Net Neutrality taking a beating

[robcat2075]

Recent US court ruling in favor of ISP allowing them to favor some traffic and disadvantage other.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/14/n..._n_4597831.html

 

 

I don't know where an independent presence like Hash, Inc would fall on the favored/disadvantaged line.

 

I'm going to guess that Youtube might go into the disadvantaged hole unless Google starts paying ISPs to favor it.

[Rodney]

I'm not sure how neutral ISPs have been historically and this may be the courts recognition that net neutrality isn't entirely viable.

 

The concepts of free speech and business tend to work at odds with each other historically.

Especially in the sense of double jeopardy these ISPs can find themselves in when they are legally bound to be 'neutral' and yet increasingly held legally accountable for the content that traverses their digital domain.

As we can't have it both ways one side or the other has to give way. The downside for the ISPs who give up their (true) neutrality is that they will increasingly open their gates to increased litigation.

 

It seems reasonable to me that in a free market ISPs should have the choice to favor whomever they please.

This will then bring about competition and new services from newly formed ISPs willing to serve those neglected by the unwilling ISPs.

This follows roughly the historical trajectory of the press in free nations where the press is assumed to be biased but held accountable for content by their subscribers/readers.

Then wherever the (so called) free press doesn't maintain reasonable integrity the people will be more than willing to vote with their feet.

 

True neutrality is a nice concept but is very rarely achieved.

It does exist at times but is more often mishandled by those who would profit through manipulation and deceit.

The courts would do better to deal with those who would lay claim to being neutral and yet clearly have no intention of ever trying to achieve a state of neutrality.

Favoritism is hard to litigate against but lying and breaking of contracts is something the courts can easily deal with.

 

Added: It would then be the government's job to step in where there is determined to be broken contracts and inequities by unsanctioned/ungoverned monopolies.

[robcat2075]

The reality of market forces in the media in the US (and apparently everywhere else) is that it seems to create fewer choices rather than more as the businesses are consolidated under fewer owners.

 

The cost of setting up yet another internet provider that can somehow operate without the backbone of an ATT or a Comcast is so high that it won't happen.

 

Remember that the phone companies and cable companies that carry the internet got their pervasive scope to be in almost every home because local and national government granted them protected monopoly status. They didn't want the free market operating when they were building it all but now that it's so big that no one else can step in to compete they say they want the free market. How convenient!