Ajit Pai Attacked Hollywood & Silicon Valley Because Even Republicans Are Against His Net Neutrality Plan
from the that's-a-temper-tantrum,-not-leadership dept
We were mystified last week when FCC chair Ajit Pai decided to attack both Hollywood and Silicon Valley because some (not all) people in both communities have spoken out against his plans to gut net neutrality. The attacks were weird on multiple levels. Regarding Hollywood, the comments were strangely personal — picking out a list of entertainers, often taking their comments out of context, and attacking them in very personal ways. It was, to say the least, unbecoming of an FCC chair to directly pick on entertainers for voicing their opinions. The attacks on Silicon Valley were… even stranger. First, he claimed that the demand to keep net neutrality was really a ploy by the largest internet companies (i.e. Google & Facebook) to keep their dominant position. But that ignores the fact that without net neutrality, they’re well positioned to further entrench their position. More importantly, it totally ignores the fact that neither Google nor Facebook have been strong advocates of net neutrality (and, in many cases, have pushed back against net neutrality).
Bloomberg now has an article up explaining why Pai would make these attacks: apparently even among Republican activists, there’s effectively no support for his plan to kill net neutrality. So, rather than (1) admit he’s made a huge mistake or (2) give good reasons for his plan, he thought he’d pull a sort of Trumpian game of blaming other people that Republicans are supposed to hate, in the (not very accurate) stereotypical view of the US from the reality distortion field known as Washington DC.
For some reason, restoring the lost power of huge telecom companies hasn?t lit a fire in grassroots circles on the right, a point that Pai?s political allies have been acknowledging privately for months. So the FCC chair came back from Thanksgiving looking to create a spark. In a speech on Tuesday, Pai angrily denounced celebrities and tech companies who have been criticizing his plans to undo the 2015 rules. Hollywood is always a good scapegoat, of course, and Republicans looking to stir up anger in 2017 do well to frame their issues as a response to the unchecked power of Silicon Valley.
[….]
This isn?t a new tactic for Pai. ?He had the same complaints about us being shills? for internet companies, said Tom Wheeler, the FCC chairman who ushered in the 2015 rules. Anger towards tech on the right has only grown since then. Brent Skorup, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center, a research organization at George Mason University with a free market bent, regularly talks to Republican Congressional offices about tech policy. ?They see a lot of these issues through the lens of payback for tech companies,? he said. (Skorup supports Pai?s approach.)
This is not how good policy is made. This is not leadership. This is the Chairman of the FCC throwing a childish temper tantrum and blaming industries, just because he thinks it might provide him additional cover for his bad, poorly thought-out plan. “But, Mommy, those other kids were mean to me, why are you blaming me?!?!??!”
Once again, it’s worth remembering that outside the bubble of Washington DC, net neutrality is widely supported across party lines. Multiple studies back before the 2015 rules were put in place found that Republicans/conservatives supported net neutrality by an overwhelming amount (over 80%). A more recent study from last year found the same thing.
At this point, it’s undeniable that the vast, vast, vast majority of Americans who understand the issue favor having net neutrality rules in place. It is a small, but vocal, contingent of folks (often with ties to the telco/cable duopoloy) who magically feel differently about it. A good FCC chair would actually convince people why he’s right and why they’re wrong. But that’s not what’s happening. Pai is just lashing out, and because he thinks his side hates Hollywood and tech, he’s decided to try to somehow, nonsensically, strap his own argument to the anti-Hollywood, anti-Silicon Valley message he thinks will help get people excited.
It’s a bad strategy for someone with a bad policy.
Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, hollywood, net neutrality, silicon valley, temper tantrum
Comments on “Ajit Pai Attacked Hollywood & Silicon Valley Because Even Republicans Are Against His Net Neutrality Plan”
"We were mystified" -- as usual.
You know nothin’ until somebody writes a piece for you to re-write.
Re: "We were mystified" -- as usual.
Techdirt could disappear tomorrow and you’d bitch about not having anything to bitch at before realizing it was your end goal. But sorry to tell you, Shiva Ayyadurai lost. What a crying shame, eh?
Leadership
“This is not leadership.”
It’s what gets passed off as leadership in the Land of Trump.
Re: Leadership
Republican Policy: It’s like Harry Potter for people who thought Harry Potter had too much science.
Re: Re: Leadership
Now that’s just unfair to Harry Potter. It’s more like Time Cube for people who thought Time Cube was too internally consistent.
Re: Re: Re: Leadership
They are now known as the Grand Old Pedophile party
Network Neutrality is just neutral propaganda
I mean who knows what makes a man neutral, is it just the desire for neutrality? or a hate of lawful or chaotic alignments who can ever really know….
Re: Network Neutrality is just neutral propaganda
Please put down the 20 sided die and get some sleep. Your RPG session has been going on WAY too long.
Re: Re: Network Neutrality is just neutral propaganda
That was a Futurama reference.
Re: Re: Re: Network Neutrality is just neutral propaganda
That was a Futurama reference.
I hear this and all I know is that my gut says maybe.
Re: Re: Re: Network Neutrality is just neutral propaganda
OK, but in Futurama, it would’ve been an RPG reference so the post is an RPG reference by inheritance…
And now I’ve gone and made it a programming reference(?).
Re: Network Neutrality is just neutral propaganda
If I don’t survive, tell my wife, “Hello”.
Super deep cutting and pasting, err, I mean analysis, Mike. You are so crushing it on net neutrality.
Re: Re:
I know I can always depend on you guys for the daily comedy. Several of you ACs coming in here at the same time saying that Mike has no original ideas, all bereft of the recognition of the irony. But, is it due to desperation or mere stupidity? The mystery continues…
“Even Republicans Are Against His Net Neutrality Plan”
Apparently not enough to make a difference. I remember reading the lists of folks that got paid off over at reddit the other day.
Does it really matter if you can throw around a few “token” folks that think a certain way when the tides are clearly leading in another direction.
Kinda reminds me of all the “Hillary is going to Win against Trump” head in dirt reality a lot of folks around here had.
This stuff is working out just like a prophecy… you were warned and it really will not matter if NN stays or goes right now. You have already lost, we are just waiting around to see how you all keep losing.
Re: Re:
You warn everyone every day about the ….. what are you warning us about this time? Kinda hard to tell.
Oh yeah, we lost. What did we lose … idk but I do not have it anymore, guess I didn’t need it in the first place.
But at least we were warned about it, cool – thanks bro.
Re: Re:
The tides actually support NN. 80% or more of the American population (Repubs and Dems) support NN. The sad thing is that there are three (one in particular) “token” folks that think a certain way and are railroading the repeal of NN down everyone’s throats. The reason they can do this is because they essentially are free from any consequences of their actions and will be greatly rewarded with cushy jobs and high salaries by the companies that want this after their terms on the FCC are finished.
And just for the record, I never thought Hillary was going to win. I called Trump winning (did NOT vote for him though) back when he got the Republican nomination for the sole reason that America is so fed up with politics in general and Trump styled himself as an alternative to the status quo. Essentially a “throw the bums out” vote. Sadly very few bothered to look past that at the man as a whole.
Are you serious Clark?
I’m not sure what your point was since both Hollywood and Silicon Valley are about as liberal democrat as you can get. Hollywood republican is nearly an oxymoron and silicon valley bigwigs – Amazon, Facebook, Apple, etc are all liberal democrats.
If you would have had some contrast, it would have made more sense… like “Ajit Pai attacked Hollywood and Big Oil” or “Ajit Pai attacked Hollywood and Deep South” but alas, your premise is completely flawed – which seems to happen whenever you shift from intellectual property issues to politcal hackery.
Re: Are you serious Clark?
Amazon is based in Seattle, John.
Re: Re: Are you serious Clark?
Details .. details
Re: Are you serious Clark?
That’s the point. Many Republicans support net neutrality, so Pai is trying to show the trumpsuckers that opposition is coming from lib’ruls.
Re: Are you serious Clark?
Yes, that is the entire point.. He is attacking hollywood and tech companies to try to frame net neutrality as a partisan issue in the hopes that republicans don’t actually think about policy and form their opinions solely based on hurting the democrats. it’s a long winded version of: “If you aren’t with me, you are with the commies / terrorist supporters”
Re: Re: Are you serious Clark?
It’s an old tactic.
“We should declare that he who is not with us is against us. We must secure Afghanistan.”
– British Ambassador John MacNeill, 1839, prior to Britain’s first disastrous occupation of Afghanistan
Re: Re: Re: Are you serious Clark?
The next step is to shame republican opponents of his bill by publishing pictures of them using google and receiving amazon packages 🙂
Re: Are you serious Clark?
I’m not sure what your point was since both Hollywood and Silicon Valley are about as liberal democrat as you can get.
First of all, that’s not exactly true… but, that is the stereotype and that’s the point. Pai sees attacking them as maybe a way to get the GOP base to support his plan. If he can set up "those liberal democrats support net neutrality" going as a meme, then maybe they’ll start supporting his plan.
If you would have had some contrast, it would have made more sense… like "Ajit Pai attacked Hollywood and Big Oil" or "Ajit Pai attacked Hollywood and Deep South" but alas, your premise is completely flawed – which seems to happen whenever you shift from intellectual property issues to politcal hackery.
Huh? Why? Why would Pai attacking the industries or populations his base supports help him here? Not sure I see what you’re arguing.
Re: Are you serious Clark?
Kinda like Ronald Reagan, huh?
Re: Re: Are you serious Clark?
Plus all the other Hollywood people who have been involved in Republican politics – Schwarzenegger, Eastwood, Jesse Ventura, Chuck Norris are the ones who come immediately to mind, though there are many others.
It’s part of the idiotic tribalism that this is meant to leverage. Facts don’t matter, if people are dumb enough to fight against their own welfare because the “other team” supports the thing that protects them, then that’s what people like Pai will push.
The other funny thing is that while they’re whining about “Hollywood”, the corporations who will benefit most from ditching net neutrality own major Hollywood studios. They’ll fight for the right for Comcast to fleece them to “stick it to Hollywood”, for example, not realising that they’re supporting the owners of NBC and Universal to block independent competition from them.
It would be hilarious if the long-term effects weren’t so depressing.
Re: Re: Re: Are you serious Clark?
You forgot that uberhyperstar, Scott Baio!
Easy to explain
> This is not how good policy is made. This is not leadership. This is the Chairman of the FCC throwing a childish temper tantrum and blaming industries, just because he thinks it might provide him additional cover for his bad, poorly thought-out plan.
He is already positioning himself for the next primaries.
> More importantly, it totally ignores the fact that neither Google nor Facebook have been strong advocates of net neutrality (and, in many cases, have pushed back against net neutrality).
It’s amusing that Ajit put you in a position where you had to admit that those companies aren’t on our side in order to defend them from him.
Re: Re:
You mean other than the endless reporting here of examples where they weren’t on our side?
Re: Re: Re:
C’mon, man. You know that some people (coughbluecough) are incapable of comprehending that a generally nice company can do some reprehensible things, and reliably horrible companies are capable of acts of good.
Things have to be black or white, right?
Re: Re:
Seriously, where did the “Mike’s a Google Shill!” meme thing come from?
Re: Re:
Seriously, where did the “Mike’s a Google Shill!” meme thing come from?
Re: Re: Re:
All those giant novelty checks Google hands over to Mike or one of his many avatars also known as Mike, for short.
Re: Re: Re:
The art of mud slinging involves a tight bomb pattern.
Re: Re: Re:
Techdirt occasionally writes positive articles about actions taken by Google (as well as some negative ones). Mike once attended a conference partly sponsored by Google, and later had Google as a publicly named sponsor for a side project related to TD (among several, mysteriously he’s never been accused of being a shill for any of the of the sponsors).
This apparently means that he’s completely paid by Google to write all his stories. But, remember, that it’s also simply wrong to point out that the anti-NN campaign is completely paid for by telecoms corporations because that’s somehow not relevant.
Re: Re:
It’s amusing that your entire argument boils down to who’s on what side. It’s grossly simplistic thinking that shows you up as intellectually average. Both companies do good things and bad things, and both are called out by TD when it’s deserved.
FCC chair Ajit Pai is simply being smart, because he knows that bending over for the industry he’s supposed to be regulating will pay big dividends to his future career. It’s not hard to predict that his next job will pay much more than he’s making now as a government employee.
Let’s just watch Washington’s revolving door going full circle yet again!
Re: Re:
In the past there were many who thought it would be great to get business folk into political positions and then everything would be hunky dory. It is looking like this new grand experiment will go down the tubes in a manner similar to the demise of supply side economics, aka trickle down.
Pai is just trying to show an effort to convince/trick that his plan is correct. After all, the ISPs want to see they are getting their monies worth out of Pai.
Pot, Kettle
Across the country, only 22% of Americans profess to understand Silicon Valley’s hobby horse, net neutrality. The rest have no opinion about this lunacy.
The irony of TechDirt complaining about “childish temper tantrums and blaming industries” is thick.
Re: Pot, Kettle
Childish temper tantrums… like the ones you threw on Ars Technica?
Re: Pot, Kettle
“Across the country, only 22% of Americans profess to understand Silicon Valley’s hobby horse, net neutrality. The rest have no opinion about this lunacy.”
Well, this appear to say it all. You are clearly among the 78% who don’t understand what net neutrality is, purely from your description of it, yet you apparently don’t think it’s important simply because you lack knowledge.
Do you have the same opinion about everything? I mean, few people would profess to understand aeronautics, so you don’t think the government should be involved with the way airlines are run? You don’t have a deep knowledge of nuclear physics, so anyone should be able to set up a nuclear power plant without regulation?
“The irony of TechDirt complaining about “childish temper tantrums and blaming industries” is thick.”
Not quite as thick as the arguments I’ve heard opposing net neutrality, which usually start from a fiction that opposes objective reality and go from there.
Re: Pot, Kettle
“Across the country, only 22% of Americans profess to understand Silicon Valley’s hobby horse, net neutrality.”
Source, please.
“The rest have no opinion about this lunacy.”
Source for that, too, please; not having a complete understanding of the intricacies of a particular debate has never stopped people from having an opinion on them.
Re: Re: Pot, Kettle
What is this, Wikipedia?
Jesus, I’ll do it for you: http://exstreamist.com/72-of-consumers-dont-know-what-net-neutrality-is/
Now quit being so lazy.
Re: Re: Re: Pot, Kettle
“Now quit being so lazy.”
You make the assertion, you provide the sources. That’s the way honest debate works.
“exstreamist.com”
Who? Never heard of them, and they appear to be a blog with a very sporadic posting history.
OK, that’s not necessarily a problem if they’re reporting on a reliable source of information. Go on…
“To get a general sense of the public’s awareness about the recent Net Neutrality decision, we conducted a survey”
Ah. So, a site I’ve personally never heard of has conducted a survey of their own, with no sourced methodology or referenced material, and we should just take this at face value? On top of that, the survey’s from August, which might be irrelevant either way given the amount of press this issue has received recently. I suspect those figures will have changed in the last few weeks, even if they were true at the time.
Do you have anything remotely reliable? A reputable firm would be preferred, but I’ll take something with verifiable criteria and methodology to begin with.
Do you have a primary source, or are you using the very questionable method of just providing the first Google result to match you preconceived assumptions as “proof”? I mean, that doesn’t address the other points raised nor your apparent misunderstanding of what NN is, but providing a reliable source for your own claimed figures should be a good start.
Re: Re: Re:2 Pot, Kettle
Here’s the way debate over sources works: I show you mine, and you show me yours. I don’t have to work both sides of the question.
You really do have to quit being so lazy.
Re: Re: Re:3 Pot, Kettle
You need to stop being a disingenuous ass. Nobody else has made a claim, they only questioned yours.
“I don’t have to work both sides of the question.”
No, you only have to provide sources for your own claims. Which apparently consisted of an out-of-date unsourced survey from the first random blog that showed up on Google for you, and a bunch of whining about how you shouldn’t have to back up your own words. Bravo.
Re: Re: Re:4 Pot, Kettle
This the way debate always goes with a passive-aggressive whining brat. I make a claim, you demand evidence, I provide it, and you say you don’t like my evidence and we’re back to step 2. This goes on as long as I’m willing to play.
Meanwhile, you’ve contributed nothing to the discussion. There are plenty of polls out there, the one I got from Hacker News two days ago isn’t the only one.
Find one that supports your case or GTFO.
Re: Re: Re:5 Pot, Kettle
What, pray tell, is “our case”? I literally don’t have a case; all I said was that I don’t believe your case.
Re: Re: Re:6 Pot, Kettle
The public doesn’t care about net neutrality, but bots are deeply engaged.
The FCC’s repeal is an existential threat to the pressure groups and troll blogs, because it will provide us with the proof that they’ve been lying. That sort of thing makes donations dry up.
Re: Re: Re:7 Many Re'a: Pot, Kettle
Huh. That doesn’t sound like our case at all, but if you say so..? I guess we’ve been arguing our side very, very badly, because that doesn’t sound reasonable or realistic at all.
Re: Re: Re:8 Many Re'a: Pot, Kettle
My number one issue with net neutrality is the false views of the Internet architecture the pro-neuts have promoted. There is nothing neutral about the Internet and never has been.
Re: Re: Re:9 Many Re'a: Pot, Kettle
My goodness, is it 4:30? I’m supposed to be having a back, sack & crack.
Re: Re: Re:9 Many Re'a: Pot, Kettle
You have absolutely no idea how the internet works, as evidenced by your claim that there is nothing neutral about the internet and never has been.
Every single network administrator and anyone who works in IT would absolutely and completely disagree with you. Not to mention people who worked on creating the initial internet have stated multiple times that the internet is neutral and was designed that way.
Why don’t you take a look at TCP/IP protocol and packet switching concepts, the entire concept is the network doesn’t give a flip about what kind of packet is going across its network.
Try again Richard.
Re: Re: Re:10 Many Re'a: Pot, Kettle
Thanks for the laughs. Here’s what Tim Wu said in the paper that started the controversy, “Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination”:
“Proponents of open access have generally overlooked the fact that, to the extent an open access rule inhibits vertical relationships, it can help maintain the Internet’s greatest deviation from network neutrality. That deviation is favoritism of data applications, as a class, over latency-sensitive applications involving voice or video.”
He’s saying that the best efforts bias discriminates against realtime voice & video conferencing. The Internet is also non-neutral in the sense that CDNs have an inherent advantage over single node web servers. That has nothing to do with what goes down at the net ops center, my friend.
Re: Re: Re:11 Many Re'a: Pot, Kettle
You are deliberately confusing several concepts. I’d think about what you’re actually referencing, and how things like CDNs have absolutely nothing to do with acts such as preferential treatment for the content owned by an ISP, which is what NN is trying to prevent.
Put it this way – whatever delivery mechanism the content provider is using, the ISP should be treating every packet the same in the last mile where they have the monopoly. If they give preferential treatment to what they own / who pays the most, it will be a disaster, and that is what you’re openly wishing for.
Re: Re: Re:10 Many Re'a: Pot, Kettle
If you read, go ahead and tackle the RFCs for IntServ and DiffServ. They will wash the silt from your eyes.
Re: Re: Re:11 Many Re'a: Pot, Kettle
Why thank you Richard, I do read and I have perused those RFCs. The silt is sufficiently washed from my eyes, however, you apparently have a rather large build up of it and despite your assertions, you don’t appear to read at all. Let us begin…
Tim Wu: “Tim Wu is an American lawyer, professor at Columbia Law School, and contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. He is best known for coining the phrase network neutrality”.
I would hardly call him an expert compared to the likes of Vint Cerf who has come out strongly in favor of NN and the fact that internet backbone providers (such as Cogent and Level 3) have also shown support for NN. I would think that one of the developers of the internet and providers of the backbone of the internet would know what they are talking about.
CDNs have no bearing on NN. All a CDN is is a box with cached content at various locations. They have nothing to do with how packets are transmitted over the wire other than when a user requests content from it, it has less physical distance to travel so it gets delivered to the user faster. There is still no discrimination of what will be transmitted or how fast and CDNs are typically provided by the content providers, not ISPs. Basically it just gives a closer option for where the same content is coming from, not how it is transmitted or what happens to it along the way. For further example, Netflix has its own CDN, that didn’t stop Verizon from throttling Netflix content to Verizon customers. NN prevents that sort of thing from happening. If you want me to further dissect his argument in detail I will be happy to do so.
IntServ, DiffServ, and the argument Tim Wu make all relate to QoS. In case you didn’t know, QoS stands for Quality of Service, in other words making sure packets and users get the best service they can. It is possible to do QoS and still have net neutrality. QoS is merely making sure that packets that are latency sensitive get to their destination on time. That is different than saying “Well this packet came from this site and we don’t want to allow that because they didn’t pay us more money to access that site”. QoS still delivers the packets as fast as it can without discrimination as to where they came from or where they are going.
QoS and CDNs have no bearing on NN as they are allowed for under the current NN rules as “reasonable network management”. What NN is concerned with is ISPs acting as gatekeepers of the internet and being allowed, or not allowed, to determine what you see online and how fast it gets to you or other users.
Try again Richard.
Re: Re: Re:12 Many Re'a: Pot, Kettle
You’re changing the subject from the inherent neutrality of the Internet – or lack thereof – to support for the political agenda known as network neutrality.
Try to follow the discussion.
In the quote from Tim Wu, the question is whether his claim is true or false, not what he does for a living. I can quote recent email from Cerf that backs up Wu’s point if you can only handle hero worship.
Now go play in traffic, I have very little time for Cowards.
Re: Re: Re:13 Many Re'a: Pot, Kettle
“inherent neutrality of the Internet – or lack thereof – to support for the political agenda known as network neutrality. “
Those are one and the same, you drooling moron. If you think NN has anything to do with the content on the pipes or politics, you’ve been lied to and you are a fool.
Re: Re: Re:14 Many Re'a: Pot, Kettle
You say you have no time for me yet you keep responding to my posts. And was that statement advocating for my death? Tsk tsk, I thought you were better than that Richard.
I am not changing the subject, as PaulT points out.
I also addressed the quote from Tim Wu, which you have ignored. His claim could be true, I do not dispute that, but as I stated, what he is talking about is QoS, not inherent neutrality in the internet and packet switching.
And as I stated, QoS is allowed under current NN rules as a reasonable network management technique.
Try again Richard.
Re: Re: Re:7 Pot, Kettle
“The public doesn’t care about net neutrality, but bots are deeply engaged.”
As are people who understand what it is and what you stand to lose if the rules protecting it are repealed.
“The FCC’s repeal is an existential threat to the pressure groups and troll blogs”
…and your ability to lie about said websites freely. But, even the worst kind of trashing of your freedom has its upsides I suppose.
Re: Re: Re:5 Pot, Kettle
Actually you’re the one who has contributed nothing to this discussion.
You spout a fact and when you’re asked to support it you give a link to a dubious survey with questionable results. And to top it off you toss out childish insults.
In my opinion you’ve contributed nothing and your argument remains specious.
Re: Re: Re:5 Pot, Kettle
You have provided your evidence, excellent. The article is still written in support of NN, not against it. All it claims is that their particular poll found that only ~20% of Americans understand what NN is, not that they don’t support it otherwise. And that is only one poll of only 786 people.
Of all the polls I have seen out there showing that 80% of Americans support NN, most of those polls don’t just ask “Do you support NN?”. Instead they ask “Do you think ISPs should be allowed to block or throttle web traffic?” and other similar questions that make sure people understand what they are being asked about, not just “Do you support this nebulous thing called NN?”. So in these polls, people more or less do understand what NN is (even if they don’t necessarily make the connection) and the majority of them support it.
And before you ask, here is some hard evidence for you that supports our position:
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/332948-cable-industry-poll-majority-support-net-neutrality-rules
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/06/06/new-mozilla-poll-americans-political-parties-overwhelmingly-support-net-neutrality/
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7x9kyg/most-americans-support-the-net-neutrality-rules-that-trumps-fcc-wants-to-kill
https://www.consumerreports.org/net-neutrality/most-consumers-still-want-strong-net-neutrality-rules/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/11/12/wonkbook-polling-shows-even-republicans-overwhelmingly-support-net-neutrality/
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/06/08/survey_suggests_americans_are_big_fans_of_net_neutrality.html
Try again Richard.
Re: Re: Re:6 Pot, Kettle
Do you know what a “push poll” is? Go look it up.
Issue advocates use them to manufacture the appearance of broad public support for dubious causes. Bloggers love push polls because they’re good for traffic. Politicians know to disregard them.
I can create a pill that shows vast public support for Jack the Ripper by mitting his name and framing a series of questions about population control.
No website will ever pay an ISP for speed unless servers are part of the deal. Websites are not rate limited by ISPs, they’re CPU bound and ad auction bound.
Re: Re: Re:7 Pot, Kettle
“Do you know what a “push poll” is? Go look it up. “
Is the random crap you cited one of them? Link to the methodology and we’ll see.
“Bloggers love push polls because they’re good for traffic”
If you’re so dead set against them, then why did you use a poll on a blog as your sole data point?
“Websites are not rate limited by ISPs they’re CPU bound and ad auction bound.”
TIL bandwidth doesn’t exist in this tosser’s world… FFS
Re: Re: Re:6 Pot, Kettle
“And that is only one poll of only 786 people.”
I’d go further – that could be a reasonable sample size in some circumstances. But, the methodology is uncited, we don’t know how the people were selected, their demographics, location, education level, political affiliation, etc. Did they carefully select a representative sample, or just randomly email people who signed up for their mailing list? Did they ask an audience likely to be familiar with technical news, or just any pensioner who happened to answer their landline because they don’t know how to operate a computer or cellphone? We don’t know, thus the results are worthless.
But, Mr. Bennett was fed it on a random site he happens to visit, and it feeds his preconceptions and allows him to argue against what he thinks NN is, so it’s good enough for him. Sigh…
Re: Re: Re:7 Reeeee: Pot, Kettle
Even if it did,the poll doesn’t support the implied assertion that pro-NN people do not understand NN. If we assume the 80% who don’t understand NN are spread evenly across pro- and anti-NN sides – which we must,given there is absolutely no indication that the poll controlled for that factor – then even if it WERE a good pool with an accurate methodology and a reasonable sample size, we could simply point out that of those who do understand NN, the overwhelming majority is still in favor of it.
The only use for the poll is in appeal to authority; most Americans, he alledges, do not understand NN, THEREFORE blogs lie and Ajit Pai knows what’s best for us. The logic doesn’t follow even when we assume the evidence is accurate and correct.
This is little more than a hamfisted attempt to control the conversation; I recommend we stop engaging with him. (I am aware of the hypocrisy of saying that after a wall-of-text post XD)
Re: Re: Re:5 Pot, Kettle
Again, I notice that you refuse to back up the claim that’s entire basis of your whiny brat act with anything resembling reliable data. That, plus the fact that you apparently still don’t know what NN is about makes me think you’re a complete idiot troll. Feel free to disabuse me of that notion, else I’ll take the evidence as it stands.
“There are plenty of polls out there, the one I got from Hacker News two days ago isn’t the only one.”
Link to them, then. The fact that you found an uncited poll from nearly 4 months ago on a news aggregator means absolutely shit.
“Find one that supports your case or GTFO.”
I’m not making a case, I’m breaking apart the extremely poor excuse for one that you’re presented.
Re: Pot, Kettle
“Across the country, only 22% of Americans profess to understand Silicon Valley’s hobby horse, net neutrality. The rest have no opinion about this lunacy.”
Not sure what your point is.
Things should be avoided simply because our population does not understand something?
Re: Re: Pot, Kettle
The OP claims 80% of Americans support this fiction. That’s not meaningful if 78% admit they don’t know what it is.
Civics question: why do we have independent expert agencies, girls and boys?
Clue: the answer doesn’t have anything to do with popularity.
Re: Re: Re: Pot, Kettle
Au contraire! It is very meaningful. People can still support something even if they don’t know what it is, it may not be the smartest thing to do but they can still do it. The fact that 80% still support it even if they don’t know exactly what it is means something.
Additionally, independent expert agencies can be wrong from time to time. This is one of those times. Facts have proven time and time again that the only ones who benefit from repealing NN are big ISPs, not the internet. Facts have also shown that Commissioner Pai is willing to deliberately ignore facts, cherry pick data, give misleading statements, and potentially outright lie in order to push this repeal of NN through. Those are not the actions of an “independent expert agency” acting in the best interests of consumers.
Try again Richard.
Re: Re: Re:2 Pot, Kettle
Given that 78% say they don’t know what NN means, your comment is nonsense.
Re: Re: Re:3 Pot, Kettle
Did you hear about all the people Googling “What is the EU” right after the Brexit referendum? People have opinions on loads of things without necessarily knowing the best way to refer to it.
A lot of non-technical people prefer less specialist descriptions, and how you phrase it matters. If you say to people “what’s your opinion on arterial trunk road shutdown” most will say “huh?” or “none”. But if you explain it as “shutting down all the main roads into your town” then yes, they will have a (possibly) strong opinion.
Re: Re: Re:3 hmmmm...
How do you know that 100% of the people who are anti-net-neutrality are NOT firmly within the set of 78% of people who don’t know what it is?
Re: Re: Re:2 Pot, Kettle
The point of independent, expert agencies is simple: there are some issues that the general public doesn’t understand, and this is one such issue.
In today’s Internet, the average broadband speed in the US is 75 Mbps, but the average web server speed is 12-15 Mbps. Given these facts (Read “You Get What You Measure: Internet Performance Measurement as a Policy Tool” by, um, me), the claim that ISPs are eager to sell performance boost to websites for a fee is 100% laughable.
Everyone who knows how the Internet works knows what I’m saying is true. Why do you pretend to know facts that aren’t facts?
Re: Re: Re:3 Pot, Kettle
Where the hell did you get that data? Here’s something more in line with reality regarding average US broadband speeds:
http://www.telecompetitor.com/akamai-average-u-s-broadband-speed-hits-17-2-mbps/
Also I’m not sure what you’re basing your web server speeds on, unless you think data centers are still using fast ethernet aka 10/100 links. I work for a public university and even the free web hosts we provide to departments all have gigabit links and those servers are absurdly over provisioned since as I said it’s free web hosting. We also have very fat pipes and the switches the web servers link to are all 10 gigabit links up to our demarcation point.
So once again the pot has met the kettle and commented on its dark shade as you’re pretending to know facts that aren’t facts while baselessly accusing others of doing the same. Classic projection.
Re: Re: Re:4 Pot, Kettle
The AC has a point Richard. Your “facts” don’t hold water. The FCC itself doesn’t even pretend to claim that the average US internet speed is that high.
Your web server stats are also easily disprovable. All you have to do is go rent some space on a hosting site and then do speed tests on a large file download from it. You’ll find that the speedtest will match whatever your internet connection speed is.
Contrary to your assertions you know very little of how the internet actually works and the majority of techs and experts disagree with you. I can cite sources if you wish but as you were wont to argue before, Googling is so easy, stop being lazy.
Try again Richard.
Re: Re: Re:5 Pot, Kettle
Once again, Mr. Coward brings the insults but no data to back them up. Wheeler made the FCC measurement team stop saying what the average US broadband speed is because it didn’t fit his narrative. When it did say, the FCC number was higher than Speedtest and lower than Akamai every year from 2012-2015.
That’s verifiable data. The speed of web pages is also based in public data about actual web pages, not artificial tests. Speedtest uses HTTP, so your stupid little test with hosting sites and big files is pretty much what they do. That’s not web page simulation because you got no ads.
Silly Coward.
Re: Re: Re:6 Pot, Kettle
I did not link to specific data initially because what I stated is all common knowledge and easily verifiable with a minimum of effort.
If you want to talk about verifiable data, Akamai disagrees with your average: https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/q1-2017-state-of-the-internet-connectivity-executive-summary.pdf Bottom of page 3 is what you are looking for. The US ranks 10th in the world with an average of 18.7 Mbps.
Additionally the FCC disagrees with your average, please see Charts 3 and 12.1 in the following link. https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/reports/measuring-broadband-america/measuring-fixed-broadband-report-2016
Yes they are medians but that means that at least 50% of all Americans get far less than 75 Mbps speeds. And the only ones who are likely to get above that are ones that subscribe to cable and fiber since all other services are not capable of providing said speed.
Also, I believe you are confusing download speed with web page rendering speed. Rendering speed happens in the browser and does use CPU/GPU. But the website data has to get to your computer first and that is determined by internet bandwidth speed. Take a supercomputer and put it on a dial up network and try browsing the web, you will get buffering and slow loading times all day.
Further, all websites use http or https. That is how the web works, you can’t have the modern web without http. You can easily verify this by going to a website and noting the URL, the vast majority will be in the form of http://urlhere.com. So using http or not is irrelevant since websites use http anyway. Supporting links included:
https://www.w3.org/Protocols/
https://mdn.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol
For more information on how the web really, truly works, (not your faulty understanding of it), please see the below links, I can provide more upon request but really, Google is such a wonderful resource:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Getting_started_with_the_web/How_the_Web_works
https://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/internet_browsers.asp
Try again Richard.
Re: Re: Re:7 Pot, Kettle
Mad Google skills, dude.
I recommend you try https://www.criticalthinking.com to overcome the cherry picking and non sequitur fixation you have.
BTW, Akamai says Average Peak is the one that measures broadband speed.
Because TCP multiplexing. Go Google that.
Re: Re: Re:8 Pot, Kettle
Why thank you Richard! I’m very proud of my ability to at least do basic research into issues that I care about.
Average – “a level typical of a group, class, or series”
Peak – “the highest level or greatest degree”
These are standard dictionary definitions of the words, therefore we can conclude that Akamai’s “Average Peak” is referencing the typical highest speed of internet in the US. Not to be confused with the “typical speed” or “speed most citizens get” in the US. Average Peak is only one metric of internet speeds Akamai measures. It does not represent what the greatest majority of Americans get for speed, only the average of the highest speeds reached, not what is typical on a given day for a typical citizen.
Indeed, after much reading and searching of their report I can find nowhere where they stated that the “Average Peak” metric is what most Americans get for internet. I did find many statements, charts, and info-graphics in their report and elsewhere on their site that show the average speed to be somewhere around 20 – 30 Mbps. Please feel free to link to anywhere on their site that explicitly states otherwise.
That brings us to TCP multiplexing – “TCP multiplexing is a technique that enables the device to “reuse” existing TCP connections. This is similar to the way in which persistent HTTP 1.1 connections work in that a single HTTP connection can be used to retrieve multiple objects, thus reducing the impact of TCP overhead on application performance. “
How is TCP multiplexing at all relevant? It has nothing to do with the speed at which data is delivered, t merely allows multiple bits of data to be delivered simultaneously using the same data stream so it doesn’t have to add additional data to the packets. The data still travels at the same speed of the underlying infrastructure.
Since the only other argument you can give is to link to a children’s learning site, I will assume you have no factual data to refute any of my claims and have thus resorted to a childish attack on my intelligence.
Try again Richard.
Re: Re: Re:4 Pot, Kettle
I gave the source of the data in the comment you attacked, Mr. Coward.
The web speeds are measured by the FCC from SamKnows Whiteboxes. You can see the raw data here: https://www.fcc.gov/general/measuring-broadband-america
The point is to see the user experience of the web, not to measure the size of your personal appendages.
Re: Re: Re:5 Pot, Kettle
2. Reviewing the most recent year’s data contradicts your original assertion that the average broadband speed is 75mbps. If you review this specific chart (https://www.fcc.gov/oet/mba/images/2016/Chart-10.png) the maximum advertised speed is 75mbps, and that’s only available from FIOS, a service only available in 7 states, and only covering 41% of households in those states (http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-06-21-1434902241-3515613-Verizoneastcoastcoverage.png). So I don’t know how you arrived at your conclusion about the average broadband speed, but it clearly doesn’t reflect the data that you yourself cited.
Re: Re: Re:6 Pot, Kettle
FWIW, I just did a quick scan through the report, and I can’t find any reference to 75mbps being an average, only a maximum, (and even then only as an advertised maximum, not a real world one). It is possible that he’s getting himself confused between bandwidth speed and download rates, but even then his claim would be off from what I’m reading and the latter would be irrelevant in this conversation anyway.
So, what a surprise, his own links don’t support his lies. No wonder it’s so hard to get them from him.
Re: Re: Re:7 Pot, Kettle
See Speedtest Global Index for the latest data: https://www.speedtest.net/global-index/united-states#fixed
Re: Re: Re:8 Pot, Kettle
Hey, I have to hand it to you, you’re not linking to random blogs with unsourced data this time. I wonder why you don’t use that kind of data to back up your other claims?
By the way, this still doesn’t back up your claim that web servers are the bottleneck, your lack of understanding that it’s the unequal treatment of packets that’s the objection to removing NN, not the average available maximum and all the other twaddle you’re been trying to push in this thread.
But, bravo on linking to a relatively reliable source that states what you claim it did, rather than sources that don’t say what you claim and sources with no credibility or verifiable data. You’re making progress, you might even be capable of an honest debate when this is all over.
Re: Re: Re:7 Pot, Kettle
Let’s remember that Richard “Dick” Bennett’s side is so convincing they had to use bots to summon dead people to support removing Title II. That’s surely a mark of how upstanding his perspective is.
He won’t talk about that, though. It’s little wonder why he doesn’t hang around Ars Technica. At that point he can’t do much more than embarrass himself on a platform that is less lenient towards his fictional drivel.
Re: Re: Pot, Kettle
You did not answer the question
“Things should be avoided simply because our population does not understand something?”
That might actually work – for example, a majority of the population does not understand why we need to be perpetually at war, so …. we should not be at war.
What's his motive?
At this point he’s either a self-obsessed narcissistic idiot who can’t give up his favorite toy or he is under some huge pressure to get it passed. I don’t know if the pressure is from his boss The Orangeness or he’s got some sweet moolah waiting for him when he retires if the deal is passed but his level of obstinacy is just weird. Rational people would pull back for a couple of weeks and at least pretend to ‘study’ the idea before moving forward on the same track.
Ajit Pai should go back to India.