Mark Cuban on Net Neutrality and Ayn Rand

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I don't know...

Give the FCC lots of control over the Internet?

That actually might be cool.

Imagine if someone like Rick Santorum ever got elected president with a full Republican majority Congress. I bet you they would clean up the Internet pronto. And since regulators are appointed, not elected, they wouldn't even have to worry about any sundry constituents screaming their heads off. On the contrary, just tell 'em to shut up and if they don't, shut 'em down.

I'm sure there are many fine upstanding fundamentalist Christian folks in the Bible Belt who would love to be appointed government regulators of the Internet. I have no doubt they would know what to do once in power.

Especially if they ever kinda need some special Internet clout to help sell some kinda war overseas...

(I can probably come up with even better examples, but I kinda like that one... )

Michael

[Derek McGowan]

I don't know...

Give the FCC lots of control over the Internet?

That actually might be cool.

Imagine if someone like Rick Santorum ever got elected president with a full Republican majority Congress. I bet you they would clean up the Internet pronto. And since regulators are appointed, not elected, they wouldn't even have to worry about any sundry constituents screaming their heads off. On the contrary, just tell 'em to shut up and if they don't, shut 'em down.

I'm sure there are many fine upstanding fundamentalist Christian folks in the Bible Belt who would love to be appointed government regulators of the Internet. I have no doubt they would know what to do once in power.

Especially if they ever kinda need some special Internet clout to help sell some kinda war overseas...

(I can probably come up with even better examples, but I kinda like that one... )

Michael

I'm pretty sure that they FCC doesnt have that kinda power but thats exactly what the ISPs wanted

"AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast will be able to deliver some sites and services more quickly and reliably than others for any reason," telecommunications lawyer Marvin Ammori (he's the man quoted above) observed even before the ruling came down. "Whim. Envy. Ignorance. Competition. Vengeance. Whatever. Or, no reason at all."

http://www.latimes.c...y#ixzz2qbGtpxBj

and then this, on who ISPs shoppers feel about those who switch services between competitors for better prices

Cablevision executives meanwhile have made their disdain for the smart consumer abundantly clear over the last few years, calling smart shoppers a "dead end" that the company has no interest in pursuing. Speaking at a recent investor conference, Cablevision vice chairman Gregg Seibert took this rhetoric one step further, declaring that customers that follow the best promo offer are a "low quality" subscriber that the company is happy to get rid of:

"We found out that we were pushing subscribers back and forth on a highly promoted basis," said Cablevision vice chairman Gregg Seibert, speaking Monday at the Deutsche Bank 2015 Media, Internet & Telecom Conference in Palm Beach, Fla. "I don't want to roll a truck to you every two years if you keep going back and forth to another provider … So we're getting rid of that lower quality, lower profitability base of subscriber."

Except "pushing subscribers back and forth" is what competition is. Fighting to offer a better value than the other guy is how competition works. That Cablevision and FiOS can just choose when they'd like to seriously compete illustrates perfectly how even in U.S. markets we consider to be more competitive, what we're usually witnessing is just coordinated competition theater.

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20150310/07175630271/cable-proudly-declares-smart-shoppers-lower-quality-customer-they-have-no-interest.shtml

[Brant Gaede]

That's funny; the low quality subscriber will end up somewhere and eventually enough of them will create a critical mass. Century Link has just put in fiber-optic cable near my house so I can switch and get the same quality high speed internet and the promo will save me 600-700 bucks a year. I'm also getting a $50 first bill credit and $125 Visa debit card. Alternatively, I can keep Cox and drop the TV from the "bundle" and save $80/mo. What does all this mean? You don't want to own the stock of any cable company for the profit margins are coming down and they aren't capital efficient like a Hershey or Coke which don't have to plow lots of profits back into R & D and capital expenditures.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

This is all a plot to turn the internet into a government regulated utility, like the phone company.

I assume you mean that sarcastically. Because what you are saying is a conspiracy theory. It has no evidence to support it except lack of evidence. But it's probably true anyway.

Net neutrality is a solution that won't work for a problem that doesn't exist.

Plot means a plan. The government is clearly heading two making internet a regulated utility. They will have a fight on their hands because the computer mavens who have made Internet what it is will oppose politicians (who are dolts and knaves) in making policy and rules for how their (the computer mavens) baby is to be used.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm pretty sure that they FCC doesnt have that kinda power...

Derek,

Government never does have that kind of power when freedoms are signed away. That kind of power grows later.

The technique is to get a precedent, then enter with both elbows to open 'er up.

History is replete with governments taking over small freedoms, then growing into monsters over time. That's just what they do. It's in the nature of money and power run by fools. (And please don't tell me politicians are the wisest among us. )

One of the problems debating this issue is that the government is already protecting a cartel on Internet coverage. Competition is mostly frozen out, not because of inherent costs, market, etc., but by law.

The best thing in the world would be for the government to get out of the way and let newbies compete.

Instead, reasonable people (like you) believe the solution to a problem with the current arrangement is more government--trying to cure a problem by increasing one of its main causes.

What makes you think a government technocrat will have a higher degree of integrity than a corporatism technocrat?

(Notice I said "corporatism" not "corporation." Corporatism is not a free market economy construction, but instead a form of crony capitalism, i.e., business entities plus government protections against competition, most often disguised as regulations.)

In crony capitalism land, the players all like the same things, but they have them in different priorities. Government folks like POWER, then money. Corporatism folks like MONEY, then power. But both like money and power over integrity. Meaning both like corruption. Ah yes... they all like to posture about integrity--the more colorful and cool-sounding the posture, the better--without having to live it.

Even stepping outside of crony capitalism, are government people inherently more moral than business people?

Heh.

Try defending that proposition.

Increasing the power of the government does not decrease the power of crony corporations. It never has throughout history and it never will. It makes them more immune to competition and screws consumers in the end. Oh, it's good for show, I guess, to fool the public because of all the euphemisms and word games and poetry, but the money and power party goes on and grows on--as it always has, generally, until the respective civilization collapses.

Here's an analogy for pondering. If I am sick because I have ingested a trace amount of cyanide, the cure is not to increase the dose of the poison. It is to stop ingesting cyanide--get away from the cyanide--and let my body heal.

Michael

[Selene]

Derek:

Did you ever think that there would be a law and full regulatory power to prevent you from buying an incandescent light bulb?

[Derek McGowan]

I'm pretty sure that they FCC doesnt have that kinda power...

Derek,

Government never does have that kind of power when freedoms are signed away. That kind of power grows later.

The technique is to get a precedent, then enter with both elbows to open 'er up.

History is replete with governments taking over small freedoms, then growing into monsters over time. That's just what they do. It's in the nature of money and power run by fools. (And please don't tell me politicians are the wisest among us. )

One of the problems debating this issue is that the government is already protecting a cartel on Internet coverage. Competition is mostly frozen out, not because of inherent costs, market, etc., but by law.

The best thing in the world would be for the government to get out of the way and let newbies compete.

Instead, reasonable people (like you) believe the solution to a problem with the current arrangement is more government--trying to cure a problem by increasing one of its main causes.

What makes you think a government technocrat will have a higher degree of integrity than a corporatism technocrat?

(Notice I said "corporatism" not "corporation." Corporatism is not a free market economy construction, but instead a form of crony capitalism, i.e., business entities plus government protections against competition, most often disguised as regulations.)

In crony capitalism land, the players all like the same things, but they have them in different priorities. Government folks like POWER, then money. Corporatism folks like MONEY, then power. But both like money and power over integrity. Meaning both like corruption. Ah yes... they all like to posture about integrity--the more colorful and cool-sounding the posture, the better--without having to live it.

Even stepping outside of crony capitalism, are government people inherently more moral than business people?

Heh.

Try defending that proposition.

Increasing the power of the government does not decrease the power of crony corporations. It never has throughout history and it never will. It makes them more immune to competition and screws consumers in the end. Oh, it's good for show, I guess, to fool the public because of all the euphemisms and word games and poetry, but the money and power party goes on and grows on--as it always has, generally, until the respective civilization collapses.

Here's an analogy for pondering. If I am sick because I have ingested a trace amount of cyanide, the cure is not to increase the dose of the poison. It is to stop ingesting cyanide--get away from the cyanide--and let my body heal.

Michael

sure there are examples of people taking too much power, there is even a well worn mantra (I think that is the word) "I gave you and inch and you take a mile" People do this things all the time, whether we are talking about teenagers with parents, spouses in relationships, employees with their schedules, CEOs with tax rules or other legislation or governments from Monarchs to dictators to Presidents. What about it?

How about instead simply standing on the fact that is is possible, lets also see that it is not guaranteed to happen. But that is not my point at all.

My point is that, I agree with you that we need more competition, and if it is laws that have prevented new companies from laying lines, then we should remove those laws. Fine, I'm with you but in the mean time we have to prevent the internet from being screwed. If your teenager is reckless with the car, yes you can almost guarantee that they will get better, you can almost guarantee that down the line they will get their own car but for now you don't keep giving them the keys with free reign. You have to put some rules in place to protect what is already there.

The new FCC rules specifically say that they cannot specify prices or control connections or censor. Sure you can say that they have a foot in the door BUT they would have to go back into legislation again, and that means that I and others like me would see that they are now trying to go too far and stop them, just like when we protested the Intellectual property law they tried to put into place a few years back.

You guys may be against governmental rules in principle and that's fine. I'm all for principles and because of that I'm strictly against ANYONE having the power to intercede in others peaceful communications and business transactions. And when a ISP directly says that they should have the power to block or slowdown traffic to any site that doesn't pay them a ransom, I have a problem with it. Please respond to this analogy-

If there was a booming factory town with one road leaving out of it (a road cut through mountains). One road for mail to come in, for the import and export of products, for the commuting of workers, and I owned a 50 square for square of that road. I allow that I should be able to put up a toll booth and capitalize on traffic that passes over my property, but where I draw the line is if I also tried to take such control as to determine business transactions. "Oh you are going into the town to buy from who? No, sorry, that company pissed me off last week so you cannot enter." Or, "no, that company is competing with a business interest of mine that is in another town so you will have to pay me triple to pass"

First thing you will try to say is allow someone to build a new road. Fine. But because the area surrounding a mountains, it will take years to blast through and build a new lane.

You may be willing to wait the years it will take for another company to build out a network (from scratch if there is no agreement on sharing of the backbone from the already entrenched ISP) but I'm not. The internet is already too important and as the years go by and it continues to grow, not just in speed or content, but as it grows into something bigger (Artificial intelligence, Universal real-time translators, 3-d immersive environments) it will become even more important. The concept of the internet is just some service, it is a world and to have it handicapped by ISPs who are losing out big on their failed cable models (which no one likes- including you) and who know want to recoup some margins on something that they didn't even create.

p.s. for Brant, and all those who think that ISPs spend big on research and development, something that could help justify their arguments, well ... they don't. They spend damn near nothing on R+D. Why would they? They technology for higher bandwidth has already been created. We in America aren't even on the top 20 of internet speeds AND the copper infrastructure has already been shown to potentially carry 4-5 times the amount of bandwidth as it currently does. http://www.cnet.com/news/lowly-dsl-broadband-poised-for-gigabit-speed-boost/

Sure they would have to pay a lot to upgrade their infrastructure but research- no

p.p.s. Please just tell me whether you would be okay with my analogy or not

[Brant Gaede]

My problem with the analogy is it implicitly embraces public/private roadways and eminent domain. The booming factory town would never have been built in those conditions in the first place and those factories could have been moved and rebuilt elsewhere even to the point of leaving all the machines behind. And you don't want to be manning any tollbooth when the pissed off workers arrive to deal with you, making their problem your problem.

Corporations are blessed with enough wealth concentration to bribe and bend the regulators--and Congress--to their will aka "crony capitalism." It doesn't matter what the government is proposing; it will be modified or ignored through the regulatory-legislative process to most benefit them. And it's not just that Congress is corrupt and corruptible, those who work for the Congresscritters are exponentially even more corruptible and corrupt in any imaginable statistical aggregation. These power-mongers are all in bed together, sucking in as much as they can. It might as well be gravity for the inevitability of it all. It will be sustained until it all blows up or implodes. This is American history since the country began. I think the parliamentary system might have come with a better result than the structure we got way back then, seemingly serving the needs of the executive branch (war, especially) and its bureaucracy. A little better. It's hard to imagine the Civil War, for instance, though easier, WWI. I do believe the Brits had a real civil war in the 17th C. anyway, however.

I think we are well due now for a WWIII. More likely with Russia than China. That might switch about in ten years. Look around. It could soon all be gone and you and I along with it. In WWI it was machineguns and cannons and chemical warfare. In WWII armor and airplanes. Next comes the nukes. Consider the current Ukraine stupidities the U.S. is having so much to do with.

--Brant

beware the insane neo-cons and generals

[dldelancey]

It wouldn't take years for the booming town to pack up and move elsewhere. Then the tollbooth would be worthless. Granted, the town's folk would be mightily inconvenienced, but still better off than the tollbooth owner.

[Derek McGowan]

It wouldn't take years for the booming town to pack up and move elsewhere. Then the tollbooth would be worthless. Granted, the town's folk would be mightily inconvenienced, but still better off than the tollbooth owner.

Thats highly- highly optimistic and not really based in reality. There is a large portion of people that are not happy with America but they don't /can't just up and leave to a South American country. Things outside of theory don't exactly work that way

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

sure there are examples of people taking too much power...

Derek,

We live in a remote control environment. When we don't like something, we change the channel, go to another site, even switch electronic devices.

This is OK for entertainment. It doesn't work so well with other things, for example wars. This, I believe, is one of the reasons war irritates people these days. Not because innocents are getting blown to bits and their life's work destroyed. It's because, for the viewers, the story gets old and they want a new show. But the damn story doesn't change. The damn war will not go away. In fact, it often grows. So people get mad.

This perception is the same with power. There's a feeling that if someone doesn't immediately assume all the power that can be had, such person is not too interested and certainly has no real possibility of getting it. And, hell, the story about the dangers of encroaching power is getting old anyway. Look around right now. We can go to McDonald's and buy fashion clothes and go out and visit out friends whenever we want. That's not going away. Time to change the channel. Power schmower...

That's the perception

The problem is that's not the way reality works.

In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway describes reality's process to a tee.

"How did you go bankrupt?" Bill asked.

"Two ways," Mike said. "Gradually and then suddenly."

People like me (and others far smarter than I am) see the "gradually" part happening right now.

And what do we base it on? Similar power grabs in the past. Beautiful places turned into rubbish. I could talk about Germany, but that would not convince because it is not close to home.

How about we talk about Detroit? They wanted power. They got power. They said if they got power, they wouldn't act the fool. They got power and acted the fool. And the people with money left.

How did Detroit sink the way it did?

You got it:

"Gradually and then suddenly."

(btw - They are trying to rebuild it. I hope they do. I, for one, am cheer-leading.)

But America has a greatness to it because of the spiritual stamp of some of its top personalities--starting with George Washington. He had it all in his hands. All the power anyone at the time could desire. They wanted him to be king of America. King.

After two terms, he said no. If the American experiment were to work, he had to step down and hand over the power, even to a man he did not agree with. With that one gesture, he set the tone for a country where this happens as policy. He changed the rules for governing society on a practical level. He made this work.

That does not mean people do it willingly (like he did), though. When people get power, they don't want to let go. That's the norm. What's more, they want to increase their power. Including--and especially--government regulators.

You said if the FCC tries to make a major power grab, "I and others like me would see that they are now trying to go too far and stop them, just like when we protested the Intellectual property law they tried to put into place a few years back."

And here I think you make a tragic mistake. A perception mistake. A remote-control mentality mistake.

The only reason we (yes, I helped, too) were able to stop the FCC before is because the "gradually" part had not corroded our possibility of action and gumption.

The FCC made the mistake of trying to do the "suddenly" before the "gradually."

If we agree with the new FCC regulations and let the government in this new net neutrality way, we will agree to a big honking gradual shift. Once the regulators get that power, they will expand it, not suddenly like they tried to do before, but gradually. Small step by small step. (Some call it "progressive.")

Until it's time for suddenly.

At that time, neither you nor I will be able to do much except bitch for a while.

p.p.s. Please just tell me whether you would be okay with my analogy or not

I'm not fine with your example, but not because it's stupid. It's actually quite clever. But it's premised on a scarcity principle that just is not relevant to Internet technology (so far). In fact, like I said, the only real scarcity we have right now is mandated by law.

You want an example? Just recently Glenn Beck was having a hell of a hard time getting cable operators to sign up TheBlaze TV. He produces content that serves a large target market and is growing like wildfire. A dream channel for an operator. Guaranteed customers for it's packages. But they wouldn't let him in. So, being creative, he resorted to grass-roots like campaigns like call-ins, talking to the advertisers of the cable stations and getting them to pressure the operators, etc. And he got on board.

During this time, he said he would lay his own cables in a heartbeat, that he had the financing and major-player partners all lined up and ready to go, but the law prohibits him. The law. Not economics. Not the market. Not technical expertise. The law.

Granted, this is cable TV, but there is a lot of crossover these days with the Internet (especially with TheBlaze) and the current FCC regulations create the same artificial scarcity for all concerned.

But there is a deeper reason I do not agree with your analogy. It's called Moore's Law. Technology does not advance in a straight line. It advances exponentially. That is a far cry from a town surrounded by mountains with only one road in and out. A totally different reality.

Right now Internet access is by cables and satellites. But in the near future, there will be nano-transmitters alongside nano-receivers, similar to the way cell towers work. Imagine that stuff in products like watches and other mobiles.

Also, the demand for new Internet services is growing exponentially, like self-driving cars. This isn't static like a town in the mountains. What's more, all this is happening not because of government controls. It's happening without them.

People are currently worried they can't watch what they want to watch when they want to watch it? And all this (in their perception) is because of greedy ISP companies? Moreover, for that reason, they want to let the nose of the government camel poke under the tent of everyone?

Gimmee a break! Boo hoo!

We have more content than at any time in human history. And it's available all around us. I grew up when B&W TV changed to color and there were only 3 major broadcasters.

No one could possibly watch everything that's produced right now. And more and more is being produced every day. Here's just one stat for you:

300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.

That kind of unpaid supply would not happen if there were not an equal unpaid demand.

People are watching. They're not throttled. They're watching.

If this ever became threatened, Google itself would lay cables. (It is one of the few that can under today's laws because it buys governments wholesale. )

For this net neutrality crap, there is a good saying in Brazil that is applicable. They say the baby is crying with its belly full.

We don't need more government regulations right now to screw up a good thing.

Government regulations sure as hell don't operate according to Moore's law. They are more like cancer cells, multiplying until they kill the host.

First gradually, then suddenly.

Michael

[Mikee]

One of my ancestors lived and died in Detroit around the turn of the century (1900). I looked him up in the newspapers of that day. Detroit was called "The Paris of America".

[Derek McGowan]

Havent read other responses yet but I wanted to add

This is a perfect example. HBO is usually available only through cable. HBO the company has created a app for people to stream HBO through other devices without having to have a cable subscription. Guess what? Comcast, since they are able to read exactly what information goes over their last mile pipes, has been blocking the content. That means that they are getting int the way of business transactions between HBO and HBO's paying customers simply because they don't get their cut.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141216/04312629447/comcast-still-blocking-hbo-go-third-party-devices-never-bothers-to-explain-why.shtml

and you guys defend this stuff??

[dldelancey]

It wouldn't take years for the booming town to pack up and move elsewhere. Then the tollbooth would be worthless. Granted, the town's folk would be mightily inconvenienced, but still better off than the tollbooth owner.

Thats highly- highly optimistic and not really based in reality. There is a large portion of people that are not happy with America but they don't /can't just up and leave to a South American country. Things outside of theory don't exactly work that way

You need look no further than Detroit to see that this is absolutely based in reality. And while I can't say for sure, I'd venture to guess that most of those people didn't go to South America. Also, I don't see how this is optimistic at all. I don't look at pictures of abandoned Detroit and feel optimistic. I feel sad. If I were being optimistic about your analogy, I would say that your tollbooth owner would be a rational businessperson and know that his success and prosperity were tied to the success and prosperity of the town and they all lived happily ever after.

I don't like either side of the net neutrality argument. The whole thing stanks. Where you and I differ is that you aren't willing to live without the internet, and I am if it means that government gains one less foothold. I'm not in favor of my ISP controlling what content I have access to, but I am perfectly capable of making that known with my wallet. I don't need legislation to speak for me.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On 3/23/2015 at 0:47 PM, Derek McGowan said:

and you guys defend this stuff??

Derek,

Nobody I know of around here defends this stuff.

They just don't think bigger government is the way to fix it.

You, apparently, do.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

A ray of hope:

Internet Providers Sue to Kill Net Neutrality

Michael

[Peter]

From RealClearFuture. The Technological Case Against Net Neutrality: At RealClearFuture, we have mostly stayed out of the controversy over "Net Neutrality," except where it touches directly on emerging technology--as in the case of self-driving cars, which Comcast is arguing might require “Internet fast lanes” of precisely the kind blocked by Net Neutrality rules. "Comcast doesn't just see paid fast lanes being useful for medicine, however. It also thinks they might be fair to sell to automakers for use in autonomous vehicles. 'Likewise, for autonomous vehicles that may require instantaneous data transmission, black letter prohibitions on paid prioritization may actually stifle innovation instead of encouraging it,' the filing says.

"This makes Comcast's position pretty confusing. Comcast says it opposes prioritizing one website over another. It even suggests the commission adopt a 'strong presumption against' agreements that benefit an ISP's own content over competitors' work, but it's not clear how benefiting one car company or telemedicine company over another is any different."

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I saw a cute meme today. It showed an old man thinking:

"They called it the Patriot Act except it wasn't patriotic.

They called it the Affordable Care Act except it wasn't affordable.

Now they're calling something Net Neutrality..."

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Net neutrality is a goner.

From NYT:

F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

This one hurt the power-mongers so bad, there was even a bomb scare during Ajit Pai’s speech (from The Daily Caller):

Security Cuts FCC Chair Ajit Pai’s Speech Short For Bomb Threat

At lease, for now, the government will not regulate the Internet at the service provider level.

Believe me, the big government power mongers are salivating to get their grubby hands on it and start playing winners and losers according to who kisses their asses.

Michael