The FCC repeals its net neutrality rules - The Washington Post

[fielding88]

VAMatt said:

fielding88 said:

How does the lack of NN help small businesses? And how do big businesses use NN to protect market positions?

Example 1 - I own a small business (I really do).  I'd like to pay for internet service that includes only basic email functionality, and access to a very small number of websites.  My company uses very little bandwidth.  However, under NN, it is illegal for an ISP to offer me service that fits my company's needs.  Instead, I have to get nearly the same service as the company next door that produces video content.  They are constantly uploading to Youtube, sending files to clients, and downloading all kinds of stuff for use in their work.  They need access to the entire WWW, and other stuff.  Unfortunately, I have to subsidize their use.  (This same example applies to my grandma's emailing and news reading subsidizing my heavy bandwidth video streaming and gaming).  

Example 2 - If you can sell me products on a website that consumes less data than Amazon.com, and either Amazon or I had to pay for bandwidth used, you'd have a competitive advantage.  But, with NN, you do not.  In that way, Amazon is protected from competition from fieldazon.com.   Same goes for more efficient search, better compression for video streaming, and a whole host of other things.  NN removes the incentive to innovate.  Innovation is what drives small business. 

In fact, even if Amazon didn't have to pay for bandwidth, but was scared of pissing off the ISPs because the ISPs could choose to charge them, you may be able to work from the other side (Amazon limits data to keep bandwidth use low, but you fly under the radar as a small company, and provide me larger, better quality images, or what have you).  

The underlying point is that government regulations always limit choice.  That's just what regulations do by definition.  I want more choice, and I want other people and businesses to be able to choose what they do, how they serve me, what internet service they want to offer me, etc.  Most people generally agree that consumer choice is good.  But, for some reason, a lot of people want to give the Trump administration sweeping power over the internet, and leave us without choices.  

Very informative response, I didn't know any of that (also, thank you for not assuming I was attacking you for your point of view, and I wasn't looking for a fight or anything and that often happens in these political-type threads :) 

Personally, since I'm Canadian, I don't have as vested an interest as Americans do, but the topic does interest me very much. I think that the major thrust behind NN is more from the consumer standpoint than that of small businesses, and I think the ISPs in the States have a history of throttling, restricting, or otherwise impeding consumer access to particular products and services for various reasons (I think some examples include ISIS vs Google Wallet, and Netflix-targeted slowdowns). Do you feel the ISPs will offer you the choices that would benefit your small business now that they've made those repeals?