F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules [A real thread]

[loftar]

its not so much that i think "the blue boys will fix it!", so much as red currently holds majority, which isnt cool. I'm just hoping a few blue boys will be enough to break the majority and lock up the houses instead of having all the power in the hands of the president

But they all want the same things anyway?

[ricky]

its not so much that i think "the blue boys will fix it!", so much as red currently holds majority, which isnt cool. I'm just hoping a few blue boys will be enough to break the majority and lock up the houses instead of having all the power in the hands of the president

But they all want the same things anyway?

Yeah, it's pretty fucked all the way around, but i'm holding out that petty identity politics will gum up the works long enough to keep some bills from passing.

even with red majority trump couldnt pass revised healthcare legislation after ...5? tries. congress is struggling to pass that fucked tax bill right now.

[jordancoles]

its not so much that i think "the blue boys will fix it!", so much as red currently holds majority, which isnt cool. I'm just hoping a few blue boys will be enough to break the majority and lock up the houses instead of having all the power in the hands of the president

It's really weird to me how America has "teams" in their politics and everyone just takes a side and rejects the other. It just seems like the worst way to go about changing anything since when the other team gets into power they reverse the previous group's work and then substitute their own (forever?)

[slipper]

[Onep]

It's not so much "teams" as it is our political system favors the hyper partisan political parties. And neither of the groups is willing to give up their power and allow 3rd parties to gain a foot hold. We need proportional representation not this nonsense where you either pick shit or manure.

[loftar]

We need proportional representation not this nonsense where you either pick shit or manure.

As a denizen of a country with proportional representation, I can share with you that it makes exactly nothing better, and that it is, if anything, a purer form of all that is bad with democracy.

It's really weird to me how America has "teams" in their politics and everyone just takes a side and rejects the other. It just seems like the worst way to go about changing anything since when the other team gets into power they reverse the previous group's work and then substitute their own (forever?)

I don't know how things work in Canada, but this sounds to me like literally any other democratic country whose politics I've even cursorily followed.

[The_Blode]

I don't know how things work in Canada

exact same shit as the US in the end, just more focus on the useless minor parties so people are conned into thinking it's different from our southerly neighbours.
Express a view, get lumped in as conservative or liberal. pick a side, black or white, good or bad, left or right. shades of grey are SO 20th century.

[jordancoles]

I don't know how things work in Canada

exact same shit as the US in the end, just more focus on the useless minor parties so people are conned into thinking it's different from our southerly neighbours.
Express a view, get lumped in as conservative or liberal. pick a side, black or white, good or bad, left or right. shades of grey are SO 20th century.

It's true, it's very similar here and many other places

What surprises me about America is mainly just how obvious it is. A line drawn in the sand that divides large groups of people.

In general Canada's various groups see can eye to eye on things, and for the most part, differing political views co exist within our communities. But from what I've seen in America you're either 'with' one or the other, and the side that you choose (or get lumped in with) can determine how your interactions will go with the people around you (though there's good reason at the moment due to the current president).

[MagicManICT]

I would like to point out that this is one of the pillars of fascism by definition.

I don't necessarily completely agree with the concept of net neutrality, but we have to recall what started this. Comcast (and Time Warner, too) was threatening to charge Netflix a premium to serve their content despite Comcast not being a backbone agent. Netflix pays their service provider based on the amount of traffic they sent out already. Why should Netflix (or any other network based business) have to pay every Harry, Dick, and Tom to do business? If Comcast think they're customers are sucking too much data bandwidth, Comcast needs to charge their customers more so they can cover the backbones they're drawing data from and expand their own network capacity.

The other aspect of it is that the backbones and distribution lines are a utility. You can only lay so much cable, and there's only so many frequencies you can transmit over. There is a distinct lack of opportunity for competition given the bar to enter the arena. Add in cable providers are still a local monopoly, and their competition is primarily satellite services and phone services (also another sector that holds local monopolies for the most part... at least in the US, won't speak for parts of EU and Asia where the telecomm isn't government owned.)

(though I hope it'll be somewhat limited to the USA)

I don't know what the outcome will be eventually. Maybe this will usher in a utopia of network services. Maybe it will be the downfall of freedom of speech. I know we started regulating utilities in the past for a long laundry list of reasons. Either way it goes, someone is going to benefit, and if it's the powerful, then don't expect it to stay in the US. Look how the free market economy has spread the world over. A few smarter countries have put some restraint on it, but over the last 100 years, it's been grasped by every country that has prospered.

[jordancoles]

If Comcast think they're customers are sucking too much data bandwidth, Comcast needs to charge their customers more so they can cover the backbones they're drawing data from and expand their own network capacity.

But now Comcast will finally make enough money to be able to pay for those expansions! /s