[seanw444]

Leaving it up to what people are willing and capable of doing sounds as fair as can be to me. That's what competition is there for. It also is not perfect, but it is better.

I expect to get dogpiled on Hacker News though. The demographic here has a fondness of rules. We give computers rules. That fondness translates to non-technical fields, for better or for worse. In this case, worse.

[hn_acker]

> Leaving it up to what people are willing and capable of doing sounds as fair as can be to me. That's what competition is there for. It also is not perfect, but it is better.

Is it better? Congress and the FCC has never done much to punish wrongdoing by ISPs [1]. Large ISPs including AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon commit subsidy fraud with impunity. (See the links in my other comment. [2])

And on the issue of fairness, large ISPs [3][4][5] and some government officials [6][7] do their best to prevent broadband subsidixes from reaching small local ISPs. At the very least, the FCC should (and won't, but should) place heavy penalties on large ISPs for their abuses of customers [8]. By heavy penalties, I mean at least 80% of the revenue gained from anti-competitive practices.

[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/22/fcc-adds-a-nutrition-lab...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37949298

[3] https://communitynets.org/content/monopoly-providers-mire-nt...

[4] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/02/15/report-shows-comcast-con...

[5] https://www.techdirt.com/2015/04/16/alec-threatens-to-sue-cr...

[6] https://www.techdirt.com/2021/02/19/new-bill-tries-to-ban-co...

[7] https://www.techdirt.com/2022/04/11/illinois-missouri-and-ne...

[8] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/06/couple-bought-ho...

[thfuran]

>By heavy penalties, I mean at least 80% of the revenue gained from anti-competitive practices.

How is a fine of less than the proceeds a heavy penalty? There needs to be punitive damages or personal liability for the responsible executives, otherwise it's still a profitable business strategy.