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[nenjin]

Their purpose is nothing more then justify reactionary and backwards looking policies by those who prospered during the period, or those who simply don't remember.

Golden Ages can be a time when different values and ideology reigned as well. For example, profit has always been a motivation of business. How you profit, and what your degree of profit is, has changed though. You can argue it either way, but to say that Golden Age thinking serves exactly one purpose is just as wrong as saying it's only good.

[alexandertnt]

And regardless, I'm not sure why you even think that would be a thing that would happen? Most places in the US don't have the option to switch to an ISP that doesn't plan on abusing the hell out of a lack of net neutrality. I'm not even sure if any place I've lived does...

I live in rural Australia and I can understand this. You dont have alot of options out here and you basically have to go with what your given. I suspect this may be true for rural America too.

while Foxnews.com runs abnormally slow.

Oh No!, the horrors!

[wierd]

And regardless, I'm not sure why you even think that would be a thing that would happen? Most places in the US don't have the option to switch to an ISP that doesn't plan on abusing the hell out of a lack of net neutrality. I'm not even sure if any place I've lived does...

I live in rural Australia and I can understand this. You dont have alot of options out here and you basically have to go with what your given. I suspect this may be true for rural America too.

while Foxnews.com runs abnormally slow.

Oh No!, the horrors!

No, the "only 2 choices, period" thing happens *everywhere* in the US, because of local franchises being the norm.

Basically, a city or state will give a sweetheart deal to a company to build out infrastructure which then gives that company unfair natural monopoly powers over the ability to physically provide infrastructure.

In theory, this prevents radically redundant infrastructure, and helps to prevent having 50 burried fiber bundles under your house that need to be tracked and considered by the civil engineers for the rest of forever.

In practice, it let's TimeWarner and pals keep everyone else out, while selling consumers a bill of goods for high high prices.

This is actually *WORSE* in cities than in rural areas.

The problem with rural areas is that infrastructure is not cost effective to install or operate as the length of cable and size of the deployments is grossly disproportional to the number of potential subscribers.

[GreatJustice]

And regardless, I'm not sure why you even think that would be a thing that would happen? Most places in the US don't have the option to switch to an ISP that doesn't plan on abusing the hell out of a lack of net neutrality. I'm not even sure if any place I've lived does...

I live in rural Australia and I can understand this. You dont have alot of options out here and you basically have to go with what your given. I suspect this may be true for rural America too.

while Foxnews.com runs abnormally slow.

Oh No!, the horrors!

No, the "only 2 choices, period" thing happens *everywhere* in the US, because of local franchises being the norm.

Basically, a city or state will give a sweetheart deal to a company to build out infrastructure which then gives that company unfair natural monopoly powers over the ability to physically provide infrastructure.

In theory, this prevents radically redundant infrastructure, and helps to prevent having 50 burried fiber bundles under your house that need to be tracked and considered by the civil engineers for the rest of forever.

In practice, it let's TimeWarner and pals keep everyone else out, while selling consumers a bill of goods for high high prices.

This is actually *WORSE* in cities than in rural areas.

The problem with rural areas is that infrastructure is not cost effective to install or operate as the length of cable and size of the deployments is grossly disproportional to the number of potential subscribers.

This, so very, very much. It's worth mentioning that, at the end of the 19th century, consumers actually often had more choice in terms of utilities, as there was pretty brisk competition in gas, electricity, telephones, and so on, particularly in towns and major cities (it was still expanding to more rural areas, where there were generally one or two providers). This basically ended when the US government basically nationalized the telephone companies and gave them to Bell in 1913, though towns and cities had already engaged in a certain amount of cronyism to reduce the amount of competition in select industries.

[nenjin]

Yeah, TWC won't run high speed internet (last time I checked) 3 miles outside of my town to another town of about 200. They simply won't make a profit for how much cable they'll have to lay. And since no one is allowed to compete with TWC in Nebraska......enjoy your dial up.

[Baffler]

That's really the problem with the thing. The court's decision was based, in part, on this:

“Without broadband provider market power, consumers, of course, have options,” the court writes. “They can go to another broadband provider if they want to reach particular edge providers or if their connections to particular edge providers have been degraded.”

source.

This is, of course, blatantly untrue. I live in a fairly well developed area and I only have 1 choice. So does most everyone else I've talked to. The FCC still has the power to make rules about this though, and as far as I know their stance hasn't changed.

[alexandertnt]

This, so very, very much. It's worth mentioning that, at the end of the 19th century, consumers actually often had more choice in terms of utilities, as there was pretty brisk competition in gas, electricity, telephones, and so on, particularly in towns and major cities (it was still expanding to more rural areas, where there were generally one or two providers). This basically ended when the US government basically nationalized the telephone companies and gave them to Bell in 1913, though towns and cities had already engaged in a certain amount of cronyism to reduce the amount of competition in select industries.

Ironically, the only way that non-crap internet is was comming out here in rural Aus was through the nationalized NBN. But I agree that internet providers shouldn't be given a monopoly. If in some far-off fantasy-land some other provider can offer a better optical connection here I would want to go with that.

[LordSlowpoke]

Threads like these make me like my ISP a lot more than I should. Random maintenance without any warning? Fuck that noise. They have opt-IN filters, not opt-out like friends in Britashka, provide a decent up/down ratio and the only complaint I have is that they haven't brought their highspeed cables this side of town yet. Bliss! <3

[Skyrunner]

Korean internet is so far blessed with fierce competition. At least in Seoul, all three major broadband companies have their networks and you can subscribe to any one. The internet plans are all uncapped to a reasonable amount (trying to pull 1 PB in a month probably will warrent a soft cap), homogenous between company, and also fast.

[DJ]

Nationalize the cables, have ISPs pay rent to use them. Just like radio frequencies.

[LordSlowpoke]

yes because internet signals need that sort of protection to not be jammed by rival isps and shit, mostly shit

nationalizing the cables would be literally national socialism, national part added after the copyright mafia greases government palms a bit

[DJ]

Godwin much?

[LordSlowpoke]

i use godwin a lot recently, don't know why and should probably stop since the amount of comparing things to hitler and national socialism is literally comparing things to hitler and national socialism

that and it wouldn't even be socialism to begin with

very pointless post yes

[Zangi]

That's really the problem with the thing. The court's decision was based, in part, on this:

“Without broadband provider market power, consumers, of course, have options,” the court writes. “They can go to another broadband provider if they want to reach particular edge providers or if their connections to particular edge providers have been degraded.”

source.

This is, of course, blatantly untrue. I live in a fairly well developed area and I only have 1 choice. So does most everyone else I've talked to. The FCC still has the power to make rules about this though, and as far as I know their stance hasn't changed.

I only have 1 option for dsl service.  I do not have any access to broadband.  I have no choice in the matter when it comes to internet at my home.  Unless I want to go for a much slower dial-up service or good-until-it-gets-a-little-cloudy satellite service.

[GlyphGryph]

So, to summarize, we mostly seem to agree:
We cant trust the ISPs as the market forces that might keep them honest aren't in place.
It would be nice if we had some good regulation, but its become patently obvious we cant trust the government either - the government is a big part of WHY those market forces dont exist after all.
LordSlowpoke is a Nazi Dinosaur

I dont know what the solution would be.