Perhaps because if it were really a tech anti-trust summit, ISPs would be the chief topic. Or at least discussed somewhere. So a better description is tech contribution shake down.
I do remember these 600-comments threads regarding net neutrality and how it will be the end of the world once repealed because evil ISP will charge folks for each bit.
2 years ago net neutrality was repealed.
1. Has anything changed to the worse, consumer-wise?
2. Was there any postmortem acknowledging the fact that the end of net neutrality, unlike predicted, isn't the end of the world?
Many groups, including the EFF, engaged in fear-mongering claiming the most important reason for Net Neutrality was to prevent ISPs from de-platforming and censoring free speech. It turns out the ISPs never engaged in that kind of activity, and instead the organizations that increasingly engage in and rationalize such infringements are the ones that lobbied for NN.
The monopolies' _claim_ of benevolence is irrelevant. Nor does it mater what anonymous voices on HN said. I at least have the limited option of using Bing and DuckDuckGo for search. But I have no choice for ISPs.
Demanding a free market in America did not use to be controversial. But for two years now, under a sea of double think, it's just used as cover for political cronyism and contribution shakedowns.
It is the regulations themselves, not the lack of them, that have allowed for these de facto monopolies to form. These have been at the local level, where practical considerations were relevant (my local company often has a cable mess going on 30ft up these poles), but they went overboard. Should a given city allow 30 companies to string cable across their poles? I think it is up to the city, but if they make a mistake it shouldn't be the company that is punished. Local governments often disrupt free enterprise with their regulations for a reason, but when they get things wrong we should acknowledge that.
We don't need 30 duplicate lines across country for competition so we don't need them for the last mile. And quite a few municipalities do allow multiple wires. But even so ISPs don't invade each others territory. The over-regulation stories, among others, are simply untruths promulgated to provide plausible pro-monopoly sentiment.
If the US wants something that works, then just do something that works. For example [1]
At any rate, the ISP arguments are well known. And are about as moot as appeals to a free market or the public good. In the current environment, no amount of evidence concerning monopolies will change policy that is fundamentally based solely on political favoritism and retribution.
Yes, most of the horrible things that were claimed came to pass. Data caps, getting paid twice for the same stream. Data prioritization, deep packet inspection, DNS injection. Every way imaginable things have gotten worse for consumers save for token and widely woefully poor increases in Internet speeds that most other countries beat for a fraction of the price. Internet prices have also nearly doubled in my area.
Just incidental that an overwhelming majority of tech giants' employees pledge allegiance to the left, while having unregulated, monopoly control over information dissemination? When was the last time an ISP de-platformed someone for their politics?
So yes, the "anti-trust" talk is politically motivated? And proudly so because the employees have "pledged allegiance to the left"?
Strangely, there seems to be a very large number of people who decry google's information "monopoly" because of the blogs and youtube(!) videos they found while googling. A group that, given their power in government, is certainly not being oppressed.
And as a side note, I use no Alphabet product and obviously run an ad blocker. You'll find there are a great many technologists that do so. So, while there are certainly issues, the monopoly talk is obviously intentional hyperbole promulgated for political reasons.
As compared to, say ISPs which actually are monopolies. Or even Sinclair broadcasting which actually does control all media in some regions. But those genuine monopolies are not objectionable because they align politically with the party in power.
This pattern does correspond with some political systems but certainly not democratic, rule-of-law forms.
It's a deeply disappointing realization that to a lot of people, basic human decency, integrity in disseminating truth, and a consistent view of facts has become a partisan issue because of the Republican party.
Please don't take HN threads further into partisan flamewar.
Also, it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. Important though those issues are, we ban accounts that do that on HN, because it's not what this site is for and destroys the curiosity that it is for. If you would review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN as intended, we'd be grateful.
Or the fact that what was once a cornerstone of American Conservatism has now disappeared entirely, the free market economy. "I can't compete in the marketplace of ideas, I need government intervention, subsidies, import tariffs to break up those big bad 'leftist' companies, I'm not smart/strong/good enough to do it myself."
The alt right isn’t being deplatformed because of their politics, so much as because they are trolls. Triggering the libs necessarily antagonizes a significant portion of the user base, which tarnishes the brand and subtracts value.
Note that a mirror image of these types exist on the left, and they also tend to be despised. Again it’s not about the politics. It’s about being an unpleasant person.
2 years ago net neutrality was repealed.
1. Has anything changed to the worse, consumer-wise?
2. Was there any postmortem acknowledging the fact that the end of net neutrality, unlike predicted, isn't the end of the world?