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Billionaire, Dallas Mavericks owner, and all-around power move puller Mark Cuban doesn’t hold back his contempt for policies he doesn’t like. Wednesday evening, he told the Code/Media conference that the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to regulate the internet — also known as net neutrality — “will fuck everything up.” I tend to agree, and I can’t think of a more succinct way to put it.
The FCC wants to introduce laws that keep large media companies from being able to pay internet service providers to cut in front of the line for priority web traffic. To do that, the FCC is planning to reclassify the internet as a public utility, which means the FCC would have regulatory authority over internet service providers. “Having [the FCC] overseeing the Internet scares the shit out of me,” said Cuban.
This development presents us with an interesting dilemma. In one corner, we have the evil, greedy internet service providers, hoping to maintain their hegemony over the ability to provide horrible customer service, and Mark Cuban has just thrown his hat in their corner. Everyone hates the ISPs, but Cuban is something of a deity to many sports fans and young, recently minted libertarians who just realized that paying taxes sucks. In the other corner, we have the bungling federal government attempting to expand its regulatory reach over the internet: the final frontier full of streaming movies, pictures of cats, and weird porn. Most people also hate the federal government, including much of the readership of this site if my analysis of the comments section is accurate.
Who will you support in this fight? It’s like watching your two least favorite football teams play in the Super Bowl, although a Cowboys/Ravens matchup would be less harmful to my Netflix habit than net neutrality. For my money, I wish both sides would lose..
[via Business Insider]
Image via Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com
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Has Cuban or the writer even looked into the regulating ISPs as public utilities? It has a lot of merit.
What has more merit is that through the 1996 TCA the telecoms got $200 billion in tax credits to rewire the entire country, lay fiber, and offer sweet, sweet high speed internet, video calling, and other stuff. They, instead, pocketed the cash because the law had zero punitive measures for not implementing them while accepting the money. Then they pcoketed the money, gradually bought each other out, signed into municipal monopolies, and phased out infrastructure improvements, charged more for worse service, and hosed the customers.
I’m not a huge gov’t intervention guy myself, but telco companies are absolutely overdue to have internet regulated as a public utility. It’s a ubquitious as telephones were fifty years ago, if not more so, and the laws regulating it are almost uniformly out of date or just bad at every level of government.
Net neutrality does not equal “gov’t regulation” its very much an idea of access and human rights also i love you guys at Grandex, but you would be on of the thousands of small companies charged up the ass to compete in your handful of your market verticals. I wouldn’t bash the FCC for trying to stop ISP’s from keeping you profitable.
So companies can’t charge a premium for premium services? Instead, let’s keep everyone on a lower playing field? It’s a free market economy, obviously companies need to still charge a ‘fair’ price,
The very reason why the internet has been able to explode with growth for so long is precisely because companies “can’t charge a premium for premium services.” Otherwise known as “throttling bandwidth for websites who won’t pony up the extra cash.”
You can’t just say “free market” 3 times and expect Adam Smith to appear and fix the situation with his invisible hand.
regulating ideas and information is very much fascist, the idea is not limited to that political ideology. It is none the less a terrible structure and hindrance to equality, democracy, creativity and innovation.
otherwise no-one would pay for it.
Not really. You want internet and/or cable? Most cities only offer one or two options in your area. Fuck even the Cato Institute thought it would be fucked up 30 years ago.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa034.html
In a perfect market, you’d be right. It’s not even close to a perfect market. It’s by and large sweetheart deals and cronyism.
From what I skimmed, I completely agree, can’t and won’t argue with that point and article. But is the Gov really who you want to control everything because of the bad business practices of others? I don’t know the answer, but I don’t believe the Gov does either, nor is the
Im not sure this type of article is the strong suit for this site. You don’t mention anything about peering agreements, (lack of) local loop unbunding, etc.
This article basically amounts to:
We think Mark Cuban is badass (being a Mavs fan I agree) + I no like gub’ment regulation = NET NEUTRALITY BAD
I’d rather be reading about T&A or what types of people to expect at weddings in my 20s
1) The comment section is where prefer input takes place. 2) Do you read Vox or Salon? Because that would explain a lot.
I don’t. I just wish I had an alternative choice of provider when I get sick of the one I have, but the “free market” in broadband doesn’t provide one.
Right…because you don’t think there are worse ones out there? This “equality” bullshit is getting old; there are ones out there that are better, guarantee there are plenty more that are worse. No one is saying that “fair and equal” is going to be of the highest quality and cost, it’s just going to be fair and equally shitty for everyone. Like ACA, like Common Core…not to mention universal fees that will be implemented to subsidize this (just like ASA). I’m not going to rebut all of my previous statements, because this will sum it up: name the last Gov program, especially one implemented by Obama or under Obama, that has been a success? You and everyone can say it’s not political, it is, Obama made it that way….Also, you want/trust the Gov the implement a law/rule without revealing the content of a 330+ page document? Just like ACA….no, hell no.
Say some more stuff about stuff.
Peer. God damn fat-fingering everthing on my phone today.
Imagine receiving a phone this time it’s from your grandmother from out of state and it sounds fuzzy and you can’t make out what shes saying.
Now you’re phone rings again and it’s a telemarketer and you can hear crystal clear everything he’s trying to sell you, because he paid a service to make sure you can hear him.
But with “telephone” neutrality both of these calls would be treated the same by the telecommunications service. So you can hear your grandmother and the telemarketer crystal clear.
Mark Cuban made his money web casting his Indiana Hoosiers during the dot com boom and with net neutrality. He’s simply forgotten where he came from.
Does the regulation apply to the ISPs that make up “the last mile” to your house or the Internet backbone providers? I was under the impression it applied more to the backbone guys. They tend to do a good job which is why if you have fiber it is so fast. Obviously the cable companies etc. are criminal in their customer service and pricing since there is so little competition.
It doesn’t have any regulations regarding local loop unbundling, which would be a requirement for the people who own the infrastructure to lease it to other ISPs for a reasonable rate. Not having that sucks because you’re still stuck with the same ISPs in your area
Finally, someone I respect telling me why I shouldn’t support net-neutrality. I was getting worried I was going to have to continue to listen to Karl Rove.
You’ll have to excuse my ignorance but it looks to me like the government is trying to use a socialist measure to try and break up an oligopoly which is like putting a cast on a leg that’s broken in 3 places the problem is not gonna be solved overnight. Only two things will fix this problem more competition and time.
I sure hope this new version of Net Neutrality works as well as the ACA has. Because, you know, it’s working so well.
Not saying Cuban has the answer, but I have the same concerns with Big Government getting their grimy hands all over everything.