[just2n]

But does it though? I don't recall this being a common occurrence before NN. In reality this sounds more like FUD. It's literally a hypothetical.

"Internet providers will be able to do X!"

Okay, so who can already choose what sites you see? Well there's your browser, Google could (and does) block sites, so could (and does) Microsoft. How do you find out about content on the internet? ISPs? No you probably find a link on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, or by searching. Well those are all censored, they can literally decide what you do and don't see. Google's own CEO has even been quoted in video saying they're fine doing that.

What about at the infrastructure level? There are in reality two vectors to getting software on the most popular devices on the planet: phones. You've got to deal with Apple's store or Google's store. There're plenty of examples of apps being blocked for political reasons from both of these. They can literally choose what you're allowed to see, what software you're allowed to install ON A COMPUTER THAT YOU OWN. Google just killed a website, The Daily Stormer, by seizing the DNS, and any registrar can do this. Whatever you think about that website, we do have a fundamental freedom of speech in the US, where this site and Google operates, but that doesn't stop Google from just arbitrarily killing a site they disagree with. How about payment processors? There aren't many, they're mostly big companies, and they forbid you from using their systems to do certain things, most of which aren't criminal. They literally decide what you can and can't do at a business level, which indirectly impacts customers.

I could go with hundreds more examples just like this.

These things exist, they're abused, these aren't FUD, and the tech media turns a blind eye to much of it. Every single day.

This regulation is absurdly dubious in its value. The most common FUD are "but your ISP will be able to block what you see!" Maybe I want them to. Some person gets infected with malware, maybe I want that person's access to be restricted. Maybe I don't want to even be able to visit a machine known to be compromised. Google already does this in Chrome, to the benefit of most users.

How about "but they can shut down a competing service." No, no they can't. The citations where this has happened can mostly be explained by QoS, which is necessary to keep a network functioning properly, and is effectively illegal by NN. We have laws against anti-competitive behavior like this. Why do we need yet another? Those laws work. And if they are insufficient, maybe Congress should do something about it, and while they're at it deal with all those other examples of companies doing much worse.

At the end of the day, I'm so unconvinced that this is actually a concern, that I've started totally ignoring discussions about Net Neutrality. Is HN really so devoid of people who have ever operated a large network or dealt with issues of scale? I would expect that not to be the case, but requiring ISPs to overprovision and to bear the burden of infrastructural growth at whatever demand their customers make seems unreasonable at the very best. Don't cite AT&T and Comcast at me, fuck them, I don't care if they are shady shitty companies. What about new ISPs? What about the hundreds of small ISPs destroyed by NN, the ones you don't hear non-stop complaining about? What about the ISPs that can't exist because without hundreds of millions of dollars they can't afford to achieve a level of quality customers expect from hundred billion dollar ISP monopolies.

I want competition. I don't want my world to be ruled forever by Google, Apple, Comcast, and AT&T. I sure as hell don't want shitty rules in place that effectively ensure these largely unethical borderline sociopathic companies remain in their positions. I really don't want Net Neutrality, because it doesn't do what it says and fundamentally harms the internet in a way only hypothetically compared to the real evils these companies impart on us EVERY SINGLE DAY.

When you end all the abusive bullshit already happening on the internet, end the censorship, and break up these monopolies, when you put your effort into fixing problems we actually have rather than fighting fictional dragons, then and only then will I be again open to discussions about this topic.