cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/31761131
Cliff’s notes: Team GOP prevailed, the people lost on netneutrality. The only thing you can do now is cancel your broadband… something very few people have the will power to do.
I suppose the reason they did not take it to the supreme court is Trump managed to stack that court in favor of the right-wing nutjobs. So if the case goes there, it will do the GOP’s bidding to favor big business over the people and enter an oppressive decision that is even harder to correct in the future.
(note this story was originally on Ars Technica but that site is enshitified so I found a less enshitified source to link – something more fedi posters should do)
The only thing you can do now is cancel your broadband… something very few people have the will power to do.
It’s not will power. It’s not just broadband. It is all internet service. Even if you cancel your own private cell service and broadband you will be using someone else’s Wi-Fi that has the same problem.
You cannot cancel all internet service. It has become a requirement for living in the modern world like electricity.
It’s not just broadband. It is all internet service.
I think broadband was the right term. If you have dial-up service over ISDN or analog POTS, the narrow form of netneutrality being litigated (throttling) would not have much impact on narrowband users because they are bottlenecked quite a bit inherently anyway.
The caveat is that latency can be so poor as to downgrade a narrowband connection – in which case you would be correct. Depending on circumstances. VOIP is possible over analog POTS so long as latency is not sabotaged.
You cannot cancel all internet service. It has become a requirement for living in the modern world like electricity.
I have. This year I pulled the plug and live without Internet at home. Because I will not lick their boots.
I admit that not everyone has the tech literacy to do this. It requires being able to work offline and periodically entering a public hotspot to run scripts that sync whatever is needed. It’s a time management skill that requires some discipline and/or coding.
The !right_to_unplug@sopuli.xyz community cators for this lifestyle:
https://sopuli.xyz/c/right_to_unplug
When you say “it’s a requirement”, I’m not sure where you are. I know that in Europe public administrations are closing their doors and forcing everyone online for public service. That is indeed an assault on people’s autonomy and a fight worth fighting. Thus in some situations, choosing to live offline also entails the will power to fight court battles. It’s not for everyone, that’s for sure.
Pots is regulated under telecommunications services. Ilecs got broadband to be exempt from teleco regulations 25 years ago. Besides dial up is a tiny market and in most cases completely unavailable. AOL even discontinued pots.
This year I pulled the plug and live without Internet at home.
already covered this when I said this affects cell phones or you are using other’s wifi. As I already said, the Internet you are connecting to is affected even if you are avoiding paying for it personally.
When you say “it’s a requirement”, I’m not sure where you are.
This is an article about American laws. It doesn’t apply to Europe. It is a requirement because government, hospitals and in particular schools have switched to Internet for communication. I got a letter about an adjustment to my taxes which said, “login at this url to pay this bill”. My children’s notifications about, school calendars, school delays and buses are all text messages and emails.
Pots is regulated under telecommunications services. Ilecs got broadband to be exempt from teleco regulations 25 years ago. Besides dial up is a tiny market and in most cases completely unavailable.
It’s available; people just don’t know about it. I asked the POTS supplier for ISDN. Answer: no. Called back later, spoke to someone else, answer: yes. It’s so rare that some of the telecom sales staff are not even aware of their own services.
Dialup ISPs are getting more centralised as the business shrinks. But I think there will always be some operating because they tend to be nationwide and not limited to an area code.
already covered this when I said this affects cell phones or you are using other’s wifi. As I already said, the Internet you are connecting to is affected even if you are avoiding paying for it personally.
Sure, but what’s the point? It’s not to get access to a faster service. If that’s your concern, then you can simply buy the higher business class service (and become part of the problem in exchange for being impeded by it).
It’s about not feeding tyranny. The public library (my means of access) would indeed be affected by the same business shenannigans, but if I am not paying for it then I am not feeding it. They lose my subscription fees for being bad players. That‘s the point.
This is an article about American laws. It doesn’t apply to Europe. It is a requirement because government, hospitals and in particular schools have switched to Internet for communication. I got a letter about an adjustment to my taxes which said, “login at this url to pay this bill”. My children’s notifications about, school calendars, school delays and buses are all text messages and emails.
I have a foot in both places. I have only been forced online in Europe, never in the US. I would like to hear more detail about being unable to pay your tax bill offline because that amounts to forced banking, something I thought was non-existent in the US, where legal tender is defined as having a right to pay debts in cash. If you are quite far from a tax office, I would more readily believe that. But even then, it was just a few years ago that I was able to pay a tax bill by snail-mailing a paper check. Is that option dead under some tax regime? Is it a local tax admin that refuses cash?
I’ve lost touch with US schools but I have read about the shitshow of primary and secondary schools handing out Google Chromebooks and requiring students to use them as well as requiring them to agree to Google’s ToS. Bus delay notifications sounds more like a convenience. People tend to confuse convenience with necessity in recent years. Tim Wu’s tyranny of convenience essay has not reached as many people as it should.
It’s available; people just don’t know about it.
It doesn’t even matter if POTS exists because it doesn’t change the net neutrality problem. Dial up providers need to get access from the big networks. Those networks no longer have to follow net neutrality. So it doesn’t matter if your local dial up company follows net neutrality because they must interconnect with Tier 1 ISP’s that don’t follow it.
Sure, but what’s the point?
The point is your claiming you canceled internet doesn’t mean anything if you are using someone else’s internet. It’s like if you said, “I cancelled electricity to save the environment. I now run a power line from my neighbor who lets me use their electricity. I pay my neighbor instead of the power company.” You haven’t done anything.
Using the local library is paying for it. Your taxes are paying for it. You using more bandwidth at the library will cause the library to upgrade their service and pay more which you then pay with taxes. Net neutrality affects the library. You cancelling home service while still using the Internet hasn’t done anything.
I would like to hear more detail about being unable to pay your tax bill offline
I might have been able to if I called the number and figured out what to do. But the default was “go to this url”. A delay in payment means penalties.
Bus delay notifications sounds more like a convenience.
It used to be phone calls. It’s not a convenience when the bus is cancelled and you need to know that you will need to drive you child into school. Sometimes the school itself is closed or delayed for a local reason that doesn’t get reported on the news immediately like a power outage or plumbing. Grades are posted online. Schedules are posted online. There is no paper.
It doesn’t even matter if POTS exists because it doesn’t change the net neutrality problem.
The analog service is capped by physics, not business. If you have a 56k modem, it doesn’t matter that netneutrality capped domestic service 1Mbit b/c dial-up service can’t reach that anyway. The netneutrality changed the business in a way that harms residential broadband customers who will get service that is artificially reduced by business practices (not by physics). Netneutrality is not going to cause dial-up customers to lose even more performance. If anything, they might even fair better because the ISP will be able to bring in more profits which could increase the effect of subsidy from higher payers. It certainly will not be detrimental to dial-up customers.
The point is your claiming you canceled internet doesn’t mean anything if you are using someone else’s internet. It’s like if you said, “I cancelled electricity to save the environment. I now run a power line from my neighbor who lets me use their electricity. I pay my neighbor instead of the power company.” You haven’t done actually done anything.
Actually that very thing is happening where I am, because the injection rates are so much lower than consumption rates that it’s very interesting for someone to sell their excess solar power to their neighbor than to the grid. The neighbor who buys that excess is not buying from the grid.
Likewise, my folks have broadband as well as their neighbor. Both homes use very little of their allowance. So if one cancels and shares with the other, the revenue from the two homes to the ISP will cut in half, but both households will experience no performance loss.
The reason they won’t do it because they erroneously think it is somehow morally wrong. But in fact I was surprised to find that it’s not against the ToS.
Using the local library is paying for it. Your taxes are paying for it.
What taxes? Are you assuming I have a job and pay income tax?
You using more bandwidth at the library will cause the library to upgrade their service
It will not. Just like with my folks, the library already has more than enough broadband for the few people who use it. It can take a big hit… it can even lose 75% of its current speed and I will be fine.
Even if a notable portion of the neighborhood did the same thing, and the library was forced to upgrade, that upgrade would cost less than the aggregate total of all the households who cancel their service because more of the underutilised but compensated bandwidth would go to use.
You cancelling home service while still using the Internet hasn’t done anything.
For the past several months, the ISP has received zero from me. I have noticed no change in the library’s Internet service since I became a more regular user. So there was no shift in funding AFAICT.
The analog service is capped by physics, not business.
It matters because the service provider can dictate costs at both ends of the connection independent of the amount of data. AT&T can force Proton mail to pay them more to pass the data along and not charge Gmail for the same data.
Actually that very thing is happening where I am,
Buying solar from a neighbor is not paying a neighbor to use their power company provided power. The library isn’t an independent network. They are using the same Internet that is hurt by a lack of net neutrality.
What taxes? Are you assuming I have a job and pay income tax?
There are other taxes than income tax like sales tax. Besides not paying doesn’t change anything when you are still using it, “I don’t pay for electricity to save the environment. I use my neighbors who pay the electric company. They let me connect for free.”
It will not. Just like with my folks,
You doing it alone doesn’t hurt the library like you throwing trash on the ground in public isn’t an environmental disaster. The article is about EVERYONE doing it. If everyone used the public library internet, they’d have to increase their service. ISP’s already oversell bandwidth. A neighborhood of 100 homes each with 1Gbs service doesn’t have a 100Gbs connection. When I ran and ISP, it was 20 to 1. We’d monitor bandwidth and everyone got “full bandwidth” because statistically everyone wasn’t simultaneously using the full bandwidth. It’s the same bandwidth for the provider whether there are separate under-utilized lines at homes or a giant pipe at the library.
Which doesn’t matter because a lack of Net Neutrality still hurts everyone whether they use the library or use it at home.
I have noticed no change in the library’s Internet service since I became a more regular user.
“I throw my trash on the sidewalk and it’s gone the next day. It’s not a problem.”
It matters because the service provider can dictate costs at both ends of the connection independent of the amount of data.
This is to the benefit of narrowband users, who are at the bottom of the spectrum and would pay the least of all tiers. Recall that you originally said it’s a problem for everyone, not just broadband users.
Buying solar from a neighbor is not paying a neighbor to use their power company provided power.
The point was that the local energy supplier has lower revenue. They don’t recuperate the loss of neighbors colluding to buy less of their supply. e> There are other taxes than income tax like sales tax. Besides not paying doesn’t change anything when you are still using it, “I don’t pay for electricity to save the environment. I use my neighbors who pay the electric company. They let me connect for free.”
I’m not sure how you’re not grasping this. If Bob sells excess solar power to Alice for less than the grid power, that’s strictly a loss for the energy company. It’s not a zero-sum scenario. The energy company does not recover that lost business.
You doing it alone doesn’t hurt the library
Of course. And hurting the library is not the goal or idea anyway. So no problem there.
The problem is with this claim:
The article is about EVERYONE doing it. If everyone used the public library internet, they’d have to increase their service.
First of all, libraries have fixed budgets. They cannot simply upgrade on a whim. Even if they do upgrade, there is still less /fat/ (oversold bandwidth). Library management is more clever than you think. When demand and supply curves start to cross, the library brings in quotas. PC users have a 2 hour timer, or more, depending on supply and demand. People who get cut off for the day have generally accomplished everything necessary by then anyway… they are just watching videos for amusement or doom scrolling, in which case no real compromise with sending them home.
ISP’s already oversell bandwidth. A neighborhood of 100 homes each with 1Gbs service doesn’t have a 100Gbs connection. When I ran and ISP, it was 20 to 1. We’d monitor bandwidth and everyone got “full bandwidth” because statistically everyone wasn’t simultaneously using the full bandwidth. It’s the same bandwidth for the provider whether there are separate under-utilized lines at homes or a giant pipe at the library.
You seem to have a chance at understanding considering you’re aware of this much. That oversell shrinks as people share (which is effectively the same as using the library). IOW, the fat that lines their pockets shrinks.
Which doesn’t matter because a lack of Net Neutrality still hurts everyone whether they use the library or use it at home.
If you’re willing to acknowledge that netneutrality is harmful, then you should be boycotting. The boycott action is using your consumer power to push back. If you do not boycott, then you are the one supporting it. You are then part of the problem.
“I throw my trash on the sidewalk and it’s gone the next day. It’s not a problem.”
For this analogy to work, it would be a case where I am the only one on my block littering, and I stop, so the street cleaner no longer needs to traverse my street. The street cleaner would lose revenue due to being paid by traversal distance. I would then be putting my litter on another block, by this analogy. And that other block would be routinely littered anyway, so the street cleaner would still get paid for the other block but not for mine. And since he is not paid by weight, but by distance, his net revenue is less. He can try to increase his prices per kilometer if he wants, but that has consequences. His competitors may not allow it. And governments have budgets.
Also realise that I have been offline for several days now, since libraries were closed the past few days and I did not have access. So my consumption is less as a consequence of this lifestyle of boycotting. Even if the library were open 24/7, I’m not going to stream Netflix or something in the library like I would at home. So my consumption drops inherently in the change.