Net Neutrality And The Sale Of Tobacco

I do not want to fathom that... that's why I am buying what I can when I can, both as a personal need and an investment. I am just so disappointed that a country founded on freedom and liberties has come to this type of governance. We as citizens can no longer be trusted to our own recognizance where our health and welfare are concerned...sickening and sad.

"I do not want to fathom that... that's why I am buying what I can when I can, both as a personal need and an investment. I am just so disappointed that a country founded on freedom and liberties has come to this type of governance. We as citizens can no longer be trusted to our own recognizance where our health and welfare are concerns...sickening and sad."
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While I usually side with business entities on plenty of matters, I cannot because the internet is being guarded by gatekeepers who may be given too much power to decide what they want on their connections. Luckily, President Obama is on the right side of this issue pushing for the FCC to guard net neutrality and not hand over carte blanche power to the ISPs to pick winners and losers.

If one wants to mess up a good thing like the internet, just get the government and the FCC involved!
The internet should remain free of government interference. If one isn't happy with their ISP, they are free to change it. There are many to choose from and this issue is best settled by the Free Market. It is competition that makes business better(not the government) and it is the consumer who will benefit.
Government often as good intentions but the final results often produce just the opposite.

Saint, business didn't build the internet and they have been held off by it's very nature. It is only after much maneuvering that they are poised to take it over from the hands of those that did build it. This is one area the government needs to step into. We already suffer from the capitalist nature of ISP's in America. We pay substantially more for much slower speeds than most developed countries because of it. The internet as is exists now does not need to be destroyed for profit. Remember when AOL bilked millions of people for ridiculous amounts because they weren't tech savvy enough to realize you didn't need AOL to use the internet? I'm a small business person and net neutrality is clear cut, plain and simple. I am all for ISP's installing fiber op and charging people to use it but they do not need or deserve to control it. Yesterday Cruz displayed startling ignorance of what is at stake and the fact this should not be a partisan issue. If you believe in liberty then a small group should be in control of this day and ages most prevalent form of communication and information sharing. No one is asking the government to "manage" the internet, only to keep it free as in freedom, ISP's can already charge money for their services. Literally over 99% of comments to the FCC were in favor of net neutrality so if they side with big business, what does that say for the will of the people?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilMx7k7mso
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c38fb80a0d/comcast-doesn-t-give-a-f-ck

No one is holding a gun to anyone's head telling them they have to use Comcast.
We have fiber optics is my small town. I used it for about a year and a half and went back to my cable company for an ISP. If I didn't want to use the cable company, I have several other options.
My point is that private businesses are better at delivering a better product at a lower cost when they are made to compete on a level playing field. Once the government gets involved, they can only mess it up as History has shown us.

I'm sorry but you are dead wrong. As you have pointed out these companies already get to decide their product and price. The internet has never been owned and doesn't need to be. The only reason it functions as it does now is that content moves through all channels uninhibited by who your ISP is. That will end if net neutrality does. The FCC is already and had already been involved. Again, when 99% of citizen comments fall on one side, it's clear people don't want a privatized internet.

Giving ISPs more control is not going to be a good thing for the Internet. If you support the Internet remaining a level playing field (as it is now) then you support net neutrality.
If the FCC allows ISPs to charge more for access and limit bandwidth for certain purposes then you are against net neutrality.
Of course you can change services, but like healthcare, you only have so many choices locally. If ISPs are given the ability to limit bandwidth then it will be hard for them to deny that money coming from the big boys on the net.

An equivalent would be phone companies were given the ability to decide you could talk as long as you wanted to people in preferred countries, but less time if called from lesser countries.
Or if you were ready to check out at the grocery store and an employee decided based on what was in your cart which line you could go into.

One point, and I have not really read enough to have a firm opinion on the matter, but to say "no one owns the internet" doesn't really make sense. Someone owns and maintains the servers, someone owns, maintains, and upgrades the lines (be they fiber optic or cable), and equipment that makes connection possible, someone owns the software that within the system that makes it work. It doesn't happen by magic.

" business didn't build the internet" Perhaps they didn't start it, per se, but they have built it into what it is today. Almost the entire infrastructure of the internet is owned and operated privately. It takes a given amount of $ to move a given amount of data, and the customer should pay the freight to move their data at the speed that they wish to have it moved. I agree that there should be a minimum service level, and universal access (ala USPS) but if a customer wants to move more data or move it faster, then they should be able to do that (ala FedEx or common carrier).
All things are NOT equal, and any time that the Gubbmint tries to make it so, the f*&k it up for everyone.

Gentleman, we will have to agree to disagree.
In respect for the Moderators of this site, I can't get into the politics of this.
Peace out.

Some of you seem to be under the impression that net neutrality would be something new created by our government, the opposite is true. Net neutrality is what you are used to. Do you like the internet now or at anytime in the last 30 years? They you have already been enjoying what net neutrality provides. You can start a site and without hindrance, people can go to it. Without that, the net as we know it never would have grown into something they could profit off as they now do.They want to further charge the guy with the site, you or both so you can now access his site unhindered. If the net had been built by a small group of corporate websites, it never would have went anywhere. When's the last time you spent a few hours enjoying the Walmart or Comcast websites? That is what is at stake. If it ends everything will change. I never said companies didn't invest but they neither created nor built what we now have. I have been online since I had to attach my phone receiver to a modem. These companies invested so they could sell you is access and they can. They wish to step beyond that and only provide you quick and reasonable service to those that pay more, a lot more. That does not equate to controlling the Internet as they seek to do. They are profiting fine and all we are asking the FCC to do is maintain the existing neutrality. You think you can switch providers and avoid the consequences? Wrong because at some point your isp providers network ends. Whose network are the sites you want to go to on? All tech companies besides isp providers are on the same side for a reason.

I admit I know little in regard to net neutrality, but I do know our government.

If you want something totally screwed up then let them get involved. Sooner than later it will start costing everyone more money as a result. IMO Basically a big parasite bleeding the purse of both user and supplier.

No one is holding a gun to anyone's head telling them they have to use Comcast.

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In this area, Comcast is the only vendor for cable internet. CenturyLink (formerly Qwest) is the "big dog" for consumer DSL - pretty much anyone else offering DSL internet is reselling access to CenturyLink's infrastructure. The FIOS companies haven't made it out here yet, and Verizon appears to be divesting its interest in FIOS instead of expanding their market share.
Deregulation in the 90's resulted not so much in a breakup of the monopolies who ran the phone infrastructure, but rather a shakeout and a reshuffling of who got which monopoly.
Plus, as daimyo points out, it's Comcast that's holding internet traffic hostage. When Netflix was up for contract negotiations, Comcast throttled their traffic as a bargaining chip. Net Neutrality would (theoretically) prohibit that sort of tactic. I don't necessarily trust "the government" to always get it right, but then again, neither do I trust business to do the right thing, either - better to have checks and balances to make corrections when either entity oversteps, IMHO.
The other thing is, Government is us. We elect legislators to represent us, allegedly - if they've stopped doing so, then it's on us to bring them back to heel.

Comcast has a monopoly where I live and I live in a major urban center.
So no, you don't always have a choice.

I admit I know little in regard to net neutrality, but I do know our government.

If you want something totally screwed up then let them get involved. Sooner than later it will start costing everyone more money as a result.

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This is the opposite of the truth. Net neutrality is what brought you the FREE internet, where you could go to my personal site because you pay for internet access. Now they want you to pay for the access and to be able to get to my site. The FCC isn't going to charge you, your ISP provider is. They have people believing up is down. WE ALREADY HAD 30 YEARS OF NET NEUTRALITY! Not only did it no make it cost more, it's what kept is open to all people rich or poor once they got on via public hot spot or private paid connection.

I thought this breakdown was easy to understand and fairly humorous at the same time:
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net_neutrality