There has been a lot of online petitions (and protests) over these proposed changes.

What we need are politicians who aren't in other people's pockets.

Yeah, basically removing Net Neutrality means most of the internet could be behind a paywall, and anything your ISP disagrees with can be censored legally.

We need the current Net Neutrality laws, and there have been tons of petitions. It's not looking like we're going to win though, Ajit Pai is running the council of three, and there's another Republican on the council. The third is a Democrat who wants to keep the internet open, but she's only on the council due to a quota saying there has to be someone of the opposing party there.

So it's 2/3rd likely going to happen. The only people that can save Net Neutrality are the Supreme Court now, as the FCC will have to explain why the internet shouldn't be regulated as a public utility, and why the FCC wants to put everything behind a paywall.

It's looking like we're going to lose though, sadly.

It's not important, it's a joke. You need to understand how laughably thin this is on substance and proof.

Yes, we can all agree that EA uses pretty crappy business practices. Sites put up paywalls all of the time. The problem with putting up a paywall is that there is a chance of your audience abandoning you. Corporations don't just do shit to do it lol. "hey lets make a deal with ATT and charge extra! that'll work out fine." No dude it doesn't work like that.

You're only looking at what corporations will take away from you. What about what corporations would be free to give you? Like for an example, Tmobile saying they wont charge you data for using netflix. That's a good deal right? It's a good marketing hook to draw clients in. Under net neutrality that would violate neutrality rule. Under NN everyone must be the same service and no one is free to make those kinds of decisions. They are kinda like EA, force everyone to sell the same shit until it's milked out and people move onto the next thing.

Tmobile takes a big risk by attempting to give free netflix data, it's a plan that might pay off in the end though. Are you against "not charging" for something as much as you are for "charging extra"? Then you are also against NN laws. You are for free enterprise. We already have anti-trust laws, NN is a farce. The iFCC is an ignorant regulatory body that kills innovation by relentlessly assaulting an industry from their unelected ivory post. These people don't know what the market wants, they are flawed humans like everyone else, 3 unelected people in an office don't need to make our decisions for us. They need to get out of the way, it's a serious problem then congress needs to address it.

Nope! you're wrong!
I rather drink water with no lead and I rather have no buildings collapse on me.
You're argument is frankly ridiculous.
Let me guess you also believe business are people too? Lol.

You are wrong. Major Corporations and Government can screw us from left and right. We want fair and balance for everyone. Without Net Neutrality, things will become worse.

So your pie in the sky fantasy is that capitalism will save us, as in there will be an alternative internet service that will be open and cheaper which is frankly ridiculous, even Google Fiber is only in a few cities and that's a multi-billion dollar company.

Secondly, we built these networks with our tax dollars, our subscriptions, under laws we enacted. Saying there needs to be no regulation is stupid. You're saying it's alright if corporations poison your rivers, you get poisoned water, dangerous infrastructure, only people that can afford protection have access to the police, only people that can afford to have rights, have rights. AnCap doesn't work buddy. Even with no official government corporations and factions build on their own, governing themselves. Would you like your ISP to be your government one day? See how you went full retard there?

And this person's point is completely valid, we might not have online gaming become such a big thing if Net Neutrality is reversed, as more people will just play single player. We might go back to physical media only.

I got downvoted for saying the same thing. People just love to follow political trends without doing any research.

I've noticed the same thing. It's even more apparent that a lot of people don't even understand what the issue is, and many thing that should NN laws be enacted, that somehow, everything will end up being this dystopian future where only a few big companies control everything.

The amount of misconception on the laws, and what's going on is staggering, and sadly, it's coming up for a vote very soon, and not even making that much mainstream press like one would expect.

You sure you know what a monopoly is?

I'm sorry. Things'll look up for you some day, you gotta have hope!

Actually, I would also be worried if I lived in Canada (I live in Australia) although your country does have a lot of ISP's https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... which is fine for local competition, however, the main backbones still appear to go via the US and it is fairly easy for an unscrupulous major ISP on the US side to start giving preference to certain (paid for) internet traffic.

Yeah well, those internet lines likely make their way through some US ISP, and they can still limit what data is sent north of the border in some way with NN failing.

Sadly, while this is likely to affect US consumers financially, it'll have world wide ramifications....which is why I'm so surprised that more countries aren't pushing against this, because they will be affected by it as well.

Yes, it is possible that business will play fair once net neutrality is repealed in December 2017 and it may also be possible for pigs to grow wings and fly.

That's a pretty good example really. To put it in perspective, it's basically alloting different services on the internet into what we used to have with AOL and Compuserve. Ironically, the reason the internet became so big over services like that is that it was completely open, funded by public funds, and completely redundant to prevent this kind of control by a single entity. The overseers of the whole internet did not have this kind of vision for the future of the internet, it's goes completely against what it was supposed to be.

The internet itself was never a commercial enterprise. Just because commercial enterprises use it, doesn't mean they should be allowed to control it.

Not about tribal politics. Please don't go there.

Wait until you have to pay up. Are you going to blame government too?

It’s okay Timmy. When net neutrality is unfortunately removed, you’ll understand once ISP make more of a dent to your wallet 😂

NN wasn't really required before the big companies started trying to find more ways to profit off of other people's work. The internet was set up to be a free exchange of information, and wasn't meant to be restricted through the actions of those that provide the service to the customer. It was never meant to play favorites, or make people rich.

The companies which provide the internet to the customer can indeed do whatever they want in terms of monetizing their service by charging customers more for certain services....whether speed or content delivery, but in today's market, that can be hard to compete with because there will always be a company that won't do those restrictions.

But if NN is revoked, then it's entirely possible that the main line providers of the internet, much of which is controlled by ISP's, and invariably will have almost every user go through their lines at some point, can restrict the amount of data that flows through their invidual lines, taking any control out of the customers hands. Even if a customer on say AT&T pays for the fastest service available to stream, if they have to route their packets through Comcast, and Comcast is throttling Netflix because Netflix won't pony up some money, the AT&T user will see lower performance.

It's obviously a hypothetical, but we've already seen companies trying to enact this kind of thing, which is why NN became a thing in the first place. While I'm rarely one to get into the slippery slope argument, I can't see why anyone not running a huge enterprise that can benefit from it, would want NN to be repealed. It makes no sense from a consumer or small/medium business perspective. On top of that, it goes completely against what the internet as we know it today was meant to be.

Exactly... any time the Obama agenda is threatened the Liberals start yelling the sky is falling.

I don't believe you are correct about net neutrality. Someone naming something that has existed for many years, doesn't give them ownership of the idea. It really has been around before Obama. This is not a new concept.

For the disagrees, i suggest you check out what can be lost with the removal of net neutrallity..... Smh.