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If they announced tomorrow that they are bringing back slavery to USA, I could see you using those same arguments, defending the decision.

Bastard government dictating whether or not one can have slaves, no free slave market? World Taekwondo Federation?

I just noticed, there are A LOT of people outside the U.S. very upset, and while I am grateful for your sympathy and assistance during this shit storm, are any of you really affected?

Just looking at the posters from Canada. Every day that goes buy, you inch one step closer to overtaking us in terms of being the dominate global power in this hemisphere. I'd think you'd be excited as hell. :P

Look, it's not that we support slavery per se, it's about states' rights.

You joke. If my Uncle saw your post he'd scream "DAMN RIGHT!"

Have I ever mentioned how screwed up my family is?

Seriously, I can't wait to hear what my uncle says when this move gives his ISP cause to start throttling all of his "white power" URLs.

Because precedents are used to push legislation. Each country that takes down net neutrality is another country that companies can point to and say "See? This is the international standard, why is our country so behind the times?"

Here in Brazil we're going through a similar thing with companies trying to put data caps in broadband internet, and they are using exactly that as an excuse, and so far the pressure from the people has made them continuously postpone th debate, but it never stops.

nope. EU regulations still say "fuck that shit"...
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but then Brexit...

Apparently we are looking at this from completely different directions. I am not talking about the end-user (you and me), what we have to pay for out internet connection. For that, I am fine with the idea that heavy users (those who stream HD or 4K Netflix all the time, or use the gogrepo.py tool to download all their 1414 GOG game installers in one swoop) pay more for their internets than the old granny who uses internet once a month to get a cookie recipe online.

The ISP/telecom company is free to come up different plans for different users, like the granny can have a basic internet connection with a 5GB monthly data cap and pay only $5 months for it, while I, a power user, would have to pay $50/month for unlimited (or a much higher data cap) internet. I'm fine with that idea, I transfer more data, so I pay more for my internet.

The main problem, at least for me, with abolishing net neutrality is that some big US telecom companies get a competitive edge to push their own (or affiliated) streaming services, by either making the competitors' services slower, or more expensive (because the competitors would have to pay for that telecom company so that its customers can get the content at full speed). That is bad for innovation and adoption of new competing online services.

If the telecom companies feel that the end-users are using heavy streaming services too much nowadays (lowering their profit margins), then they just need to come up with correct pricing levels for different types of users, e.g. by using data caps. But those data caps have to apply to all online services evenly, it shouldn't be so that service A is either slower or costs more to me than service B, just because service B is owned by the telecom company.

I've understood that in many parts of US there is not much competition between telecom companies/ISPs, which makes the problem worse. Then the end-user who is not fine with the ISP throttling different services can't just easily switch to another ISP that is not doing it. Here where I live, we fortunately have a very healthy competition between at least three big telecom companies, which is the reason there are not even any data caps in use, even in most basic and cheapest internet connections, including mobile internet.

The flipside of this is that yes people do use their internet connections heavily, which can mean that e.g. in the evenings at least mobile internet connections can be considerably slower (e.g. my LTE 4G mobile internet can be down to like 12Mbps at the busiest time, but in the middle of the night can be around 30-50Mbps at my home (I have clocked faster speeds even at day time elsewhere with the same connection, even over 100Mbps. so the slower speed at my home is also about the signal strength)).

That's just the lie going around. You don't have to worry about that.

Not directly, but:

1. Unfortunately EU quite often follows USA in decisions like this. I wouldn't be surprised that in 5 years EU commission would suddenly come up with a bright idea of abolishing net neutrality in the EU zone.

2. Even if we didn't, the fact that data.heavy online services would get extra fees from US telecom companies, would most probably increase those services' prices also outside US (e.g. Nefflix increasing its prices globally because they suddenly have to pay extra for big US telecom companies).

3. New online services are invented also outside US, and things like these will affect how such services could be marketed and adopted in US too (which is one of the main markets, and important for any service to really become global; think of GOG.com).

Anyway, I am more concerned about how this will affect the invention of new competing online services, rather than what internet usage will cost me as an end-user. If my ISP thinks I am using my internet too heavily, then they should charge me more, and not go after the online service which I am using heavily (e.g. Youtube, Netflix, GOG.com...). My ISP should only care about how much data I am using, not in which services I am using it.

"If you didn't get assaulted yourself, why are you so outraged that your friend got beaten up by criminals? It's not like you're affected."

I think it's a horrible world view that you should only care about what happens to you personally and not about how other people are abused.

I have been reading up ALL DAY and the best thing I can gather is that no one needs to commit Harakiri just yet. I've got my sword, it's been sharpened, I'm ready, but we aren't there yet, and there are a lot of particulars that need to be gotten over. Even the more pessimistic of us who I have heard from agree that it won't be so simple. There are a lot of options and a lot of road blocks that can and will be employed before we all need to give up.

The ISPs for one will obviously need to play it cool for a while, for obvious reasons. Well, if we can hold out until next November they will lose their majority rule in Congress. It's not a guarantee and it;s not a perfect solution, but it's something to hope for and shoot for.
I was just asking Samy. :P I totally agree it is a horrible view, unfortunately there are A LOT of people, many I regrettably know personally, that hold it as a their view, so I wanted to see how other's felt about it.

I've heard most Internet users in America have only one option because the big telecom companies stick to their turf and keep out of each other's jurisdiction like mafia kingpins. If a customer is disappointed with the service, they have no recourse.

where I live we only have one choice. HOWEVER, where I live there are two huge colleges. There was a huge protest down there just today about this, so I can't imagine the one ISP up here is going to be too keen on alienating the bulk of their users.

Not necessarily. I made a similar concern as you describe, back in my Post 26. "[ISP adjusting speeds] just because you're watching Netflix instead of their own TV offerings?"

I don't have a problem with the data-used model, either. Er, so long as the prices are reasonable. If they tell me 10GB per month for $100, that's a problem. Though at my speed, it's not that big of a problem. ; ) Hell, cell companies and satellite internet services do this already: "unlimited", but capped speed for the rest of the month after xxGB. But I'd also be satisfied with a reasonably-priced lower-speed unlimited plan; 5Mb would make a big difference out here.

Re: competition here in the States. Yes, it can be lacking. So far as I know there is no widespread line-sharing mechanism, so the telco runs its own lines and supporting infrastructure, the cableco has its own lines and infrastructure... and that's it. If one of those two is leasing out their lines to some other competing provider, I haven't seen it around here. There's also some wifi services here and there, like xfinity, but nothing locally.

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My bigger concern for the internet is getting decent, usable speed in the hands of those outside the cities. Rural areas - even those just barely outside of town - mostly are getting left far behind. And the internet we DO get can be more expensive than the good stuff in town. For example, our telco has a newer "fixed price for life" plan where the 20Mbps service (not available everywhere, natch) costs LESS than what we pay for 768kbps. And we're probably luckier than many because we at least have internet of ANY speed; plenty of other rural folks have nothing affordable available. So we pay more to finance the numerous speed upgrades that happen periodically in town, while our own connections lag farther and farther behind today's demands.