Stop enshitification 3 years ago!

FCC to vote to restore net neutrality rules, reversing Trump By David Shepardson April 2, 20243:51 PM PDTUpdated 4 hours ago People look at data on their mobiles as internet wire cables on switch hub are shown in background People look at data on their mobiles as background with internet wire cables on switch hub is projected in this picture

WASHINGTON, April 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will vote to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules and assume new regulatory oversight of broadband internet that was rescinded under former President Donald Trump, the agency’s chair said.

The FCC told advocates on Tuesday of the plan to vote on the final rule at its April 25 meeting.

The commission voted 3-2 in October on the proposal to reinstate open internet rules adopted in 2015 and re-establish the commission’s authority over broadband internet.

Net neutrality refers to the principle that internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites.

FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel confirmed the planned commission vote in an interview with Reuters. “The pandemic made clear that broadband is an essential service, that every one of us - no matter who we are or where we live - needs it to have a fair shot at success in the digital age,” she said.

An essential service requires oversight and in this case we are just putting back in place the rules that have already been court-approved that ensures that broadband access is fast, open and fair." Reinstating the rules has been a priority for President Joe Biden, who signed a July 2021 executive order encouraging the FCC to reinstate net neutrality rules adopted under Democratic President Barack Obama. Democrats were stymied for nearly three years because they did not take majority control of the five-member FCC until October.

Under Trump, the FCC had argued the net neutrality rules were unnecessary, blocked innovation and resulted in a decline in network investment by internet service providers, a contention disputed by Democrats.

Rosenworcel has said the reclassification would give the FCC important new national security tools. The agency said in its initial proposal that rules could give it “more robust authority to require more entities to remove and replace” equipment and services from Chinese companies like Huawei (HWT.UL) and ZTE (000063.SZ)

Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr opposed the move, saying that since 2017 “broadband speeds in the U.S. have increased, prices are down (and) competition has intensified.” He argued the plan would result in “government control of the internet.”

Despite the 2017 repeal, a dozen states now have net neutrality laws or regulations in place. Industry groups abandoned legal challenges to those state requirements in May 2022.

  • badbrainstorm @lemmy.todayOP
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    7 months ago

    Yea, the enshittification process predates the internet, so yes.

    However, the loss of net neutrality has lead to these monopolies being able to rapidly speed the process in a large number of ways, from ways they work with and imprison advertisers and vendors to their platforms.

    Their ability to buy telecoms favor. With the death of net neutrality, now broadband Bros shape the face of the internet for the most elite and powerful companies. Silencing the little websites and startups that used to show up in search results amongst giants like Amazon, eBay, Facebook marketplace, Ali, etc. for ma and pa trying to run a small buisness. Making us all slaves to these monopolies, and the handful of companies you must deal with, enshittification, obnoxious new ads, and all, just to reach the masses.

    Elon says you can’t even put your Mastadon handle on Twitter, etc. I could go on and on.

    The death of net neutrality has emboldened big tech in a massive way, as if it wasn’t bad enough before. It had pretty much insured that the big boys all get a fat cut of everybodies pie, and you just gotta grin while you eat their shit, or starve

    • badbrainstorm @lemmy.todayOP
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      7 months ago

      Sick of YouTube’s shit? Heres this open source alternative, awesome!

      Buffer, buffer, buffer… ISP says, lulz, no neutrality, throttled bitch!

      Try a VPN. They’re all largely shit for a different reason. We sold out freedom out of fear of the WMD’s

      • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        Do you have any proof that it’s ISP throttled and not just a slower service (lacking in YouTube’s billions of dollars of infrastructure investments)

        • badbrainstorm @lemmy.todayOP
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          7 months ago

          Not currently, no. But, that’s a large part of what net neutrality insured. That ISP’s weren’t allowed to create fast lanes for companies that paid, and throttle those that don’t. It’s one of the most talked about aspects of net neutrality. You think they’ve all been allowed to do it now for the past three years, and just haven’t?

        • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 months ago

          it doesn’t matter whether you have proof or not, the very fact that it can be done, and was repealed, is enough to suggest that it would like to be exploited to some degree.

        • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Isp’s legally sell you bandwidth they don’t have. You think they don’t throttle things legitimate and illegitimate alike? I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

          • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works
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            7 months ago

            And if you expect the same level of performance and service, regardless of your ISP, from a bootleg YouTube spin-off with no viable revenue stream that’s probably hosted in a different country, versus a multi-billion-dollar video platform with servers around the globe, I have a new flavor of cool aid you might want to try.

            I asked if OP had proof because its pretty easy to test if your ISP is throttling, just try and load the website through a VPN - if it’s faster through a VPN, your ISP may be to blame. If not, it’s probably just an underfunded platform with too much demand, or just high ping because it’s too far from your home location.

            • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Bad methodology. If it loads the same in both. That could just as easily mean that they are throttling both. And they are known for throttling known VPNs sometimes. A VPN only means it restricts their ability to view what is inside your traffic. Not their ability to shape or block the traffic.

              There is very little reason for videos to constantly buffer on something like peer tube these days regardless of how low spec the hosting hardware is. Even if it is popular. The distributed Network would make up for that. But it would also look a lot like torrenting behavior which a lot of ISPs block or clamp down on. Ironic right? Who’da thunk. Generally, when I’ve watched things on peer tube, even from Eastern European servers across the Atlantic. After a short bit of pre-buffering, it usually plays smoothly straight through start to finish even on Wi-Fi.

              I mean sure you could try hosting it on a 10 megabit connection or slower. That might cause excessive buffering at least to start with until it gets distributed to other nodes. Or you could try hosting something so ridiculously high bit rate that it’s wasteful. And would saturate even up to 100 megabit connection. But that likely would not be common. On either end.

              Btw. Your flavor-aid pitcher is empty. But thanks, no thanks for the offer.

    • Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      What I meant was, doesn’t enshittification refer to a specific process of being good until you have market capture, then being shit to abuse that market capture for profit. I don’t think enshttification applies where net neutrality does on the grounds that the telecom companies affected by it have never done the first step of being good to consumers, they have always been monopolies by virtue of being financial bullies.

      • badbrainstorm @lemmy.todayOP
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        7 months ago

        Yes, but what I’m getting at is that the repeal of net neutrality gives telecom companies that as you correctly stated were never good to consumers in the first place, the power to now fully, legally kneecap everyone that’s not already a monster monopoly.

        This drives us into an even further monopolistic state, as you can’t get yourself out there without them. Which in turn allows them to make the product way shittier than they could have otherwise, as they now know they hold all the cards, and can’t just easily take our business elsewhere

      • badbrainstorm @lemmy.todayOP
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        7 months ago

        You are technically correct though. I probably shouldn’t have thrown enshittification into it, as they are somewhat unrelated. But, the loss of neutrality makes it unbearably easy for the monsters. I personally get frustrated with the current state because those of us that fought against it’s repeal saw this coming long before the bastards finally got their way.

        At the beginning of COVID and online shopping to boot! Ma and Pa businesses everywhere forced to close their doors, and little option to sell their goods online without bowing down to the man