So. What happens if Net Neutrality loses?

Viani

Like, do the victors actually have what they plan on doing listed out? I have encountered a lot of fear mongering (Internet Big Brother), but nothing in-stone by Comcast-kun and Friends. Are they planning on Cable-ifying the internet?

eriophora zia

It'll likely be a slow creep. Nothing overnight. I would be shocked if sites like Facebook, et cetera, didn't end up with speed deals and such.

I think "fast" and "slow" lane internet is more likely than it being cable-ified. Favored sites that pay the ISP get better speeds and therefore have a consumer advantage. They will market it as "the fastest Netflix or YouTube experience around!" and pretend it is good for consumers - more speed yay! But actually everything else had just been artificially slowed down.

Bee

Pretty much.  They'll sell priority on existing pipes, and try to subtly throttle the shit out of things they don't like.

glennmagusharvey

Bee said:

Pretty much.  They'll sell priority on existing pipes, and try to subtly throttle the shit out of things they don't like.

So basically we need to find ways to disguise certain traffic as other traffic.

Bee

I mean you already see better traffic if you go through a VPN.  It's just hard to prove it's on purpose.

Calica

also it's really hard to distinguish content beyond, like, "probably text?" or "probably video?" if you're running through SSL anyways so it probably won't go much beyond "go slower if you're a company that hasn't Paid Its Dues" but since like half the internet is now running on Amazon servers anyways who fucking knows

Yarrun XIX

What the hell happened to this timeline anyways?

Aliroz

Comcast already throttles my Netflix and also makes so it sometimes takes fifteen seconds to load a page.