[kartan]

The argument doesn't makes sense. When a normal citizen is choosing her internet provider they are not going to expend a lot of time looking at the implications of their decision. If the services is cheap enough and has the thing that they usually use then they are done. Competition can easy bring cheaper services but hardly can bring improving in long term needs.

That's why we have laws that forbid companies to pollute the environment, restrict child labor and the like. Consumers will choose the short term benefits for themselves over the long term benefits for the society.

[jomamaxx]

"The argument doesn't makes sense. When a normal citizen is choosing her internet provider they are not going to expend a lot of time looking at the implications of their decision."

I think you're missing the implication of the point.

If there is 'a lot of competition' - it makes cartel-like or colluding behaviour among carriers difficult, thereby facilitating de-facto net-neutrality.

Customers don't have to be aware of it.

And it's a reasonable argument: ensuring healthy and fair competition is almost always better than legislative controls, usually because regulations are often poorly conceived and effectuated, or at least, the market changes rapidly and the regulations fail to adapt.

I think that a reasonable net-neutrality law should probably be made both in Europe and in the US, that said, I'm weary of it being too onerous.

My position is also pragmatic: 'more competition' is unlikely in an industry with such massive barriers to entry etc..

[the_other]

> If there is 'a lot of competition' - it makes cartel-like or colluding behaviour among carriers difficult, thereby facilitating de-facto net-neutrality.

Can you explain this further? I struggle to see how you get from "a lot of competition" to "de-facto net neutrality", and how that would continue indefinitely.

It seems to me that we had de-facto net neutrality from the outset but that over time, as the industry matured, the large players started to talk about colluding. It has taken pro-neutrality lobbying and legislation to maintain neutrality in what was previously a free market.

[jomamaxx]

Because it would be very difficult for carriers to co-opt entities like Netflix into nonstandard schemes if there were a lot of competition.

You hinted at it in your comment: "the large players started to talk about colluding"

Only a when there are a 'small number of large players' is this kind of collusion possible.

When there is a lot of competition, the entire layer of the value chain becomes weaker.

It's a problem because they control a scarce resource: the airwaves, and also a kind of scarce resource: access rights for fibre etc..

[the_other]

In my (limited) understanding of economics, all industries coalesce from numerous small players into a small number of big players.

[shard972]

> Can you explain this further? I struggle to see how you get from "a lot of competition" to "de-facto net neutrality", and how that would continue indefinitely.

Well to paint it as an extreme, if there was so much competition that you could change ISP's within minutes then considering the fact NN is so important to many people there will always be ISP's looking to offer that because people will leave the ISP's that don't.

[kartan]

> If there is 'a lot of competition' - it makes cartel-like or colluding behaviour among carriers difficult, thereby facilitating de-facto net-neutrality.

I don't see the point. If Google decides to pay to providers to speed up Google content. How having more carries solves the problem? Is not even worse as then Google will have more power to bring carriers to its side?

What will happen with little content providers? Can they compete once they are slow?

I see that is more difficult for carriers to agree on something, as the more they are the more difficult it gets. But I don't see hot it facilitates net-neutrality on, for example, the situation that I describe.

[nordify]

> If Google decides to pay to providers to speed up Google content.

The Internet doesn't work that way. If Google wants their services to work better at particular ISP they pay for bigger pipes to the ISP and/or install content caches at the ISP and everybody is better off.

[kartan]

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/186576-verizon-caught-t...