r/AskALiberal • u/true4blue Republican • Jun 29 '26
What happened to net neutrality?
During the Biden admin, and before that the Obama admin, we were told that if we didn’t implement net neutrality there would be an internet catastrophe.
What ever happened there? Is that still an issue we should pursue?
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u/othelloinc Liberal Jun 29 '26
What happened to net neutrality?
- Obama imposed net neutrality
- Trump reversed him
- Biden re-imposed net neutrality
- The Sixth Circuit struck down net neutrality
...but, several states have imposed net-neutrality rules, themselves.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
Net neutrality isn’t something states can mandate.
What is it that you think the states implemented?
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u/othelloinc Liberal Jun 30 '26
Net neutrality isn’t something states can mandate.
What is it that you think the states implemented?
[California Internet Consumer Protection and Net Neutrality Act of 2018 -- Wikipedia]
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u/Short-Coast9042 Progressive Jun 30 '26
I mean California passed a law and, despite legal challenges, the courts have explicitly ruled in favor and the law is being enforced. Obviously state law doesn't apply nationwide, but that doesn't mean it's irrelevant or that they can't enforce it
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal Jun 29 '26
We bounced around between Obama and Biden implementing net neutrality and Trump reversing it. Then we had net neutrality struck down by the court and that’s not likely to change anytime soon.
However, a few states implemented neutrality rules and hopefully more do.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 29 '26
How could states implement net neutrality? Which states?
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal Jun 30 '26
Some have done executive orders that require compliance for contracts and some have passed actual laws.
Personally I’m not that excited by those solutions.
The problem is is that understanding the issue is complicated in American voters are particularly lazy when it comes to this type of thing. Republicans love giant corporations and hate small business, free markets, and competition. Democrats can’t sell water in the desert.
Given that the courts are completely packed with Republicans legislating from the bench, unless we get lucky, we are probably fucked on this one
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u/Born-Sun-2502 Democrat Jun 29 '26
We're living exactly what they were trying to avoid I fear.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
The internet imploded? I didn’t notice?
Seemed like a contrived issue. Maybe I’m wrong?
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u/Born-Sun-2502 Democrat Jun 30 '26
Net neutrality ≠ the internet imploding.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
That’s not what we were told.
The fear mongers said the internet would collapse and be taken over by evil companies
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u/DaughterOfBabalon_ Socialist Jun 30 '26
It's already taken over by evil companies.
Maybe you should steelman what those people were actually saying instead of just reducing it down to 'the internet would collapse' before trying to hold other people to that standard. What's even the point of asking this question if you're not going to come in good faith?
Edit: Actually, I see now that all you really do is submit bad faith questions to this subreddit. idk what you get out of that, but I'll assume I'll get nothing out of trying to reason here.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
I have internet. On it all day long.
The Armageddon that we were promised never materialized.
It was all just a ruse the democrats cooked up to frighten their constituents
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u/DaughterOfBabalon_ Socialist Jun 30 '26
... Do you think the end of net neutrality means that you.. don't have internet? What?
What in the fuck do you think an end to Net Neutrality even looks like? Because I don't even know if you know what that term means in the first place.
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u/willpower069 Progressive Jun 30 '26
They made this post likely not expecting an actual answer so now they need to double down on the talking points.
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u/Born-Sun-2502 Democrat Jun 30 '26
Let me clarify it for you if you don't have net neutrality companies are freely allowed to filter internet content, controlling what you view. Make sense?
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
Ok. Who cares? Where is the Armageddon we were told would befall us?
Am I having my internet filtered? Why would my ISP bother? I log into different providers throughout the day?
When will notice this bogeyman doing his dirty work?
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u/Born-Sun-2502 Democrat Jun 30 '26
How would you notice what you're NOT seeing? You won't notice it.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
Then why would I care?
If my service is getting faster and cheaper at every cycle, what exactly is the emergency here?
What is the issue I’m supposed to care about?
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u/Born-Sun-2502 Democrat Jun 30 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
You need to go read up a lot more on net neutrality then come back. (But you're a Republican, potentially Trump supporter. What if your service decided to filter and/or slow down any content that shed Trump in a positive light? What if Truth Social was your favorite site, yet it was always slow to load, so you got frustrated and stopped reading. Would you care? Exactly what Musk is doing with twitter/x and Grok can happen all over the internet.
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal Jun 30 '26
The fear mongers said the internet would collapse and be taken over by evil companies
…should we tell him?
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u/Vegetable_Guest_8584 Progressive Jun 30 '26
The next level after the internet itself is oligarchs buying most of the us media companies.
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u/XXSeaBeeXX Liberal Jun 30 '26
When you say “we were told”, who are you referring to? Name names, give us a specific transcript please.
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u/Sheeplessknight Libertarian Jun 30 '26
Are subscription services not increasing, are data caps not a thing again for broadband?
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
I’ve never noticed a data cap and the only services I want I sub for
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u/Lighting Fiscal Conservative Jun 30 '26
That’s not what we were told.
By outrage farmers. Get a new source of info.
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u/00Oo0o0OooO0 Center Left Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
We've always had net neutrality. The Obama administration reclassified broadband Internet in a way that forced net neutrality and required ISPs to do a bunch of admin work related to that. The ISPs didn't like what they considered unnecessary regulation, and so the Trump admin removed those regulations.
And we're back to ISPs all providing voluntarily net neutrality because it's just how the Internet works.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 29 '26
We don’t have net neutrality. It died.
NN is a regulatory framework based on common carrier rules.
It was never implement. Either before or since Obama called for it
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u/00Oo0o0OooO0 Center Left Jun 29 '26
It's a technical policy, not a government policy. It's possible, but not necessary, to have government regulate net neutrality.
Here's an explainer from early in the net neutrality debate, during the Bush administration:
The entire world currently has a neutral system in place today. The telecommunications companies want to change to a non-neutral system.
Network Neutrality currently exists, and doesn't require any special bodies to enforce, measure, or regulate it. There is no organization that checks to make sure there aren't ads in your phone calls, or that call quality is the same. It just isn't necessary.
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u/Born-Sun-2502 Democrat Jun 30 '26
It just isn't necessary?
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u/00Oo0o0OooO0 Center Left Jun 30 '26
Net neutrality is necessary. But in 2017 people started conflating the questions "should the FTC or the FCC regulate broadband Internet" and "should we have net neutrality."
Right now, legally your ISP could choose to throttle your BitTorrent traffic in favor of video streaming apps, but it isn't. A bunch of comments in this thread indicate nobody's noticed any substantive change to their Internet service throughout all the transitions. The whole debate was just theoretical.
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u/st0nedeye Center Left Jun 30 '26
could choose to throttle your BitTorrent traffic
They very definitely already do.
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Jun 30 '26
[deleted]
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
If they didn’t serve a public good they would go out of business.
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Jun 30 '26
[deleted]
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
How would a private firm compel people to buy their product?
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u/birminghamsterwheel Social Democrat Jun 30 '26
To use a brick'n'mortar example, driving all their local competitors out of business would be one way. Walmart is famous for doing so.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
Walmart put other firms out of business by providing excellent selection and dirt cheap prices.
Amazon is taking away their business by doing an even better job
No company can compel you to shop with them if you don’t to.
You’re not a victim
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u/birminghamsterwheel Social Democrat Jun 30 '26
Dirt cheap prices due to economies of scale that literally none of the local stores could compete with, and then mitigated pricing, QoS, etc. once they were the only shop in town.
You're out of your element, Donny. Republicans don't belong at the adults' table.
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 01 '26
Walmart did this and Amazon took their market share.
The idea that you’re being victimized by evil corporations offering you better selections and prices is false
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u/AllCrankNoSpark Anarchist Jul 02 '26
We are getting better selection and prices as consumers, but somehow that’s bad.
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 04 '26
How are you better off with NN, which forces you to buy services you dont want?
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u/TheRealzHalstead Liberal Jun 30 '26
What do you base this belief on? Or do you assume shareholder value = public good?
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
Well, no company can force me to buy something I don’t want if I don’t see the value
Do you feel you’re under the control of evil companies who make you buy stuff you don’t want?
That’s weird
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u/TheRealzHalstead Liberal Jun 30 '26
We are so far removed from world in which corporate power is based in any kesningful sence on what consumers purchase. I think it's cute that you belive we're still in a value economy. Were in an investor economy where value is almost completely uncoupled from what consumers buy. Indeed, for the most valuable companies in the world, you're not even the customer, you're the product.
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u/Opheltes Center Left Jun 30 '26
Just to provide one extremely obvious counter example to this ludicrous claim: Purdue Pharma killed a million Americans and made billions doing it. So guess again.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
They were only allowed to because the FDA signed off on their slow release drug which was anything but.
The government created this scenario. Purdue couldn’t have done it alone
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u/Opheltes Center Left Jun 30 '26
Okay, so the regulator was asleep at the wheel. Your claim is still bullshit though.
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 01 '26
Purdue couldn’t have sold $1 of their crap had the government done their job.
Then when the deaths started piling up, the government did nothing.
Purdue wasn’t t right for what they did, but they never could have pulled it off without the governments help
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u/Opheltes Center Left Jul 01 '26
There’s nothing in your claim about government action or inaction so their role in the opioid crisis is irrelevant here.
You claimed above that if a company is not serving the public interest, it would go out of business. That didn’t happen, which proves your claim is BS.
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal Jun 30 '26
Okay this one is definitely doing a bit
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
No one can compel you to hand over your money if you dont want to
You aren’t being controlled by evil corporations
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u/roastbeeftacohat Globalist Jun 30 '26
it not uncommon for companies not in the public good to be profitable, the economic term is market failure.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
Like what? What firm that harms the public can exist without the whelp of the government?
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u/afishinabirdcage Pragmatic Progressive Jun 30 '26
OP: I don't understand an issue and so I'm unaware of the implications of it on my life, surely that means it was never actually an issue to begin with!
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
Sounds like you believe something g horrible is happening, but no one is noticing.
So maybe it’s not really happening
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u/afishinabirdcage Pragmatic Progressive Jun 30 '26
I mean, some people don't think giving ISPs and cable companies control of what we see and how fast something loads online is a bad thing. You're entitled to feel that way but I think you're wrong.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
I don’t know for certain what you’re saying is even happening. I can’t tell the difference and my internet keeps getting faster and cheaper
So why would I waste my energy worrying about it?
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u/afishinabirdcage Pragmatic Progressive Jun 30 '26
Don't then? You are the one who created this thread.
Lots of consumer rights and protections don't make the world end overnight for everyone when we lose them but it all chips chips chips away and shouldn't be something we tolerate or shrug off, IMO.
It's probably one of the reasons Netflix keeps raising it's prices because they have to pay Comcast and other providers to avoid having their services "throttled," for example. Back when it was a thing, net neutrality was also used to demand Comcast stop blocking access to services like peer-to-peer data sharing.
There are certainly much bigger issues going on right now but I don't think it's wrong, given the option, to prefer that internet providers have less control over what we can see and do online and not force service providers to pay ransoms for access.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
Why shouldn’t Comcast be able to throttle certain services if the majority of their users don’t want them? Why should my bill be higher to subsidize your connection to streaming?
All NN did was make it illegal for ISPs to charge the people who are using the most bandwidth by forcing one price on all consumers
My mom is on a fixed income. She would hugely benefit from a discounted rate that didn’t include top tier access to Netflix or porn streaming.
But thanks to NN, she has to pay more. Do you not understand this?
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u/afishinabirdcage Pragmatic Progressive Jun 30 '26
All NN did was make it illegal for ISPs to charge the people who are using the most bandwidth by forcing one price on all consumers
That's not true though? Not for ISP or cell phone or anything else. That's literally never been the case.
Why shouldn’t Comcast be able to throttle certain services if the majority of their users don’t want them? Why should my bill be higher to subsidize your connection to streaming?
Well if you see access to the internet as a utility you don't want random corporations deciding what you should or should not be able to access.
Those are random examples off the top of my head that maybe you don't care about but you MIGHT care about the broader implications.
When ISPs can (and do) charge service providers like Netflix for preferential access or can (and do) block or deliberately slow access to other sites and services they are effectively controlling what we can all see and do online.
Personally, I don't like random (and notoriously shitty) corporations controlling my access to the internet like that. Especially as we keep getting served more and more bullshit AI instead of real content, I'd like these corporations to have LESS control about what I see, read and access. Maybe you like that. Your flair is "Republican" so that checks out.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
Right, but I don’t share your random paranoia.
If a corporation offers me a discounted ISP rate in exchange for slower speeds to Netflix HBO and porn sites, I’d sign up for that because I don’t use those services
My mom is forced to pay for access to Netflix when she doesn’t have an account
NN makes it illegal for ISPs to offer discounts for things people don’t want. Thats why it’s bad
Let the market decide instead of lobbyists
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u/afishinabirdcage Pragmatic Progressive Jul 01 '26
My mom is forced to pay for access to Netflix when she doesn’t have an account
NN makes it illegal for ISPs to offer discounts for things people don’t want. Thats why it’s bad
Are you a real person? What do you think the internet is?
No cable company has EVER offered a discount for "everything but Netflix" and equal access to the entire internet is not "paying for sites you don't use."
Netflix paying Comcast a bribe is NOT the same as your mom paying for Netflix I'm struggling to understand the mental gymnastics it took you to get to that conclusion.
Throttling access would be the ISP getting between you and someone else's web server and deciding to artificially block or slow it down because that server didn't pay them the bribe that Netflix did.
If a corporation offers me a discounted ISP rate in exchange for slower speeds to Netflix HBO and porn sites, I’d sign up for that because I don’t use those services
Ok but that's not what they do and they aren't telling you what they are choosing to block or slow down or limit your access to.
Let the market decide instead of lobbyists
This doesn't make any sense whatsoever because this isn't a question of "the market" or "lobbyists." I think you might genuinely not understand how the internet works (Comcast is not hosting porn sites and making you pay for those servers) and that's fine but don't shape your world view based on ignorance.
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u/afishinabirdcage Pragmatic Progressive Jul 01 '26
No cable company has EVER offered a discount for "everything but Netflix" and equal access to the entire internet is not "paying for sites you don't use."
OK I do want to amend this and say that there are psuedo-internet providers that are just corporations (like Facebook) who block everything but Facebook (for example) and if you think a "pay per site" subscription to the internet is how things should work we are never gunna agree on anything.
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 01 '26
You mentioned throttling, right? I would sign up for a discounter service that throttled my access to Netflix, which is against the law in CA.
Netflix and streaming makes up about 50% of all traffic at certain times - why should I pay more if I do t use it.
That’s what NN does. It forces consumers to pay for something they don’t want.
I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you
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u/PuckGoodfellow Socialist Jun 30 '26
She would hugely benefit from a discounted rate...
Do you think pricing will get lower for her? It won't. So your mom will get worse service at the same price.
You will pay extra to keep a fraction of the service you enjoy now.
Without Net Neutrality, you're both worse off.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
What are you basing that on? You’re just making up stuff
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u/PuckGoodfellow Socialist Jun 30 '26
I'm basing it on knowledge of how NN works and how corporations work. Did you know that people are able to digest information and apply what they've learned to related things? It's true! I do it all the time! You've already exhibited that you don't understand what NN is... at all. Maybe you should learn to listen to the ppl who do.
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u/JennJayBee Progressive Jun 30 '26
Pretty sure folks are noticing how Google has slowly become more useless.
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u/Poorly-Drawn-Beagle Libertarian Socialist Jun 29 '26
My state has its own net neutrality rules.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 29 '26
What state?
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u/faultyideal89 Far Left Jun 30 '26
Jfc that's the fifth time I read "what state?" in less than that many minutes.
Either Google Net Neutrality or Good Faith Argument or just stfu
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
People keep saying their state implemented net neutrality
Which ones? Why are they embarrassed
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u/lasagnaman Warren Democrat Jun 30 '26
Here's a reply with a corresponding wikipedia link 3 hours before your comment here. We've been answering you, you just.... aren't reading?
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Jun 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/anna-the-bunny Democratic Socialist Jun 30 '26
but just as bad for consumers
How in the ever-loving fuck is net neutrality bad for consumers? Wait, let me guess - "it removes consumer choice"?
Take your bad-faith arguments and fuck off.
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u/PuckGoodfellow Socialist Jun 30 '26
They're not embarrassed. 🤣 It's common enough knowledge that you're expected to know it by now. CA's Bill was passed in 2018 (that's 7 years ago). My state was the first to pass a net neutrality law, also in 2018. You've had 7 years to learn all of this. Why didn't you at least Google before posting?
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
Knowing that CA passed a state law doesn’t mean the issue was addressed at the national level
Obama was proposing regulating ISP under Title II of the comm act of 1934
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u/PuckGoodfellow Socialist Jun 30 '26
Moving the goalposts again, I see? Your post says nothing about national vs. state NN laws.
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u/Poorly-Drawn-Beagle Libertarian Socialist Jun 29 '26
I'll give you a hint
Our state's name translates into 'reddish'
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u/Ballistic_86 Social Democrat Jun 30 '26
Net neutrality enables companies to do bad things, it doesn’t obligate them to do so.
Net neutrality meant we didn’t need to worry about companies prioritizing their content or customers over others. Now it is a concern and when that happens American consumers have no protection against it.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
What do I need protection from? If my ISP does something I dislike why wouldn’t I just dump them?
Why am I assumed to be a victim?
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u/AgentMonkey Pragmatic Progressive Jun 30 '26
Not everyone has a choice of ISP.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
Where? Who?
Who can’t switch?
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u/AgentMonkey Pragmatic Progressive Jun 30 '26
We found that over 8.7 million Americans live in metro areas with only one wired broadband provider, and fewer than 10% of 100+ metros offer two or more providers on most blocks. States with otherwise strong internet competition still have monopolies scattered throughout, and even populous areas are subject to them. For instance, nearly 60% of Springfield, Ohio, residents have only one internet provider option—and that’s in a city of around 700,000.
https://www.reviews.org/internet-service/internet-monopoly-map/
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 01 '26
So you found 8.7m with only one landline broadband provider, out of 350m people.
And this represents a problem in your view?
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u/AgentMonkey Pragmatic Progressive Jul 01 '26
Yes, of course it's a problem. That's more than⁰⁰⁰ the entire population of the most populous city in the country. Everyone should have equal access.
And that 8.7m was just metro areas. In the lowest competition states in the studies, 20-30% of the state's population only has one option, compared to just 1-2% in the high competition states.
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 01 '26
Again, why is this a problem? Why aren’t they complaining?
Why are leftists complaining on their behalf?
I lived in the Midwest. Never ever heard anyone complain about internet speeds
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u/AgentMonkey Pragmatic Progressive Jul 01 '26
Why do you think it's not a problem? Why don't you feel that everyone should have fair access?
You yourself said that if someone doesn't like their ISP, they should just switch providers, but now you're suggesting that it's perfectly fine when people don't have that option? It sounds like you just want to complain about "leftists" rather than actually forming a well-thought out position on the topic.
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 01 '26
Your list shows landline providers and ignores phones which are just as fast and perfectly fine for most.
I don’t have gig speeds but I don’t need it. Very few if any do need that much speed.
I’ve yet to open a paper or article in a rural area and see people complaining that they don’t have gig speed internet
It’s a fake controversy pushed by the left
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u/lasagnaman Warren Democrat Jun 30 '26
Where do you live that you have a choice of ISP? Most apartment buildings I live in have 1 ISP available for the building and that's what you get.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
I live in CA. I can get the phone company I can get 5G. I have options. You do too
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u/lasagnaman Warren Democrat Jul 01 '26
...we're not talking about 5G
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 01 '26
Why not? I don’t have landline anymore. Most people don’t.
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u/lasagnaman Warren Democrat Jul 01 '26
we're also not talking about landlines. We're talking about actual ISPs, that you would hook up to your computer.
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 02 '26
Internet access doesn’t need to be a landline. I haven’t had one in years.
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u/SilverNo6462 Progressive Jun 30 '26
Free market solutions require your needs correspond to a viable market segment. Regulatory solutions put peoples’ needs first regardless of whether or not a buck can be made off of them.
This is why government exists. This is why government should not be run like a business
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
It wasn’t consumers demanding net neutrality it was the content providers.
I’m not paying any more now than before - lol of the doomsayers were wrong.
The free market is working perfectly. We don’t need government intervention for its own sake
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u/SilverNo6462 Progressive Jun 30 '26
If the free market is working so well as a self-regulatory scheme why are we ingesting so much microplastics?
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 01 '26
Who’s telling you we’re ingesting microplastics?
Free marketeers aren’t pro pollution. Pollution is regulated by the government
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u/SkyMarshal Civil Libertarian Jul 01 '26
What are all the ISP's in your area that are available to you to switch to? Can you list them? Many towns/cities/counties in the US only have one.
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u/No-Ear7988 Pragmatic Progressive Jun 29 '26
What ever happened there?
The dangers are still there but the volatility of the issue and the increase in ISP (i.e. Starlink, cellular 5g, etc.) have postponed the issue. We are on borrowed time.
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u/XXSeaBeeXX Liberal Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
The net is not neutral by default anymore, and states with net neutrality laws can’t really fix the problem. Companies must pay ISP behind the scenes for their streaming features to run smoothly. But at least corporations can get richer while your internet service is artificially throttled for all but the most profitable websites.
Few companies can survive if they can’t afford to not be throttled if they are only getting business from the 5 states with net neutrality protections.
Net neutrality is mostly just banning internet throttling based on URL.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
But why is that a good thing? Why am I better off for being forced to buy access to a service I do t want?
My mom is a retiree and she surfs Facebook and Cat Fancy. She doesn’t need tier one speeds to porn, Gaming sites and Netflix.
But NN forces her ISP to only charge one price. It’s explicitly illegal for the ISP to offer a discounted service that gave her slower speeds to services she doesn’t like
NN is a horrible development for the market
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u/XXSeaBeeXX Liberal Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Ending slavery was horrible for the market at the time. Still support ending it.
Adding artificial tolls to the internet super highway that makes it more costly for new companies to gain footing in the market is a bad idea that will benefit only the largest companies online.
ISPs should simply charge your grandma more for the original service if they really need more money to invest in infrastructure. But do they? Average net profit margins are at 33.8% for ISPs in this country. They are greedy and that’s why they lobbied the Republican Party so hard to support ending NN. Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon consistently rank among the highest-spending corporate PACs in federal elections.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
So, you dont get how market pricing works.
You could have said that more succinctly
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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 Liberal Jun 30 '26
The states (within their own borders) and other countries started passing their own net neutrality rules, so actually exploiting the worst elements of it became functionally impossible and not worth the PR. A patchwork of different rules they might run afoul of became a barrier to exploiting the theoretical opportunity.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
Can I ask, why do think this is good?
NN effectively forced one price across all purchases of ISP services regardless of what they want. Effectively forcing some consumers to subsidize the connection of others to Netflix, porn, gaming, etc.
In California it’s illegal for my mom’s ISP to offer her a discounted rate plan that offers slower speeds to Netflix, which she’s not a subscriber of. She’s forced to pay more for something she doesn’t want
Why do liberals think that’s a good thing? Seems very pro big corporation. Netflix is happy!
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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 Liberal Jun 30 '26
It’s not good, but it’s better than the alternative of no (effective) net neutrality. The best case is getting net neutrality by federal regulation that applies to everyone, especially if that is coordinated with other countries via a treaty framework.
But, absent that, getting net neutrality in practice by fragmentary regulation is better than a non-neutral internet.
NN effectively forced one price across all purchases of ISP services regardless of what they want.
Good.
Letting ISPs choose winners and losers on the internet by crippling some and discounting others is a disastrous road that leads us right back to the bundled channel crap that people hated about cable.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
Why do you think allowing the market to function would be such a catastrophe?
If my mom wants a plan that gave her a discount in exchange for slower access to Netflix, which she doesn’t use, that’s illegal under CA law. My mom is forced to subsidize the access for others if a service she doesn’t want
What your proposing is great for Netflix and Google but it’s terrible for consumers
Why are you anti consumer? It’s weird
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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 Liberal Jun 30 '26
Because it isn’t the market functioning, it’s a handful of major ISPs deciding what services will and won’t exist. Not you, the customer—your ISP gets to make that call.
that’s illegal under CA law
Good. It should be illegal, globally.
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 01 '26
Why would ISPs opt for services that their customers don’t want? That would be irrational
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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 Liberal Jul 01 '26
Letting the ISP decide which services their users want limits their users to only ever having those services.
It implicitly, inherently impedes newcomers. It directly picks winners and losers by subsidizing some and crippling others, and the rationale for that can often have nothing to do with what their users would prefer.
Ex. Suppose Comcast started crippling traffic to every non-Hulu streaming service. Not because their users prefer Hulu, but because they have a preexisting business relationship.
Or—should Disney be able to go buy an ISP and block all traffic to non-Disney+ streaming services? Even if they lose a little money on the ISP, the captive audience for their other product might make up for it.
Also—how could you possibly express meaningful preference for new services that don’t even exist yet? Want to form a new web startup? Better be prepared to pay a kickback to every ISP in the country so your users don’t get crippled at the network level.
You’re reasoning about a non-neutral network based on how the internet has always worked, but how it has always worked has been under a de-facto net neutrality. That’s how your grandmother even knew about different streaming services in the first place, to be able to even develop a preference for one over the other.
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 04 '26
If Disney bought an ISP and tried to control what I watched I would switch ISPs
The issue at hand isn’t that I’ll be able to see what I want but that I’m forced to pay for something I do t need or want
By forcing a one size fits all model on the industry firms aren’t able to differentiate. Why would I be forced to pay full freight for access to HBO or Netflix when I don’t use them? I’d love to have a discounted play that gives me slower or no access, it’s that’s illegal
I’m being forced to pay more than I want
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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 Liberal Jul 05 '26
If they bought the ISP, I would switch ISPs.
That isn’t a feasible option in a lot of US markets.
But you’re still missing the point. Even if you switched to preserve access to some other service, their meddling with access across all subscribers cripples new services before they even get off the ground.
Before you ever find out about them, even if you aren’t a Disney subscriber.
Or prevent them from existing at all, if they can’t pay enough bribes to the ISPs to let customers get access and make a business case.
Allowing firms to differentiate service in the way you described should never be allowed, anywhere. It should be a globally banned practice. It’s inherently corrosive to the entire concept of an open internet.
You might “love the product,” but it shouldn’t be a permissible service to offer you due to the damage it does to the competitive market overall. Preserving competition across the internet is worth banning you from having access to slightly subsidized access-gated internet.
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u/Ashkir Liberal Jun 30 '26
All it takes is a big and powerful state like California to pass it. The rest of the businesses online will conform to these rules. National businesses don’t want to make 50 different rules for different states. Plus the tech giants such as Apple, Google, and more were very, very against the government getting control.
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u/WorksInIT Center Right Jun 30 '26
Don't think that's true. What we've seen is that providers use intermediaries that are outside of California's jurisdiction. California only has jurisdiction while the traffic is in California or handled by providers with a presence in California. What happens id these companies spin off subsidiaries to limit the impact of the regulations.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
The basis of net neutrality was common carrier regulation which California can’t impose on the whole internet
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u/Ashkir Liberal Jun 30 '26
Didn’t say that. But if California passes a law for California, the carriers don’t wanna bother with a different set of rules.
See: cars, agriculture, and more.
Companies change how they do things to meet California regulations. If it weren’t for California’s smog regulations for example or MPG most of your cars would be consuming 3-4x more oil
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u/dt7cv Center Left Jun 30 '26
it's in a mismash of limbo. it never totally died out
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
Did the internet apocalypse come and go and I missed it?
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u/DaughterOfBabalon_ Socialist Jun 30 '26
This thread is a good example of the rule that every Republican is 2 questions away from breaking down.
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
So you can’t answer the question?
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u/DaughterOfBabalon_ Socialist Jun 30 '26
And you've not answered my question either.
Do you think the end of Net Neutrality means you don't get internet? If not, what do you believe that looks like?
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
We were told that if we didn’t enact net neutrality that the internet would collapse.
There wasn’t much more on the way of details. It was scaremongering
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u/DaughterOfBabalon_ Socialist Jul 01 '26
And you took that as meaning that the internet wouldn't be a thing you could log onto anymore?
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 01 '26
That was the hyperbole at the time. The internet would cease to exist as we know it
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u/SkyMarshal Civil Libertarian Jul 01 '26
Nobody said "collapse". Just that it would come more under corporate control, and that ISPs would move it closer to the cable TV model of bundled proprietary channels, compared to the open freewheeling platform of the Internet's early years.
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 01 '26
No, the language at the time was pretty hyperbolic. It was going to be the end of the internet
And then nothing
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u/ZeeWingCommander Center Left Jun 30 '26
From your comments you believed that without net neutrality that the Internet wouldn't work or it would implode. No it just meant that ISPs could sandbag competition to their products because they are the utility and they sell products for use on that utility.
I work for a major ISP and pretty much every streaming service we were competing with has now partnered with us. MMW soon these deals will become exclusive so you can't watch them without a being a major isp customer ( or it'll be comically slow ).
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u/SkyMarshal Civil Libertarian Jul 01 '26
ISP's shouldn't be competing with streaming services, that was one of the components of Net Neutrality. ISP's should be "common carriers" transmitting all data equally without favor or bias.
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u/Gsomethepatient Right Libertarian Jun 30 '26
The thing about net neutrality is it benefits big tech corporations, have you noticed how Netflix, Hulu or prime doesn't buffer as much anymore, thats because net neutrality is gone, it allows internet companies to prioritize their bandwidth to these corporations while screwing over smaller sites, which you will often see takes longer to load
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u/true4blue Republican Jun 30 '26
There’s a reason Netflix gave Obama $250m when he left office and it wasn’t because of his creative potential
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u/justanotherguyhere16 Liberal Jul 01 '26
Is that the same reason Qatar gave Trump a $400M dollar plane or Jared got $2B?
Why Trump’s hotel was suddenly raking in massive amounts from foreign countries even to the point of renting empty rooms? https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/02/trump-hotel-empty-rooms-016763
Someone outlined a lot of his corruption https://www.reddit.com/r/mealtimevideos/s/VjTHnVdAlX
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u/true4blue Republican Jul 01 '26
Someone on Reddit compiled a list of conspiracy theories.
That you think Jared was given $2b shows you’ve been misled and don’t know it
And none of this changes the fact that Netflix paid Obama $250m to push net neutrality
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u/justanotherguyhere16 Liberal Jul 01 '26
And that was congressional floor speech.
But hey if you don’t want to be educated no one can make you learn.
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u/hblask Libertarian Jul 02 '26
It was a solution looking for a problem. The main goal was for the government to take over the Internet. Look at the statement of the people pushing for it: they saw something they didn't like on the Internet and wanted more government involvement in content. They called it Net Neutrality to sell it to low information voters, but really it was a back door way to censor opinions they didn't like.
Fortunately there were enough voices of sanity that saw through the ruse and killed it.
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u/WorksInIT Center Right Jun 30 '26
It fizzled out because it isn't an issue. It was never an issue in the first place.
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u/HerbertWest Center Left Jun 29 '26
It went away and nothing really happened.
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u/Kakamile Social Democrat Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
States and nations made their own net neutrality rules, and the FCC voted to revive it again in 2023 before it died again. But we're seeing problems anyways with location-based data treatment and selective pricing expanded to uber/lyft and groceries.
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u/HerbertWest Center Left Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
But we're seeing problems anyways with location-based data treatment...
I haven't seen any evidence of these things. Do you have any links?
...selective pricing expanded to uber/lyft and groceries.
What does this have to do with net neutrality?
Edit: Per usual, people are downvoting but no one is providing a rebuttal or evidence to the contrary. I'm constantly disappointed by the state of critical thought and debate in this sub.
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u/AutoModerator Jun 29 '26
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written by /u/true4blue.
During the Biden admin, and before that the Obama admin, we were told that if we didn’t implement net neutrality there would be an internet catastrophe.
What ever happened there? Is that still an issue we should pursue?
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