It's funny, the FCC's mandate isn't to poll the public and do whatever most of them want. Strange how people seem to think it's a numbers game, at least when they feel the numbers are on their side
Logician and Philosopher Raymond Smullyan had a story about this in one of his books. He had gone on a trip with a woman with a little girl. The adults wanted to eat at colorful local cafes, while the girl wanted to eat at McDonalds. He suggested that they vote, and the little girl replied, "That's no fair. I'd lose!"
Our republic isn't designed just to do what the people want. It's intentionally designed so that good people can sometimes do something unpopular in the public interest. For this to work, it's incumbent on the voting public to elect good people.
Yep, there's a reason populism is commonly derided even in democratic societies. The founding fathers and "The Federalist Papers" [1] talked heavily about this problem (aka the influence of the "lowest common denominator" in popular voting).
Where these popular ideas do matter is in the marketplace. The entire tech industry, including some of the wealthiest companies in the world, will most certainly rebel against any attempt by ISPs to threaten net neutrality. And there will similarly be a revolt by customers.
Google Fiber was created merely to promote the deployment of fiber, Net Neutrality is a far bigger issue than fiber to both the tech industry and ISP consumers.
Even without FCC rules it will still be very dangerous for any ISP to make any significant changes to how the internet works.
The most likely scenario is that a few mobile internet providers may offer niche small packages of limited internet to mobile users for $5-10/month (which so far is the only real world example of "net neutrality" being violated in the world, by a Portuguese ISP)... basically a way to offer cheaper packages to some users who can't afford full broadband. This is basically the only thing I could see ISPs getting away with. I highly doubt any ISP would risk limiting the internet for any average home broadband users. Most American ISPs are public companies who still have worry about their bottom line.
The backlash even without FCC laws will be a significant deterrence.
ISPs already do incredibly unpopular things, but it doesn't hurt their bottom line because their customers don't have other provider options. What are they going to do, go without internet?
Comcast is one of the most hated companies in the US, but you wouldn't know it by looking at their stock price. The free market is not a solution here.
That's not the problem. The problem is that this is not a free market. The ISPs have effective control of the federal government and many state governments, and use that control to block competition from e.g. municipal ISPs. If the free market were actually allowed to operate, it would very likely solve the problem.
I didn't say the free market is a problem. I'm not a communist; I like the free market and I agree with your comment.
However, like you said, it's not a free market and it won't be for the foreseeable future. Fantasizing about that changing isn't a solution either. At the moment, government regulations are the best tools we have to protect consumers.
Have they pissed off the entire tech industry and attempted to fundamentally change how the internet works?
Having poor customer service, high fees, etc seems like a far cry from completely changing how internet billing works and whitelisting websites/throttling the entire internet.
What is the "entire tech industry" really going to do when the ISPs decide to fundamentally change how the Internet works? It seems like access to consumers, which the ISPs control, is pretty important for a large segment of the tech industry.
But first the ISPs have to actually do the things that we were warned they would do if the FCC scraped these laws. No ISP has yet announced or even proposed any specific future changes.
I'm not even sure what being "wrong" here will look like in practical terms:
- Are average home broadband internet plans going to have their internet filtered unless they pay more for 'unlimited'? With TV-style "grouped" packages?
- What websites (tech companies) will be included in these hypothetical filtered packages?
- Will they (Netflix/Disney/Facebook/Google/etc) let the ISPs include their brand(s) in marketing these new non-neutral plans? Will they let the ISP include their website in any throttled package in technical terms?
- Will ISPs be launching the new plans perfectly in sync with other ISP companies, for the 80% of Americans who have more than one ISP option, so they won't hemorrhage customers to competitors when they completely revamp their billing? Will they grandfather existing users?
...there are far too many questions to properly give you a answer about how the industry will respond.
When/if that actually becomes a reality then it will be easier to guess how the trillion dollar industry will react and if the ISP customers will sit idly by with no recourse... at the moment I'm confident there will be plenty to do to make business/life for Comcast/ATT shareholders uncomfortable if they ever were dumb enough to mess with how the internet works for the average American.
Three days and no answer to my questions? This is the third time I've posed these questions on HN/Reddit and not a single 'activist' has given me an answer.
That's exactly why I'm not buying this idea that these FCC policies were what's stopping ISPs from disrupting 'net neutrality'.
If you actually dig into the details it doesn't make much sense and is extremely risky. Yet I seem to be one of the very few who is actually challenging this stuff on rational grounds rather than "herr derr I support republican policies and want to be a contrarian".
The reality is that not every situation calls for government intervention. Especially extremely hypothetical situations which have never even been tried in the market place.
This is equivalent to regulatory "pre-crime" enforcement...
In the past, people getting really mad at ISPs has not changed anything. I don't see any reason to believe that people getting really really REALLY mad is going to change anything either. There's no mechanism for it to.
Customers "being mad" at ISPs is hardly what I'm saying is stopping them. It's merely a minor part of the problem. See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15926116
The customers revolting is not a matter of influencing Comcast/ATT/etc, it's a matter of influencing Google/Apple/HBO+Disney/Netflix etc etc etc.
People love to trivialise this counter-point as merely "oh ISPs dont have competition therefore the market can't fight this problem", which is incredibly reductive and misses the forest for the trees.
Why don't you consider T-Mobile's "Binge On" plan to be a violation of net neutrality? I recall it being something like: Netflix data is free, other data is $10/GB.
It seems exactly the same as that widely-quoted Portuguese example, which also let you pay a data rate for sites that weren't in their special packages. This happened in the US because net neutrality was weak and never really applied to mobile carriers.
Apologies, I should clarify, my Portuguese ISP example is the only real world example of the "TV-style limited internet packages" being deployed by a real-world ISP (which is the primary scenario nearly ever pro-net neutrality article warns about).
> Comcast's throttling of bittorrent
Were these FCC laws blocking Comcast from throttling Bittorrent traffic?
Canada was also the first country to throttle bittorrent traffic as well and the adoption of encryption in Bittorrent clients was largely able to bypass this issue AFAIK (I haven't experienced any slow downs in years in Canada since I toggled "force encrypted peers").
> Rogers throttling of all encrypted traffic in Canada
Source? I used Rogers for years and I've never heard of this problem.
""Comcast's practices are not minimally intrusive, as the company claims, but rather are invasive and have significant effects," the commission said, demanding an end to the practices by year's end."
This was under the Title I classification that was struck down by the verizon lawsuit, where the court said that the way to enforce these rules within the FCC's existing powers was via Title II.
Comcast and Verizon both throttled netflix for a while, before getting smacked. What do want to bet that's back in force, as soon as tomorrow perhaps? They've got all the code from last time ready to go.
> The entire tech industry, including some of the wealthiest companies in the world, will most certainly rebel against any attempt by ISPs to threaten net neutrality
Have you noticed not many tech companies have complained? Did telecom win by attrition, or did they negotiate after the last failure?
I think you are ignoring the main financial motive for this change - ISPs want to shake down Google, Facebook, and other successful internet companies. Customers won't see this directly. It will have indirect effects by increasing costs for the companies they use, but not in an obvious way that will cause a revolt. In financial terms, this dispute is mainly about these giant companies battling over who gets the fat profits Google and Facebook are currently taking home.
This is pretty disingenuous because one elected official is oftentimes overloaded with multiple responsibilities. In this case the FCC chairman was appointed by the president (Barack Obama). Are you implying that the REAL way to deal with the Net Neutrality issue is that we need to become single-issue voters with respect to net neutrality next presidential election cycle? That seems a bit silly, and yet seems like the only reasonable way to affect change in this situation by "playing by the rules". It would be a lot less anxiety producing if people had a more direct way of affecting FCC rules without having to possibly sacrifice some other completely unrelated issue they care about (such as Supreme Court appointment, or health care direction, etc. etc.).
It would be a lot easier to get behind the idea that we should elect "good people" if we weren't concentrating so many responsibilities to the one magic "good person" we get to choose.
To further clarify, the FCC rules state that Only three commissioners can be of the same political party at any given time. Pai was Obama's nomination but he was not Obama's choice. He was McConnell's choice.
Are you implying that the REAL way to deal with the Net Neutrality issue that we need to become single-issue voters with respect to net neutrality next presidential election cycle?
No. I'm not trolling either. Raymond Smullyan's stories are meant to be like Zen Koan. My factual and historical observations are much the same. It's more like a Rorschach blot.
It would be a lot easier to get behind the idea that we should elect "good people" if we weren't concentrating so many responsibilities to the one magic "good person" we get to choose.
Our world is considerably more complex than it was in 1800.
While technically correct, your comment is misleading because the seat legally belonged to the Republicans and he was chosen by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Obama could have rejected the nomination but anyone that the Republicans have a say in will be anti-net neutrality.
That's not true. He was appointed in 2012 by Obama and confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Trump merely renominated him to keep the position for another 5 year term.
No, Trump selected him to be the chair, he didn't merely renominate him.
But, in any case, Obama nominated him but did not choose him so much as he choose not to violate long-standing precedent as to how the seats that cannot (because the 3 members of one party limit has been reached) be from the President’s party are selected.
Now, he could have violated that precedent, but that wouldn't have likely gotten someone else into the seat, just given up any chance of Senate confirmation.
Obama still made the decision to nominate him. Plain and simple. And Trump did renominate him for another 5 years. Yes, he elevated him to chairman, but he still gets the same 1 vote, so it doesn't matter. Not quite sure what point you were trying to make.
Yes, but I took the OP to mean that you could press your congressional rep to sponsor or support a Net Neutrality bill that would override agency regulations.
Appointed by President Obama allegedly as a sort of "Olive Branch" to the Republicans.
I really wish the Democrats had just started firing broadsides at Republicans in the last decade, given that the Republicans clearly can stomach the lowest of the low political gamesmanship.
> Appointed by President Obama allegedly as a sort of "Olive Branch" to the Republicans.
It was an “olive branch” to Republicans in much the same sense as the British sovereign offering the leader of the party that has secured a majority the opportunity to form a government is an “olive branch” to that party; it is, through combination of law (limiting the number of members of one party, and mandating Senate
confirmation before a nomination becomes an actual appointment) and established custom (as to how nominees that are not of the President’s party are chosen), a requirement that, if violated, would produce a major crisis.
It's not an olive branch. The President is required to appoint no more than 3 members of one (his own) party, and 5 total. The chair is then designated by the President.
People keep saying this like he's the person who chose Pai. The way these commissions work is:
- it's staffed by members of each party
- each party's leaders (typically in the Senate) choose the people who will be appointed
- the President typically rubber-stamps those appointments
- the President at the time really only gets to choose which member of the commission is the Chairman
So if you want to blame someone for Pai, you should be blaming Senator McConnell for telling President Obama "here's the Republican we want you to put on the commission".
Not disagreeing with you - I'm taking issue with the parent poster who wanted to blame this on trump. There's plenty of blame to go around in our government, but it doesn't all fall on Trump (as the post I replied to implied)
Ajit Pai was appointed to the FCC by Obama, your elected official, and was designated FCC Chairman by Trump, your other elected official. So it looks like you voted wrong twice in a row!
Sure, it's easy to drown people with a link and a 210 pages document, but can you briefly explain it with your own words and voice your opinion for us?
"Considering both distributional effects and changes in efficiency, it is a good idea to let companies that send video or other content to consumers pay more to Internet service providers for the right to send that traffic using faster or higher quality service."
I believe Netflix and YouTube and what-not already pay their service providers for the bandwidth they use.
Neither Netflix nor YouTube would exist if they had to pay for bandwidth at the rate consumers do. If Netflix was sending everything over the regular internet, it would literally break - the only reason Netflix can stream as much as it does is because of caching close to consumers.
Well, I’m a sucker. I just read your very lengthy first link and learned absolutely nothing. The entire statement is questionable anecdotes, unreasoned conclusions and baseless declarations of what is good.
What about this text did you find valuable? Please share.
>So it’s no surprise that the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, which represents small fixed wireless companies that typically operate in rural America, surveyed its members and found that over 80% “incurred additional expense in complying with the Title II rules, had delayed or reduced network expansion, had delayed or reduced services and had allocated budget to comply with the rules.” Other small companies, too, have told the FCC that these regulations have forced them to cancel, delay, or curtail fiber network upgrades. And nearly two dozen small providers submitted a letter saying the FCC’s heavy-handed rules “affect our ability to find financing.” Remember, these are the kinds of companies that are critical to providing a more competitive marketplace.
And you believe that Ajit Pai is "one of the good people" doing the "good thing" against public interest?
Funny because I believe Ajit Pai is a corporate shill doing what his Friends at Verizon wanted and I am sure he is hoping the land a nice 6 figure job in the private sector in a couple years....
This move today for the FCC has absolutely nothing to with public interest
Why did they solicit public feedback then? And why did they misrepresent public feedback and refuse to acknowledge that most people want net neutrality? Obviously they aren't beholden to what the public wants, but the latter is clearly scummy, is it not?
It's required because it's supposed to help inform the FCC of pending legal challenges. FCC and other government agencies are supposed to take those comments seriously to avoid implementing bad rules and attracting expensive lawsuits in order to save the government (and ultimately the peoples') money.
I'm not sure I'd use the term "direct feedback mechanism" to describe voting for an elector who votes on a President who appoints a commissioner to a five person committee for five year terms.
The direct feedback mechanism is voting, for people who draw maps that determine who get's elected to have the power to determine the composition of the rule-making bodies.
You could even argue it's how people spend their money that determines who has money to chose who get's to draw the maps etc.
Yes, the intent is to let the public weigh in, help the committee make an informed decision as opposed to a capricious and arbitrary one. The decision is clearly arbitrary, as Pai has stated from the beginning he's going to do this, has blatantly ignored everyone, and is now on record as having insulted us. In terms of capricious, that's harder to prove. Between the EFF and the various attorneys general, this will be tied up in federal court.
The intent is to let different parties bring their concerns to the attention of the FCC. It is not a vote. Every public comment could advocate for one thing, and the FCC is perfectly in its right to do the other.
The only federal elections are for the President, Senators, and Representatives. This is not a direct democracy.
It also means due to personal whim. I don't think it was this either. Pai has reasons for his choice. Many, of course, disagree with these reasons or think they are bad reasons but they are reasons nonetheless. It wasn't an arbitrary decision.
It's "arbitrary" because Pai, on multiple occasions, indicated he will not take the comments into effect. Even after the reports of the faked comments, the calls to delay the vote by some senators, the faked DDoS attack, he still went through with it. There's also allegation he violated the FCC's process. He was determined to ram this through no matter what. That's arbitrary.
No, that just means it's not a democracy. One can listen to a bunch of comments, disagree with them, and choose to do the opposite of what they say without being arbitrary.
His determination actually demonstrates the lack of arbitrariness. Arbitrary choices are held lightly and easily changed. This was the opposite.
That's capricious, not arbitrary. If Pai wanted this to go by the book, he would have pushed the vote out until the investigations into the fraudulent comments was completed, at the least. Someone who was determined to see this go through, but not in an arbitrary fashion, would have waited until the various issues with the process were resolved, and then held the vote. Pai was determined to hold this vote no matter what, that's arbitrary.
Capricious means "given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior."
AFAIK at no point during the process did Pai change much at all. He made it clear what he was going to do from the beginning and stuck to it the whole way through.
"The term arbitrary describes a course of action or a decision that is not based on reason or judgment but on personal will or discretion without regard to rules or standards."
Most of Pai's arguments are half-truths or out right lies. There have been several instances where his claims were fact checked against the data and proved to be false.
Furthermore: "In many instances, the term implies an element of bad faith, and it may be used synonymously with tyrannical or despotic."
I think there's a good case that Pai's actions and statements could be shown to be despotic.
Soliciting and addressing public feedback is; ignoring and/or misrepresenting it is not (and may, in fact, help support a finding that the act was arbitrary and capricious in the light of the information available to the agency at the time of the decision, though that's—even with that fact established—a fairly difficult case to make.)
The FCC has dismissed the public's feedback[1]--they never considered it and did a poor job of soliciting it in the first place. The servers went down during the feed back process, the interface for solicitation was confusing and there wasn't much effort to prevent spam. There were 22 million replies (the previous record was 3.7 million during the last net neutrality debate). Even if you write most of that off as spam or duplicate, form-comments, that's still an immense amount of feedback. To dismiss it all is misrepresenting it.
You're complaining about servers going down while acknowledging that the number of comments was unprecedented?
And your link doesn't support your claim:
>The Pai staffer who spoke with reporters acknowledged that there were legitimate comments from both sides in the net neutrality docket. In Pai's draft order, the FCC comprehensively addresses all the serious comments that made factual and legal arguments, the official said.
> You're complaining about servers going down while acknowledging that the number of comments was unprecedented?
Yes I am. My point is that they did a poor job at soliciting feedback--not that they didn't get a lot. The fact the volume was so high just shows how important it was for this issue. If servers are going offline, then you can show good faith by extending the comment period or addressing it in some other manor.
Being "required to solicit comments and to consider them" doesn't mean you only consider a subset containing legal arguments.
This isn't exactly true. There is a reason that the FCC must accept submissions from the public before it makes a major decision -- it's part of the FCC charter to consider the input of the public. If a prosecutor can argue that the FCC did not take the public's comments into account (or did not take them seriously or the public commenting process was not done properly), then a court should overturn the FCC's decision.
You're right that it's not a referendum. But the public poll was not "yea or nea?" it was "if we did this, what sort of problems would it raise for you?" And if they had substantive answers to the problems raised, then it would be logical for them to override the outcry. But it was instead as if the answer was, "Yes, the feedback solicited was merely our bureaucratic obligation but we are not obligated to follow through."
What do you suppose the purpose of government agencies is then?
Looking at their mandate it seems pretty clear that they are there to serve the interests of American citizens and should be acting in citizens best interests.
I think that's pretty clear in the use of the phrase "the people of the United State" here:
The FCC's mission, specified in Section One of the Communications Act of 1934 and amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (amendment to 47 U.S.C. §151) is to "make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nationwide, and world-wide wire and radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges."[1]
This is true with some caveats. "The judiciary" can overturn a decision in some cases. See [0] for a very detailed explaination. Comments to the FCC do MATTER. If half of America says that Net-Neutrality is good and then it gets repealed, then the judicial branch can accept a case examining the decision. Or something, IANAL, but the the dude who wrote [0] is.
Specifically, the paragraph which starts with "Another way they'll drop their deference" is roughly the section which covers the caveats.
That's just not true. The FCC are appointed by our elected representatives. Why do you think they even have to pretend they are accepting public comments on things like this? If the FCC does something bad, like this, we have the ability to elect better representatives, who will throw out these telco stooges and appoint people who represent us, not the large telco monopolies.
I was about to say people think in Democracy every vote counts the same. It doesn't. Imagine quality of people's life in big cities if majority living outside would be playing first violin. The latest Presidential race is great example how Democratic election works.
> Imagine quality of people's life in big cities if majority living outside would be playing first violin.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here - that's exactly what happens in the US. People in rural Nebraska or Wyoming's vote is often up to three times more "effective" than someone in NYC or LAs.
Let us agree that what you said is True. Let us also agree that this statement is true, and perhaps becoming increasingly at odds with our federal government:
> Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
The structure is such that people elect representatives and those representatives sometimes appoint other people to roles because it's not feasible for people to elect 10's or 100's of thousands of public employees with decision and regulatory making power.
Also, all of these people are still humans. Meaning that they have their own closely held beliefs. If you are honestly expecting non-elected officials to violate their own beliefs based on public feedback simply because "majority rules", you aren't living in reality. That virtually never happens. When it does happen, it usually happens on issues that are not hot-button issues and those being hounded by the public don't have a strong opinion so they are willing to switch sides if necessary.
And the US is not and has never been a majority rule democracy. It's a constitutional republic and that's a critical difference. Part of that structure is ensuring that in some cases (like the electoral college), the majority don't get to make the rules simply because they decided to band together or live close to each other. The electoral college exists precisely for the situation the US is currently in - where the more liberal areas are all clustered in relatively small, high density areas. They now account for more than 50% of the population but far less in the electoral college because the system was built to prevent that density issue where these small areas by land mass could force feed laws upon the rest of the country, enabling those areas to effectively have control over money and resources which they otherwise would not.
Which is exactly what cracks me up... Republicans, moreso than Democrats, are always talking about government screwing over the people and yet this vote was completely on party lines. I wonder how they're going to figure out that dissonance.
"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it."
Well, by saying that Title II was an overreach of the government and stifles competition. (Not my opinion. Just stating that it's not exactly inconsistent with their ideology. Just another example of ideology over common sense preventing people from doing what's right)
Right... I just think its curious that their statements are so meaningless and have such little substance that you could replace "government" with "oligarchy", "corporations", or any other term that describes are large, organized group of people.
This move decreases the government's regulatory power in this area; it completely follows republican ideaology. The government cant screw over citizens if they aren't touching an issue.
Nature fucks them over because the government doesn't protect them from nature. The government does not fuck them over. There's a very distinct difference, and recognizing that difference is one of the fundamental things that separates Democrats and Republicans.
In this case, it is an act of government, repealing an existing regulation, which is allowing the fucking over. Hence, government fucking over citizens.
Is it? Republicans were voted by the public into Congress, into the presidency. They are acting just as anyone voting for them could expect. In that sense they are representing the will of the people who duly elected them.
The FCC ignored the will of a small % of technology-oriented, predominately liberal voters. Just because all the media that you might tend to consume and the people you tend to converse with are vocally against this repeal, doesn't mean that that represents the will of the majority. That same sort of ideological bubble is what caused everyone to be so shocked when Trump actually won, despite all the polls and predictions to the contrary.
When you explain what Net Neutrality is, an overwhelming majority of people supported it, including republicans. This isn't just a tech-literate liberal issue.
A majority of people support Democrat's economic policies...even though Republicans hold a majority of the seats at both the state and federal level. It seems like people aren't necessarily voting for the party that represent's their positions--or, more likely, there are wedge issues that cause them to vote another way.
From everything I've seen, net neutrality seems to have broad voter support, regardless of party, and even many Republicans in office have voiced concerns. So are they really acting the way voters would expect?
In an ideal world, people vote in the government they want, and the elected representatives follow the will of the people. We all know such a world doesn't exist [1]. In practice:
* Most voters don't even know what net neutrality is. How will they care if they don't understand that they should care? It's a complicated, nuanced subject even for tech people.
* It wasn't part of the Trump/republican platform at the time of the election. As far as I can recall, it didn't even come up during the presidential debates. Voters might want net neutrality, but they might not have known that voting for Trump/GOP would cause a repeal.
* The last couple of decades show that Congress (and politicans in general) overwhelmingly goes where the money is. There's a huge amount of money and lobbying power on the pro-repeal side, and the current FCC is a classic example of regulatory capture [2], with every indication that the FCC (and the Trump administration) is now stocked with industry insiders.
Hate to say "I told you so", but conservatives (sometimes) and libertarians have been warning the country for ever about the pitfalls of centralizing important things like this under an unaccountable federal bureaucracy. If you're opposed to this ruling, you're most likely reaping what you sow.
What? If you're a staunch libertarian who wants the FCC to go away, how would the absence of FCC help net neutrality?
We only have (had!) net neutrality and other important regulatory protections because the FCC exists.
Something needs to exist as a protection against corporate abuse. If it's not a centralized agency, then what? There's no self-correcting mechanism in capitalism that magically prevents companies from screwing with consumers.
Never said I was an opponent or proponent of 'Net Neutrality'. I was merely commenting on the interesting turn of events where the obvious ramifications of a centralized bureaucracy 'hurt' the perceived well being of the people who typically argue FOR centralized power. For all my ill feeling towards the Trump administration, it has been extremely fruitful in providing situations which exhibit this hilarity.
As for your statement and question;
> Something needs to exist as a protection against corporate abuse. If it's not a centralized agency, then what? There's no self-correcting mechanism in capitalism that magically prevents companies from screwing with consumers
Couple points...
First, "There's no self-correcting mechanism in capitalism that magically prevents companies from screwing with consumers" gave me a solid laugh. Little thought experiment: let's say there are two alternate realities. In one of these realities, somehow, Starbucks is the ONLY way for you to get coffee. Somehow, they've completely ensured other coffee shops can't open (it's either too expensive for them to open or literally illegal). In the other reality, opening a coffee shop is easy! Starbucks hasn't colluded with any government agency to make coffee shop ownership too expensive or difficult to pull off. In which one of these realities do you think (the) coffee shop(s) would abuse their customer base(s), charge inflated prices, or provide lackluster serviced that rarely if ever are innovated on? I'm hoping for the sake of discussion, you understand my point. Scenario 1 is hardly a far stretch from exactly what has happened over the years in the ISP industry. The FCC is HARDLY innocent in creating our current dismal ISP situation. Open markets are THE system that prevents abusive actions towards consumers.
The second point, I am far from against the government protecting consumers from abuse by corporations. Fraud or anti-competitive behavior should be met with a stern legal response. But when the government played a huge role in creating an environment where we can't protect ourselves, I'm extremely dubious of any power grab attempted in the name of "we'll protect you". In an open market, I have a perfectly good mechanism for protecting myself which also happens to stimulate innovation, lowers prices, and improves the product/service.
So yea, an artificial monopoly has now been given more leeway in how they provide services to an already abused customer base... it's a bummer. However, I'm not keen on providing more power to the very people who helped get us here so that they can control the problem they created. Let's fix the root of the issue. Decry crony capitalism always - not just when it's 'the other guys' doing it.
And one last point... ISPs provide an extremely expensive and complex service to their customers. In what world are price controls and artificial monopolies a good idea? We need innovation in this space, not uniformity of service and centralized decision making. It's the internet, not the DMV. We should make it so ISPs have to win our usership by providing the best most valuable service, not by wielding the legislative process more effectively then there would be competition.
If you're interested in further reading I found this analysis [1] of the gap between GOP policy and GOP public positioning pretty interesting. However, it's certainly couched as a screed. Depending on your politics that may make it difficult to wade through.
We live in an oligarchy, the will of the voters hasn't been relevant for a long time:
> Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
This is objectively true. There are studies that show that the opinions of American voters have a near zero, statistically insignificant effect on policy:
Republican legislators are pretty uniformly against net neutrality. The Republican public is not, with one recent poll showing 3 out of 4 Republicans familiar with the issue voicing opposition to the rollback of regulations. [1]
That's because you don't get to choose your issues one at a time. You get to choose a basket of issue positions at the same time as a legislator's personality. Normally from a choice of two.
Because people voted for someone, doesn't mean they fully agree with the elected person's whole program. In an election you have only a few candidates for a large number of possible combinations of positions. If you mostly agree with republicans except on a few things, you're probably still going to vote republican.
Exactly. For example, if you believe very strongly in Second Amendment rights, most Democratic candidates are not an option on election day. Additionally, Hillary Clinton was a very polarizing candidate even among registered Democrats.
As a prolific (and I mean prolific) gun owner, I've yet to see evidence of mass-Democrat candidate opposition to the 2nd amendment in general. "Gun Grabbing" hasn't been a party-wide concept despite Republican propaganda otherwise.
Stupid gun rules, like magazine size limitations, sure, but they almost never "come for my guns." Often the suggestions are perfectly reasonable in my mind - national gun registry, for example.
What purpose would a national gun registry serve other than to set the stage for eventual confiscation? I'm genuinely curious, because I can't think of any crime it would prevent, while being a big affront to privacy.
Considering that guns keep being sold to people they absolutely should not be, a registry makes it easy for the FBI or ATF to get flagged when an "unallowed purchaser" attempts or succeeds to make a purchase. Then they can know to either confiscate (because of an illegal purchase) or start monitoring heavily. Previous mass shootings were by people who should not have been able to purchase, but lack of a registry allowed them to "slip through the cracks."
Another scenario - the FBI is monitoring radicalization in a small community. They check the gun registry to see which of the people in the community becoming radicalized are actual potential threats and zero in their investigation on those individuals, to prevent a shooting.
Etc. Basically just makes law enforcement's jobs more feasible.
The government doesn't have the resources to "confiscate" every registered gun owners' guns at the same time, and so we would be well aware if a confiscation by a tyrannical government is coming, and all of us weirdo militia folk and preppers would already be putting the sandbags out. Trust me, some of these guys are practically wishing for it.
The intent behind a gun registry is to empower courts, and potentially police. A judge would be able to identify that someone owns several more guns when considering whether to grant bail for an armed robbery, and the surrender of those weapons until trial might be a condition of bail. It might be useful information for a judge who is crafting an order of protection in a case of stalking or domestic violence.
Similarly, police who are serving an arrest warrant might be able to serve the warrant with the knowledge that person of interest has several firearms on the property. Sometimes police know this today, but not because of government records.
(I'm not arguing a personal position one way or the other, just explaining the rationale.)
If an opinion isn't important enough to affect what politicians you vote for, you shouldn't be surprised that the government you elect doesn't represent your view on that issue.
Support for Net Neutrality was overwhelming and bi-partisan, yet Ajit Pai just plowed forward without consideration for what the citizens demanded.
This is government at its worst.