Pai so happens to have been a Verizon lawyer. Surely no coincidence.

Edit: I’m not sure why I’m being downvoted: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._...

Most regulations, like laws, are reactive in nature.

If our existing laws and regulations were good enough then why would we need to elect new law makers? Why would we even need them at all?

The fact is that people are constantly finding new and creative ways to exploit others and or ever evolving laws and regulations are a response to this exploitation.

But, let's take a closer look at what you just said here. You are correct that many laws and regulations are reactive in nature. That doesn’t automatically justify them. As a matter of fact, it is often the case that the most reactive laws and regulations can be some of the worst, as has constantly been demonstrated from September 11, 2001 to the present day. I mean, there is a real problem with terrorism, but that real problem doesn't automatically justify banning travel from 8 majority-Muslim countries, does it?

At least in the terrorism example, I have some understanding of how terrorism exploits people, and that makes it possible to debate how to use the government to protect people from that exploitation (or to protect other people from exploitation by the government, in the name of protecting people from explotation). Individual acts of terrorism have been clearly identified and publicized, so it is possible to have a coherent public policy discussion. But in the net neutrality case, everyone either discusses:

1. Hypotheticals, like Wal-Mart paying Comcast to destroy Amazon 2. Court cases that... actually were resolved in court under anti-trust law 3. Assertions that new censorship will take place like we've never seen before, even though we'd be going back to the pre-2015 status quo.

Despite sounding flippant about it, I don't actually mean to. People here are pretty smart, so if they're all worked up about it, I must be the one missing something. I would just like someone to coherently explain what that is.

This article gives a good overview of the strategy Comcast employed.

https://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix-came-t...

Before the ruling, the companies were still respecting what FCC said (here are some cases that happened between 2002 (when FCC reclassified Internet as a telecommunication service) and 2015[1]), now the cat is out of the bag.

Also note that 2015 change essentially brought back what was changed in 2002.

[1] https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-vio...

I'm cherrypicking here, but as an avid Bittorrent user, I remember there being significant debate with the community about the extent and methods that Comcast was using to "throttle" Bittorrent. (And I can honestly say that I was never impacted by them.) And I say this as someone who despises Comcast (regretfully, I'm stuck with them even today).

In any case, it doesn't pop out at me that many of those violations were actually mitigated by the FCC. E.g. Google Wallet got blocked, but Isis(sic)/Softcard was just terrible. By the time it was dying, carriers were letting Google Wallet through and then Apple Pay paved the way for Android Pay.

And actually a few of them (like zero-rating in the case of MetroPCS), aren't negative in my mind. I get the "startups can't compete" thing, but particularly mobile data cabs are still necessary today, and I'm okay with innovative, pro-consumer pricing models that get mobile internet into the hands of more people (which is intuitively going to happen when non-incumbents are the ones doing the innovating).

Essentially makes ISP just provide access to the Internet, and how you going to use it is all up to you.

From the examples you gave, how do you feel about blocking VoIP, tethering (even though they already had data caps, why do they care how I'm going to use the data allocated to me?) how do you feel about telus blocking access to site that was about labor strike by their employees, what if that would be used for political gains (blocking sites company doesn't agree with?)

As for bittorrent, question. If a company is offering internet connection with specific parameters and they then fail to deliver on that promise that's in my opinion a false advertising.

If they have so many consumers that they can't guarantee the speeds they provided it means they oversold, and they should be advertising it as a lower speed than they actually did.

As for MetroPCS I'm not sure what the zero rating thing is, I guess you're talking about them blocking all streaming except youtube. That's once again a false advertising. They do that so they could say they offer "unlimited" plans, even though they didn't.

As a consumer I want companies to be honest with me, what they are providing so I can know ahead when I make decision. Saying something is "Unlimited*" is misleading, because it's not really. The FCC also introduced "food labels" for ISPs which reduced their ability to lie to customers.

I mean, ISPs were never considered "common carriers" before 2015, right? I'm trying to get the details straight.

Isn't a free market with competition what everyone wants?

1: http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/06/technology/verizon_blocks_go...

And by funny I mean nonsensical.

Furthermore the 2015 move was undertaken because since 2005 the FCC had been enforcing Net Neutrality rules under Title I, but Verizon ultimately sued and in 2014 the courts decided the FCC did not have the authority to enforce these rules under Title I.

And the reason the FCC moved them back to Title II is that in 2014 the courts ruled the FCC's long-standing Net Neutrality rules could not actually be enforced under Title I.

Companies what regulations repealed: to increase the company's power while pretending to protect you, but in fact increasing your dependence of said company.

Why do you have more faith in companies than a government? Do you honestly believe that market forces can sway mega corporations?

It seems like companies have been much more on the side of the angels than the government this past year.

They have been a much louder voice for equality and civil liberties.

The proof is all around me: everything good comes from companies: cars, computers, my house, my heating furnace, restaurant food, hotels, etc.

Everything crappy and bad is related one way or another with govts: bureaucracy, dmv, borders, postal service, state hospitals, state schools.

I have an exercise for you right now.

Let say you are pissed at your current ISP and don't want to use them anymore, who would you switch to? If you have 1 extra choice of high speed internet, congratulations you're one of very small percentage of people. If you don't have other choices (like me) perhaps now you see the problem.

Which is my original point: keep increasing that power...

I don't know how old you are, but I remember it was very different ~20 years ago.

Previously Internet was classified as a telecommunication service, and was following the same regulations. Any company could easily enter the market and provide a service. Until FCC deregulated it in 2002 and 2005.

First was reclassification from telecommunication service to information service, the second was removing requirement to lease the infrastructure to others at reasonable price.

Now in order to enter the market each company will need to lay its own infrastructure, but it is even worse than that. If a company wants to run its own fiber cables (like Google Fiber was doing) they need to get incumbent ISPs to move their wires to make space. And those incumbent ISPs purposefully are delaying the process.

In Nashville Google managed to convince city to pass a legislation which would not require incumbent ISPs action, and moving existing wires could be done while lying the new ones (it's done by the same technicians that incumbent ISP would sent anyway). And of course the city was sued by incumbent ISPs.

This shows how fucked this situation really is, because even Google is giving up on their Google Fiber project, and if they can't who else can enter.

Oh and nice bonus, is that Title II requires pole sharing, once it is repealed that requirement won't apply as well. That means any new ISP entering the area will have to deal with constructing new poles or new wells which is even more expensive.

So in short if this is repealed we will be in even more fucked up situation right now.

Oh yeah, also Ajit wants to make sure that individual states won't be able to impose their rules overriding it.

Do you want 5 different ones of each, so you can have market choices? What if there's a really good 6th contender, you mind digging up your yard once again so you can get their service?

Oh, you only have one of each, but still have a choice between providers? That's a great "natural free market", I must hear more about how it came to be. Do please tell.

You need community owned, or privately owned but regulated last mile access, so that multiple ISPs can access you as a customer, for there to be a working market. That means government involvement.

I might also add a constant fact: You are the government.

So natural monopolies aren't a thing? How did Google, Microsoft, US Steel and Standard Oil benefit or receive government support?

That number used to be much higher before safety standards were implemented. So while you can argue about specific standards and regulations, on the whole it's clear society has benefited greatly from them.

Let's not forget Ajit Pai was just a few years ago a corporate attorney working for ... wait for it ... a large ISP - And its very likely he will be again when his term at the FCC ends

I mean, human greed is a constant, and the rules didn’t change from 1996-2015, yet during the same period you said that Wal-Mart would have paid to destroyed Amazon, Amazon became one of the most wealthy and powerful companies in the world. So... it must be something more than the rules, right? Greedy companies were just unimaginative with their greed until a few years ago?

To put it another way: If Wal-Mart simply didn’t realize some trick in those days, what information would the Walton family need to take with them in their time machine to destroy Amazon from 1996-2015?

Sometime in the 2000s, ISPs were classified as Title I entities. Then in 2010, there was an "open internet order" that tried to enforce Net Neutrality in some new way, which the DC courts shot down when Verizon (represented by Mr. Pai) sued over it, saying that Title I didn’t give FCC the authority to regulate in the way that it was trying to in 2010. So then they reclassified ISPs as common carriers e.g. under Title II, so they could impose the same rules that existed in 2010.

So, what I'm still confused about:

1. Prior to 2015, were ISPs ever actually considered common carriers?

2. Did any regulation or legislation exist prior to the "FCC Open Internet Order 2010" that served the same explicitly stated purpose (FCC chairmen saying similar, nice sounding things without actually having the force of law doesn't count)?

Lots of people pointed this technicality out, and wanted to update the regulations to account for it. The ISPs, naturally, weren't too keen on that, so they spent a lot of money on lobbyists to say "everything is fine, if you add more regulation you will break the internet". Thing is, they couldn't really do this on the one hand while simultaneously selling the Waltons the keys to the e-commerce kingdom. They had to adhere to the norms established by regulations, mostly.

But 20 years later, they can pretend that there never were any regulations, and that these norms magically enforce themselves, so why regulate?

That this internet thing will really take off.

Amazon was massively in the red (investment liabilities) until they had enough extra capital to start the 2004ish AWS initiative. Having dealt with AMZ techs in the 90s, I certainly didn't think they would do any better than Pets.com did.

They did change, read through this thread again. Many comments detail how the regulations changed in 2005 and then why they did again in 2015 (hint: Verizon, the same ISP Pai worked for at that time).

https://www.wsj.com/articles/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-t...

Sorry for the paywall. there are many sites that refer to the episode, but they may not all be qualified as journalism.

The rule from 2015 made broadband ISPs regulated under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. ISPs that operate over phone lines already were regulated under Title II.

The notion that internet providers were unregulated in the 90s is outright false.

No. I mean, I guess the complete absence of general broadband rules prior to 2004 might be what Pai wants to return to; but 2004-2010 had a pro-neutrality approach at FCC that he courts stopped in 2010, and 2010-2014 had an approach that the courts stopped in 2014, pointing to Title II as he available basis for the sort of regulation that the FCC had pursued. 2015 saw the FCC follow the court’s guidance and base regulations in Title II.

Most of the history of the commercially-significant, publicly-used internet have been under FCC neutrality enforcement, for which the only viable basis in the wake of 2010 and 2014 court decisions is Title II, which Pai wishes to abandon.

If one wants things to stay the way they were back then, they would want these rules to stay in place, to ensure that. Without these rules, there is absolutely nothing to stop that from going away. In fact, Comcast has already started planning for paid prioritization lanes.

If the ISPs had no intention of violating NN, they would not be lobbying so hard for the repeal of NN.