12 Dec
2017
12 Dec
'17
10:04 p.m.
On Mon, Dec 11, 2017, at 14:23, Noel Chiappa wrote:
If all people wanted was a rule saying 'ISPs
can't give third parties
_worse_ service, or - more importantly - deny service altogether,
unless those parties pay up' (i.e. what would amount to targeted
extortion), I'd be _all for_ a rule like that.
But the 'net neutrality' aficionados (most of whom, I'm fairly sure,
are not aware of/thinking about these details) are all signing up for
a much more expansive rule, one that says 'no ISP can offer anyone
_better_ service for paying more money' - which is quite different. My
problems with this latter form are two-fold.
The rule that I want is that I am the customer. If Comcast wants to give
better service to my neighbor who is paying more, that's fine, but
that's not remotely the same thing as making it harder for me to connect
to Netflix than to their own streaming service because Netflix didn't
pay up. They're essentially taking money from me twice - once from
actually charging me for internet service, and once from the portion of
my Netflix (etc) subscription that goes to paying their extortion fees
(because let's not pretend that "fast lanes" won't go hand-in-hand
with
degradation of the standard service). If they want more money from me
they should have to raise the actual price they bill me with instead of
being sneaky about it.