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posted by martyb on Monday June 05 2017, @12:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the for-those-doubting-thomases-among-your-acquaintences dept.

Privacy Online News reports

The "Removal of Net Neutrality Simulator" is a new Google Chrome browser extension [1] created by the good activists at Keep Our Net Free for education and awareness purposes. [It] simulates an online world without net neutrality (NN) where internet service providers (ISPs) control and squeeze your internet browsing experience for extra profit. The extension's functionality and stated goals are simple:

To demonstrate the impact of removing Net Neutrality, this extension slows your internet connection and blocks several websites.

All it takes is a few minutes of using the Internet with the "Removal of Net Neutrality Simulator" to get a clear grasp of why consumers deserve net neutrality. The creators of the dystopian simulator explained:

This extension shows you what the ramifications of this decision would be by slowing all websites except for "sponsored sites", and blocking content those sites' competitors' websites.

[1] All content is behind scripts.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @02:09AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @02:09AM (#520518)

    As always, it sounds like the problem is Government picking winners and losers; as you imply, that's not a Free Market.

    Also, Net Neutrality restricts a market's ability to produce networks that cater to various usages; this is bad, because it is not the case that all bytes are equal.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by julian on Monday June 05 2017, @02:33AM (2 children)

    by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 05 2017, @02:33AM (#520534)

    You are, knowingly or unknowingly, repeating an inaccurate talking point. NN does not stop ISPs from doing QOS. Also, the physical infrastructure of the Internet is a natural monopoly, so free market principles break down. You cannot rely on competition to police the big players because, for the most part, they don't compete with each other at all. Anyone in Comcast's market knows this painfully well.

    In my neck of the woods it's Charter (now Spectrum) for "high speed" cable or you can get ATT DSL which I wouldn't even consider broadband at this point. Oh and you could also get dial up or satellite but again, I don't consider those to be broadband. So there is effectively zero competition and it is NOT the result of the government.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Monday June 05 2017, @04:28AM

      by frojack (1554) on Monday June 05 2017, @04:28AM (#520575) Journal

      If you get control of the last Mile you can force competition, which is why municipal broadband is such an important concept. A County, or City can resell, or repackage content from the fastest provider for a specific source delivered to the last Mile provider's network.

      Chances are, barring collusion, you would find one or more providers​ that will carry the desired content in a non degraded condition. Given that, you would reduce any incentive for carrier x to degrade any stream. Even if that degradation is only by favouring their own alternative service.

      You effectively take the customer away or unionize them so to speak.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @12:25PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @12:25PM (#520681)

      What you call a "natural" monopoly is, as always, just Government coercing people into a particular pattern of existence.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @03:36AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @03:36AM (#520561)

    the problem is Government picking winners and losers

    If there was public ownership of the hardware (wires, cables, fiber) and -everyone- could compete providing services on an equal footing, that would be ideal, IMO.

    Having one for-profit entity (or two[1]) own everything and it not being required to allow competition in the providing of services over those wires is the problem.
    I see an obvious solution and that is proper regulation (government).

    [1] ...and it seems there is non-compete collusion between the telco and cable providers.
    Seems like a prosecutor doing his job could find a federal felony in that.

    Net Neutrality restricts

    As julian noted, that is bullshit you have swallowed.
    Here's Net Neutrality in 4 words: All packets are equal.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @12:29PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @12:29PM (#520684)

      As OP already stated. Some are time-dependent; others are urgent. An email could take an hour, and it wouldn't matter in most cases, but clearly that is not the case for Netflix streaming data.