FCC

[Mazomaniac]

Originally Posted by OliviaHoward

Perhaps without consequence intentional or otherwise is a better way to describe my thoughts on the regulation no matter how well intended.

OK, that one I agree with.

Foresight is always a hard commodity to come by.

Cheers,
Mazo.

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

How about protecting the wages of adult labor.

+1


If you study the period, you’ll discover that there was a great influx of cheap labor coming from eastern and southern Europe. In fact, much of this labor was actively recruited by American industrialist to keep labor cheap. At least half of the U.S.’ industrial work force was foreign born in the early 20th century. Agricultural technology also improved enabling one man to do the work of five. All of this created a labor surplus; which, caused wages to be depressed. Taking children out of the work force (a move promoted by rising labor unions) did help improve wages for the adult work force

[charlestudor2005]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

Brevity is my bag.

It is also a key to church sign theology. Doesn't mean it is meaningful.

[..]

Originally Posted by OliviaHoward

Regardless, we do need rules and laws and the regulation of said laws. No doubt about it. But, the internet has hobbled along well enough without it. Why start now.

well the internet actually has a lot of technical rules and standards (.IETF RFC's, W3C specs, etc.) which are a great success because unlike almost everwhere else these decisions are done by (mostly) competent people with a strong focus on what makes sense from a technical POV.

the problem with "net neutrality" is that a) you cannot really define it with a technical standard and b) parts of it are outside of what we consider the internet (e.g. the physical limits of fiber-optical lines, FSO (free space optics), coax, wireless are all quite different --> hence how much "net neutrality" is viable also depends on physical limits of the underlying infrastructure.)

[..]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

I understand that China does a pretty good job regulating their internet. Maybe we can take some lessons from them.

Actually this is exactly the issue what led to the "net neutrality" debate in the technical community.

In the US dominant market players use the same evil tricks China uses for net regulation. Worse just like in China they deny it and lie about it.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/1...s-to-interfere

Here in Europe it's the same. e.g. T-Mobile Germany blocked Skype traffic, because they don't like it (among other reasons because as a telco they see Skype as evil competitor.)

[..]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

The FCC will be replacing market decisions with political ones. I've never seen that turn out well.

PJ, I hope you don't feel offended but here your brevity is wrong.

The FCC "preview" of the their "net neutrality" (which most sane ppl. just call fake neutrality by now) comes as a long political science essay, but includes quite hidden in the text statements of legal relevance with strong potential consequences.

"net neutrality" should be actually about (mostly) purely technical decisions, which should and easily could be defined in less than 5 pages.

Ironic also the current FCC chairman is a Dem, so GOP is voting against him, but the "net neutrality" focus in the FCC was started by a GOP chairman, who was pushed out because neither GOP nor Dem liked him (he was becoming way too sane once the understood the real problem), another GOP chairman followed he raised the FCC "net neutrality" to a high prio topic.

[..]

Originally Posted by ..

PJ, I hope you don't feel offended but here your brevity is wrong.

Or the thing is what we do need are a few technical decisions [0], because there are serious abuses from stakeholders which are bad from a technical POV and which happend because the relevant markets are anything but free or even fair.

But the FCC is now adding a crazy mix of undue market and political influence. Such shit no one needs.

[0] of course such technical decisions are also always a market influence as much as a political choice, but MUST be at least somewhat sane, from a tech. POV. A simple example: the track gauge of railway track systems, or speed limits for cars, AC power sockets / plugs (The "Schuko" is certainly the best technical choice, but the other dominant standards are still acceptable), Mains AC electricity voltage and freq, etc.

[pjorourke]

My comment had nothing to do with technical issues versus censorship (although the later is a major issue.) Let me explain what I meant.

A market decision: XYZ Company has users flocking to their product because it is superior to everything else available. A good thing.

A political decision: XYZ Company sends their bagman to Washington where he successfully convinces the FCC to write a rule so that his client is favored and ABC Industry is crippled. Users, not having any other choice, use XYZ's product. A shitty thing.

[Mazomaniac]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

My comment had nothing to do with technical issues versus censorship (although the later is a major issue.) Let me explain what I meant.

A market decision: XYZ Company has users flocking to their product because it is superior to everything else available. A good thing.

A political decision: XYZ Company sends their bagman to Washington where he successfully convinces the FCC to write a rule so that his client is favored and ABC Industry is crippled. Users, not having any other choice, use XYZ's product. A shitty thing.

The problem with this argument - as with most free-market based arguments people make - is that it ignores one important scenario:

Market Limitation: XYZ company, either for political or economic reasons, is the only provider in a given area. Users, not having any other choice, are forced to use XYZ's product because the market can't support competition.

This scenario is always brushed aside by the pro-market lobby as if such a situation could never possibly exist. The fact is that a significant percentage of the internet market is in such a state. I myself live in a community where there's all of two choices for broadband - neither of which is even close to ideal. If these two providers decided to throttle bandwidth I'd be just as screwed as if they had gone to Washington and bought themselves a deal.

Free market arguments always assume that perfect market conditions exist. Of course, as we all know, they rarely do. That's why regulation is necessary in some circumstances. As usual there's no pot of gold at either extreme of the rainbow.

Cheers,
Mazo.

[pjorourke]

You have obviously never heard of the law of unintended consequences. Washington is more likely to fuck up your service than improve it. If an ISP is throttling some sites, they can comply with your hypothetical regs by throttling all of them.

Despite the warts, I'll take market decisions all day long. Mountains of regulation in Washington are never going to make your internet service better. The market just might.

[Guest083011]

But wasn't DARPA a government nee military development? (leading to ARPA packet switching etc?)

[pjorourke]

Whats that got to do with consumer demand?

Tang was developed by the space program. Gatorade is an improvement.

[Guest083011]

Quasi connection of government regulations. I was a little "stream o' consciousness." But the creation of those early networks weren't market driven, but out of military needs and academia.

[pjorourke]

Originally Posted by SR Only

But the creation of those early networks weren't market driven, but out of military needs and academia.

Thats a market demand. They went to their funding sources and got it built. Essentially, they spent some of their budget on it. That is different than a regulator telling someone else what they can or can't do with their money.

[charlestudor2005]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

Gatorade is an improvement.

Especially if you want your money to go to U of FL (home of PJ). I hear they still get the royalties.