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kleinbl00  ·  2316 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Net Neutrality repealed. Quick, someone smart, explain the consequences!

Realistically speaking?

There will be scattered incidents of ISPs temporarily blocking this that or the other website that will resolve quickly. There will be a pissing match between Netflix and Comcast (or Amazon and Charter, or Youtube and Verizon) whereby Comcast points out that Netflix is a third of all bandwidth and that they made 9 billion in revenues in 2017. Netflix will go fuckin' waaah and send out emails, Comcast will go fuckin' waaah and send out emails. They'll settle for an undisclosed amount and things will return to normal until some other company plays "who run Bartertown".

Keyboard Kommandoes will chase another squirrel once they realize that their Internet is largely unaffected and everybody screaming at the top of their lungs right now will be disregarded in the popular press and online media because they were WRONGWRONGWRONGWRONGWRONG and we didn't suddenly grow a Great Firewall of China. In the meantime, Netflix, Alphabet, Amazon and other streaming services will start pumping money into congresscritters willing to sponsor a bill asserting that the Internet is a utility.

The discussion will again be shaped in terms of "Cletus won't get internet without free trade"/"I couldn't buy Pearl Jam tickets because Comcast owns Ticketmaster!" strawmen so that giant corporations on either side of the issue can drum up a witch hunt against each other and both sides will again work themselves into a lather over what could happen rather than what is happening.

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Verizon doesn't hate Net Neutrality because it prevents them from shaking you down. They hate it because it prevents them from shaking Netflix down. Verizon knows that if they piss you off, you'll probably bring the roof down on them because they're acting anti-consumer... but they also know that if they stay below your pain point (and stick to a dull itch) you're too disinterested to do anything. After all, it wasn't the price gouging that got Enron in the end, it was the tapes. Finally, Verizon knows that a temporary win is still a win, and they have better odds shaping any (inevitable) legislation declaring the Internet a utility as it winds its way through Congress than they do dealing with whatever this month's FCC decides. And hey - if they can keep under the radar they may not have to deal with that (inevitable) legislation for years.

'cuz really. IF the Democrats retake the Senate, and IF the ISPs aren't abject dicks between now and then, is anyone really going to care about restoring "net neutrality" if things aren't substantially different?

There are no ISPs calculating how much extra they can shaft you out of for artificially raising your ping 10ms so they can lower it again. They're all busy calculating how many percentage points per year they can raise your rate before you angrily remind congress they're an unregulated monopoly.