This kind of action from big names is absolutely crucial to halt the ridiculous situation we're faced with.
I'd happily put up with "protest slow-downs" every day of the week if it helps motivate the non-technical masses to understand the importance of what's being slowly taken away from them behind the scenes.
Websites are only putting banners up with a loading spinner to help illustrate the issue[0], not throttling their upload speeds. Wouldn't it be better to actually slow down their content? I suppose that hurts the bottom-line so it can't even be considered. =/
[0] A quote from a TechHive.com article on the subject: " Note: The slowdown will only be simulated, not actual—the spinning “loading” icons you’ll see on those sites are entirely symbolic."
The reason I'm against actually slowing down is because they probably won't bother to geo-target it. Net neutrality isn't a problem where I live, there's nothing I can do to help people in the US, so I don't want my day disrupted. A spinner I'm ok with.
Net neutrality is about ISPs being able to limit or slow other services, or force those services to pay more, for access to their customers. For example, Comcast throttling netflix, forcing Netflix to pay Comcast for unrestricted access to their customers, or forcing their customers to pay more for unrestricted access to Netflix (or some combination of the three).
This is only really an issue with American ISPs, as the US is one of the few (or the only?) jurisdictions where this sort of behaviour is allowed.
Ehh, remember lots of websites blacked themselves out completely for SOPA and PIPA a few years ago, I think that's evidence enough that they'd be willing to go all out in various circumstances. Honestly, I almost wonder if literally slowing down their service would just be a bit to hard for them to setup in the limited time-frame. I don't really know for sure though, I'm just making a guess.
It would be a pain in the ass, some sites might pull it off, most wouldn't. There's no network configuration-based solution as simple, straightforward, and noninvasive as a JS overlay.
> We’ve already made a huge impact. The Sunlight Foundation recently analyzed over 800,000 comments submitted to the FCC about net neutrality– and found that more than 99% of them supported stronger protections for neutrality.
99% of the comments support net neutrality? AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast must be freaking out.
They would freak out if the public comments actually mattered. Unless you know otherwise, I'm guessing the FCC doesn't much care what the riff-raff think is a good idea. They're more interested in maintaining relationships with big business and keeping that revolving door spinning.
> I'm guessing the FCC doesn't much care what the riff-raff think is a good idea. They're more interested in maintaining relationships with big business and keeping that revolving door spinning.
Right, they were sued by big businesses (and lost) over their attempts at ad hoc enforcement of net neutrality principles, so they doubled down on them and issued the Open Internet Report and Order, were sued over that by big business (and lost), and tweaked it slightly [1] to issue a new version of the Order over which big businesses are pretty much certain to sue again (but, the FCC hopes, with less luck than the last two times.)
They may not be using the regulatory strategy that some consumer advocates want, but the 3-member majority of the FCC that keeps adopting open internet related rules isn't acting like they care much about maintaining their relations with big business (at least, unless you mean the big pro-neutrality businesses on the content side.)
(The 2-member minority that has been in opposition to those rules might be maintaining relations with the big telcos, but while they are participating in discussions, they aren't actually the ones setting policy.)
[1] And I'm not trying to disparage those who think that the tweaks open a dangerous weakness, but the basic structure and rules are essentially the same, and in some places stronger than the initial order.
> They would freak out if the public comments actually mattered.
I disagree with your point that public comments don't matter, since they reflect public opinion. The public are paying the bills of the telcos, and the FCC for that matter. The public can switch providers at any time, if they feel their current provider is acting against their interest. The public also has the ability to elect decision makers who can assign or fire people from the FCC. What are your thoughts?
But, in reality, how many Americans have any real choices in ISP/telco? I have a choice of two mega-telcos (Cox and Verizon), neither of which provides good value (when compared to plans in Europe).
As for the FCC, the revolving door is very real incentive for regulators to do what existing corporate interests tell them. Why would they care if they're removed from the FCC when they have a corner office waiting on K St?
> The public can switch providers at any time, if they feel their current provider is acting against their interest
Most Americans don't have a real choice, and ISPs know that. Don't like Comcast? Go to Verizon! But they're doing the same thing. Don't like Verizon either? Well, give up on accessing the internet. In some areas, you can't even get real broadband service from other ISPs; it's Comcast or bust.
> The public also has the ability to elect decision makers who can assign or fire people from the FCC.
The problem here is lobbyists and the legal system. Most politicians are uninformed on most issues (as are most people); they get a lot of their information from people who have the time and energy to provide that information to them. For example, a Comcast lobbyist goes to a congressman and says 'Hey, my client has this problem, they're providing a service to all these people but Netflix is taking advantage of them, using more than half of my client's capacity, which is drowning out everyone else. If they could charge Netflix for making excessive use of their network, they could reinvest that money into growth…' and so on.
Now there are arguments to go both ways, but the politician has only heard one of them, and it honestly does make sense. 'Why should we have to pay millions more to upgrade our networks for one single company? Should cities have to upgrade their traffic if one shipping company flooded the roads with trucks?' So no one argues the other side.
Thus, lobbyists promote their clients' interests in the US political system, provide campaign contributions to politicians who 'appreciate' their points of view (and denying it to those who don't), and you're left with a system where, no matter who you elect, they're insufficiently informed to make a rational decision.
So now the FCC is involved, but who runs the FCC? Who appoints them? Well, it should be whoever understands the industry best, obviously. And who understands it more than someone who's worked in it and knows what it needs and what challenges it's faced? Like a former cable company executive.
The real problem in the US is that corporations are allowed so much power in government, which results in a political system which (statistically) rarely reflects the values, opinions, or issues facing the people who cast the votes in the first place.
The other problem is that public opinion is fickle. Everyone was up in arms about Ferguson, but now what? How long since you've heard any news? The ice bucket challenge was bigger news, and now the iPhone launch, the Mojang acquisition… no one cares about some stupid town anymore. What was even the problem? Who can remember.
The public might be completely livid about net neutrality, but when the next season of The Bachelor Chef or Celebrity Hobo comes on their interests will wane and the problem will be solved.
I'm really curious what percentage of comments were just "fuck comcast" and the like, but the analysis doesn't make any mention of that. They do mention one copy of war and peace was submitted, but otherwise don't say much about "not entirely constructive" comments.
Well, considering there's an extra banner with CSS, HTML, and images loading, the page will load slightly more slowly. Also, there's no way to close the banner for a second or two, so there's a short simulation of a browsing experience being impeded.
I am not a fan of this especially since it is happening during the workweek and I wont have anything to do while sitting in lectures(I'm not talking about pornhub here ;) ).
Unfortunately absolutely nobody agrees what net neutrality means.
EDIT: I can be more specific. People have been constantly talking about Netflix and Verizon in the past year with regard to Net Neutrality, but in fact Netflix was being asked to behave as a big player and to help pay for the costs of running the network. Whether they should be paying for peering is out of scope for net neutrality, it's completely distracting. On a fully neutral net, the traffic from Netflix could kill your visits to HackerNews and PornHub, based on sheer volume. Network operators, though I agree they should have been expanding capacity, took action to ensure the network continued working for everyone.
If we had municipal internet _and_ neutrality, you would have a situation where the burden to expand network capacity is on taxpayers, and whoever shoves the most packets into the core network can dominate everyone.
The Internet would stop working immediately.
I'm certainly not arguing _against_ regulation, I'm arguing against the naivete` of 100% neutrality. There is no greater friend to a small upstart in a garage than network prioritization, but because you rarely have a network service which is _intended_ to be a service provider in your garage, arguments related to this don't much hold water.
It's frustrating for me because I largely agree with the intent and am on the same side as people pushing neutrality, but it's a term which has come to mean nothing and is largely talked about and criticized by people who do not know how to run a computer network. :/
I'd happily put up with "protest slow-downs" every day of the week if it helps motivate the non-technical masses to understand the importance of what's being slowly taken away from them behind the scenes.