ISPs shutting down websites is a little on the extreme side, especially since their incentive is to profit from content providers, not to completely shut them down. If ISPs shut down their customers (from the perspective of ISPs, web hosts = customers), they completely lose all revenue they could be gaining from that site/business. The objective here is for ISPs to raise prices so that websites/companies like Youtube, Netflix, etc. have to pay more to get good speed. If they don't pay, then their stuck with a slower connection. Realistically what's going to happen here is that Netflix or whatever will pay, but they're going to raise prices on their end too so that that the end-user pays more for the monthly subscription or whatever. On the other hand, new startup webhosts and content providers will be disadvantaged because the big players can afford the faster the internet, but small companies can't and are stuck with slower Internet. This makes the smaller companies disadvantaged against the big companies.
I say we should go back to dial up. *makes dial up screeching beeping hissing noises* I think people will adapt. This is the new normal. We have to deal with it. The internet "seems" to get worse but just 10 years ago throttled internet on a 100mbps residential line was just a dream. 20 years ago was 56k days. God I feel old. I remember downloading a 15mb part of red alert 2 on a 56k from a ftp. There was a hard disconnect every 4 hours, so I got up to 91% and it would fail. Not resume supported.
I mean, practically speaking this is only going to affect you the most if video/streaming/download content is what you consume the most. Internet speed actually doesn't really matter as much if you're browsing flat HTML and images. When your internet is "slow", half the time it's because your local connection/wifi is bad, not the ISP's connection to the content providers. With or without net neutrality, you probably won't notice any difference browsing a mostly text site like Wikipedia. What it does affect is like if you game, watch a lot of videos, stream media, etc. from the Internet. These use up a lot of data, and the connection needs to be seamless for it to work properly. Currently the Internet (under net neutrality rules) doesn't distinguish between video data and text data. Therefore, if the overall connection was slow while you were watching a video, you saw this: What verizon and AT&T want to do is create a "fast lane" for video that prioritizes content that is sensitive to being dropped, like Skype video calls or things like that. The overall infrastructure hasn't changed -- the idea is to charge more to companies so that their video content can be delivered faster/more prioritization so there is less buffering. Companies like Youtube and Netflix would probably end up paying for better video service, because they can afford it, and the experience for the end user is better (in terms of less buffering). However, companies that provide free video service like Skype would probably be damaged, because if they don't have a good revenue model, it may be hard to come up with money for the priority service. If you play online games, you might also be affected in a similar way, because I imagine that most MMO companies aren't rolling(?) in cash. Same thing if you watch a lot of pirated or fan video online (e.g. stream anime/kdrama).
An unintended consequence? The loss of net neutrality could really be good for boosting the implementation of HEVC/H265 and VP9.
My 2 cents: (disclaimer: I'm not too sure, and I don't live in the USA) What's Net Neutrality? It basically means that ISPs (Internet Service Providers) cannot discriminate between data moving through their network. Thus if you're in college, trying to do some proper study and your friends are playing videogames online next door, both have the same priority in the network. It also means that start-ups have the same priority as big businesses. Could good things be done without Net Neutrality? Yes! I interned for a company that makes software for the computers making up the internet (the nodes between a user's computer and the content they seek). I got a glimpse of how the internet works. It's basically a mixture of a miracle and a game, where ISPs who are competitors have to play together to make the internet work as a whole. Anyway, there's a lot of factors playing behind the scenes. For example, how do they find the location of the things people request, how to maintain stable connections, what to do if a node is turned off, etc. There's also several different types of data, with different requirements. For example, if you're playing a game online, it's actually very little data that is being sent (positions and stuff. All the rendering is done locally), but it ideally has to arrive at a specific interval and as soon as possible to prevent lag. On the other hand, if you're downloading a game, the data has no need to arrive at a good rythm, it can arrive in big chunks as long as it arrives relatively fast. Similarly people browsing Wikipedia, reading manga, watching youtube or watching twitch have very different requirements in terms of how the data has to arrive for an optimal experience. Without net neutrality, ISPs *could* optimize their services to your needs. E.g. If you're a gamer but rarely watch Netflix your internet could be optimized at a cheaper prize to play videogames with really good connection. You'd still be able to watch Netflix though, at an ok-ish rate. Why is repealing Net Neutrality bad then? Because... people don't trust in the ISPs, at least in the USA. Without net neutrality, they'd probably slow down access to certain types of data rather than optimize for certain types of data. There's various reasons why people don't trust ISPs (them getting paid by communities to introduce fiber optic over the years... and simply not doing it, I've heard). And in a way, the damage they could do is much greater than the good they could do. The main problem here is that the above would actually work if there were competition. The problem is that in many places in the US there is either a unique ISP or a very small choice of them. So... proper capitalism can't happen (you know, where competition makes sure that you could just choose a different provider). Why could this affect people outside the US? Because even if you don't live in the US, many services we use are based in the US. Just like how ISPs could make a user's internet deliberately slower, they could also make a website's internet deliberately slower, if that website was based in their network. It would probably not affect Google and the like, because they're already humongous, but they could snuff out smaller data-intensive startups, possibly streaming of videos, music, etc. What will happen to novels??? They're usually extremely light in data... so I don't think they'd be affected at all. Things that could be more likely to be affected are things where a slow internet is painful; manga, videos, anime, online games, etc.
Fortunately the Supreme Court will overturn. Likely, like any rational American with more than two brain cells to rub together, they probably despise Trump even more than I do. Seriously America, WTF! Trump?!?! When did we start scraping the bottom of the barrel!?
Pretty sure I read somewhere that atleast 80% of Americans were for net Neutrality, So this thing wasn't ignored by the masses..... WE were ignored by the government.......
Ajit Pai is so going to be on the cover of Time Magazine's Punchable Faces of 2017. I wonder how it feels like to have millions if not billions of people wanting to punch you in the face.
I had a feeling that the government is more interested in Ajit's agenda rather than the masses opinion. I'm right.
This is a great post! Honestly, I feel like I can see both sides of the argument (economically speaking). Trends have been changing in the 21st century. Millennials and Gen Z'ers have been dropping cable TV in favor of streaming (Netflix, Hulu, Prime), and that makes companies like Verizon nervous. Telcom companies are geographically locked, bleeding customers, but Internet usage is only going up. I find it really fascinating how much used bandwidth is going up every year (and it makes sense, with how much people are switching to the Internet to stream their HD TV). It's more or less self-obvious that ISPs have to keep laying more infrastructure and fiberoptic cables as bandwidth usage goes up in an area. The problem is that ISPs aren't getting more customers. It's just that per capita Internet usage is going up. I live in an area where the Internet can be unreliable sometimes, especially around peak hours. It's annoying when the network gets flooded and I can't do anything! Personally, I'd much prefer it ISPs throttled video traffic at those times rather than having everything go down. It also brings up an interesting concept of more consumer options as well. I think we're all fully expecting ISPs to at some point start rolling out different level plans for residential users (e.g. "Standard plan" "Silver plan" "Gold plan" w/ respect to Internet speed with things like video). Personally, I don't really watch Netflix or TV online, so I wouldn't mind getting a cheaper price for a slower video buffering speed. I think people who already consume a lot of video online could expect to pay more though, and that probably makes them unhappy. Finally, I can also see it leading to ISPs expanding to new areas (or new "budget" ISP companies getting started) more easily, because you don't need a massive amount of bandwidth to to expand to a new remote/low income areas. Rather, the company can lay less cable (for cheaper) per capita, throttle video (unless you premium plan), yet still have decent speed internet for everyone in the area for the essential functions like email and google. I feel like it would be interesting if "budget" ISP companies popped up in places like New York City and other places where bandwidth consumption is immense. Internet is pretty expensive (for me it's $70/month), and that's not easy to afford depending on what your circumstances are, especially when you're low income in a high utilization area. In that kind of situation, I really would consider taking a $10 or $15 plan in exchange for having throttled video but everything else at a decent speed. But I think everyone's opinions could definitely vary depending on their circumstances.
So the telecom companies have all basically said they won't block access to legal sites. Which means they will throttle and block sites they perceive to be illegal. Fan translations of novels are in general unauthorized and violating the author's copyright. So yeah they could possibly throttle or deny access to any translation site if they host unauthorized translations. Will they though? I kinda doubt it. They're probably gonna go after torrent sites first.
This is what happens when all you do is talk, you know. Everywhere I go, people keep talking about it, but nobody's doing anything about it. Sure, they spread awareness everywhere, but that's only because they're hoping someone else would take care of the problem for them. Everyone who talk about it are all just hot air and no action. Your voices worth little if you don't carry pitchforks as well while you scream, guys. That's what (rightist) democracy is about.
The problem with this issue is lack of awareness and horrible campaigning. Instead of Net Neutrality. It should have been called Internet Speed Initiative or something obvious. Academics screwed themselves over. Many here don't even know why they are bad. Misinformation at its finest
I believe the majority of people voted for net neutrality. WuxiaWorld is a Hong Kong-based company, so I doubt the website is based in the US. Though it could be. Also, NU(F) doesn't use the timezone of any American, so why would it be an America-based website? Tony is probably British(Or somewhere else in the EU) anyways...