demand relationship in the ISP market. The more competition there is, the more customers will benefit.

2) Why would the cost rise from now for the same access level? The only way it would happen is if fewer providers offer completely neutral internet access, which would reduce competition and lead to higher prices. But if that is true, then it means that we "100% neutral" buyers are being subsidised by people who are quite content with "50% neutral" or "100% google" ISPs. If there is a market for "50% neutral" access, at a lower price that at present, then it would be wrong to force them to subsidise the "100% neutral" access people. If there's no market for the "50% neutral" access, then there's no problem, is there?

It's also an issue of forced advertising. Say you wanted to go to CFC and were redirected to Firaxis instead? Say you wanted to learn about a TV show or movie, but could not get to IMDB, Wiki, or a fan page, but instead were stuck going to the studio/network site?

Why would I use an ISP that did that?

Further, what competition? Having 2, at the maximum 3, internet choices does not provide meaningful competition. Particularly when you can't really separate those services from the other services the ISP provider also provides.

There are maybe 30 or 40 internet providers in the UK that operate nationally. Here's a couple lists from a quick google:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/isp_list/ISP_List_Bundle.php
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/isps.html

Maybe not all of them operate nationally, but I've always been spoilt for choice when switching broadband providers. I've never, ever had less than 20 or so to choose from, and I've lived in some really backward, rural places... (*cough* Wales *cough*). If you only have 2 or 3 providers in your area in the US, you need more competition.

EDIT: Here's a list of broadband providers for my childhood home in a village in Wales: http://www.moneysupermarket.com/broadband/results.aspx?enquiryid=341312598 (I hope that link works...)

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I'll re-iterate what I said earlier: If there are serious negative consequences, then I'm fine with regulating it. But I see no a priori reason for that to happen.