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Suggesting that people go to a different ISP simply isn't possible for most people, as there tends to be too few ISPs serving a given location. It's not a market that has the level of competition that grocery stores can provide. It's also not something that can have meaningful competition. It's extremely expensive to put the infrastructure in place to provide the service to an area; having multiple ISPs in an area means redundantly spending all of that capital; the free market will tend toward monopolies in such circumstances. That's why utilities are regulated by governments.
– Servy
Commented Jul 12, 2017 at 17:06
fine, if you want gov regulation, get them to limit each ISP to 1m users max, then comcast will be broken into hundreds of companies, each serving a specific demographic, then you can have proxies on top of these ISPs that while maintaining subscriptions to them, will aggregate services and package them to be tailored exactly to what their customer wants. why should i pay for the millions of gigabytes of porn that is streamed by other users?
– Alex Gordon
Commented Jul 12, 2017 at 17:09
2

Making the companies smaller doesn't actually solve the problem, as they still have a monopoly in their region, and can therefore abuse their power in that region, giving the people that live/work there no options but to deal with it. What you're paying for from your ISP is bandwidth, not the type of content that the bandwidth serves. The porn company is paying for the bandwidth that they're using, just as the company showing children's cartoons is paying for theirs, and one shouldn't be charged more for the same services than the other just because you only use one of them.
– Servy
Commented Jul 12, 2017 at 17:15
When you live an apartment complexes that have deals with providers that limit you to one choice it can be impossible to switch to another provider.
– Joe W
Commented Jul 12, 2017 at 17:30
Free marketing does not work with the internet.
– user319967
Commented Jul 12, 2017 at 20:19
@Servy - "Suggesting that people go to a different ISP simply isn't possible for most people" - actually a simple thing - if they do not have the option to switch provider restriction should not apply(besides tariff plan you choose). It is easy to prove are there options to switch provider or not.
– MolbOrg
Commented Jul 13, 2017 at 2:43
@MolbOrg What restriction isn't going to apply when you can't switch providers? You're saying that providers need to be net neutral if and only if they're the only provider for a location?
– Servy
Commented Jul 13, 2017 at 13:16
"if and only if" - I do not say that. I against NN and any regulations - the job of a provider for which I pay is to deliver me throughput according to the plan I pay for. However, it can be clearly seen and easy proven situation where concurrency between ISP's does not work and where they have a monopoly. The situation where the market does not work. And it rather would be better to address that issue. An ISP may pursue their policies to run the business more efficiently(freedom of ISP), but in monopoly situation, they should meet some quality standard(Protection of user).
– MolbOrg
Commented Jul 13, 2017 at 17:13
@Servy With goals to create an incentive to increase the quality of service and fix local regulations. As for standards, which ones it is the question of discussion. There are different solutions for US situation. Their main problem is that they too sparse populated in some areas, and have too old infrastructure in other areas.
– MolbOrg
Commented Jul 13, 2017 at 17:13
3

@MolbOrg The current restriction says that ISPs are required to treat all data submitted over their network equally, rather than treating different types of data differently. There is currently a proposal to recend that, and allow ISPs to discriminate indiscriminately. You say you're against NN, and then in the same sentence, say you expect your ISP to do what you pay for, namely to deliver your content at the specified throughput. That's what NN is, it's requiring your ISP to simply deliver your data, and do nothing else. And again, it's rare in the US to have many providers.
– Servy
Commented Jul 13, 2017 at 17:21
@Servy I'm not sure what contradiction you are seeing: "You say you're against NN, and then in the same sentence, say you expect your ISP to do what you pay for, namely to deliver your content at the specified throughput. " - I want to be able to subscribe to an ISP that gives precedence to wordpress content over CNN, I am against the government shoving porn in my children's faces. I do not believe porn should be treated with the same preference as msdn articles.
– Alex Gordon
Commented Jul 16, 2017 at 2:37
And what if your ISP decides that porn should be given significant preference to other content (it's highly profitable after all, unlike MSDN). You think it's more appropriate that a single corporation have complete control over what you have access to through the internet than the government saying that no one should have any control over what content you can access? Sure if you had access to hundreds of ISPs, you could find one that offers what you want, but people don't have choice. They have one, maybe two, companies to choose from.
– Servy
Commented Jul 16, 2017 at 22:17
if my ISP decides that porn is more important, then i'm sure there will be plenty of people like myself that will create the demand for a different provider. the government can say what ever they want, but in the end you are allowing the government to make decisions for you, and i'm sure you know that they have an agenda, as well as their own definitions of what porn is and what your children should be learning in school
– Alex Gordon
Commented Jul 17, 2017 at 0:31
People have been entirely unsatisfied with their ISPs, and demanding major changes, for years. Notice how much competition that complete lack of user satisfaction has generated? Basically none. It takes an enormous amount of money to get into the business, and there are many other barriers to entry besides just money, and for anyone that does manage it, there is so little competition that there's no actual incentive to actually do a good job, because you won't have other competitors.
– Servy
Commented Jul 25, 2017 at 15:10
As for the government making decisions for us, the only decision that they're making here is that no one is allowed to make decisions for you as to what content you consume. If you actually have a problem with other people (whether it be the government, or me, or anyone else) what you can consume, then you should support that. You are the one advocating that others should have a say in what you can consume, and that you don't want to have the freedom to decide for yourself.
– Servy
Commented Jul 25, 2017 at 15:10

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