Net neutrality

[Matt-Chicago]

Public universities do the research, public money builds it, modern communication depends on it, and now corporations own it. Please, can we stop calling this [poo] 'capitalism'?

The internet has always been rooted in socialism with private industry allowed to profit from it, and that's the way the vast majority of industries in the US work. The whole military industrial complex is like one big socialist technology research center which gets privatized so companies can profit from it.
There is no such thing as a pure capitalist society and there never could be and nobody would ever want it. People like some degree of stability and capitalism depends on instability for efficiency. There will always need to be a mix, and there's a legitimate debate on what that mix should be, but calling all socialism bad is just plain wrong in my opinion. As long as we allow competition, entrepreneurship, etc - we are still a capitalist society even with plenty of socialism.

Some socialism is necessary, good, and works great. Our country couldn't function at all without it.
Some here are very extremist and far outside the mainstream with what role they think government should play. Some here think social security and medicare are horrible socialism, while the vast majority of Americans think those are the most successful and needed programs ever created.

Back to net neutrality, Toad is basically right. Comcast came half an inch from blocking Netflix. Rules saying ISP's can't block legal content ensures a relatively free internet like we have today. The rules are very weak though, ISP's can still discriminate against competitors, speed up traffic for itself and partners, etc, they just have to disclose what they're doing. The rules did nothing for the wireless spectrum, so anticipate a lot more fragmentation there.

[toad]

Public universities do the research, public money builds it, modern communication depends on it, and now corporations own it. Please, can we stop calling this [poo] 'capitalism'?

The internet has always been rooted in socialism with private industry allowed to profit from it, and that's the way the vast majority of industries in the US work. The whole military industrial complex is like one big socialist technology research center which gets privatized so companies can profit from it.

There was a ton of tech my father did DoD R&D on that has since been translated into commercial products. Cable TV/video over fiber, fiber optic controlled cars & planes, long haul fiber networks and their corresponding lasers, and many more. Public money seeds the technology. It is up to companies to figure out how to make a viable product that can stand on its own. We also must not forget that companies provide the taxes that are needed to fund these projects as well. So I am fine with this setup. It beats large companies warping up core technologies in patents and then sitting on them. GRRRR

The rules are very weak though, ISP's can still discriminate against competitors, speed up traffic for itself and partners, etc, they just have to disclose what they're doing.

GRRRRR

The rules did nothing for the wireless spectrum, so anticipate a lot more fragmentation there.

Unlike hard-wire communications there is a finite amount of stuff I can stuff into a wireless spectrum. So I can live with companies monkeying around with that Internet space. Since there are so many competitors in that market place. Competition would kill off any company that monkeys around to much.

[Matt-Chicago]

It was basically the Comcast plan versus the Verizon/Google plan, and Verizon/Google won.
Hopefully when we see the effects over the next year or so, some neutrality rules will be put in place for wireless spectrum as well.

[Duel of Fates]

Some socialism is necessary, good, and works great. Our country couldn't function at all without it.
Some here are very extremist and far outside the mainstream with what role they think government should play. Some here think social security and medicare are horrible socialism, while the vast majority of Americans think those are the most successful and needed programs ever created.

Medicare is a terrible system. Doctors that I have spoken to in this area have basically stated the fact that they will not see medicare patients because getting paid for their services is an uphill climb that is not worth it. If you consider that a success, then you have a very warped view of success and failure.

Social Security is failing. I and many that I work with jokingly say we gotta keep working to "get our social security". We understand that the public has been lied to for many generations now about Social Security and we will never see it when we retire. I personally would like to stop paying into a system that will have no benefit for me or my children. If you think that bankrupting the US is cool, then I guess you would call it a success.