End of Net Neutrality. For anyone who games online

It seems to be related to cable service, wherein service providers continually play brinksmanship games with networks, with consumers caught in the crossfire. If one, then the other.

I should point out that this is hardly the "end" of net neutrality considering we've never really had it to begin with.

edited 14th Jan '14 1:19:50 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Corporations win again. And nothing we do will stop this.

Boycott them. That works.

No it doesn't.

You certainly can boycott them if you like, but if you do it you should realize you're just doing it to make yourself feel better, because nothing's going to come of it.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

Bullshit. Not when they control services so essential to modern life.

That too.

edited 14th Jan '14 1:46:28 PM by unnoun

But that means no internet. There are no non-evil ISPs to my knowledge. Which is why we must fight them at every turn to protect our online rights.

A lot of peoples' livelihoods depend on having internet access nowadays.

Right now I'm paying about $60 dollars a month for internet that's advertised as 10mbps but in reality is closer to 2mbps, and none of the other isps in my area are much better. This will not only make people have to pay more for literally nothing, but also has a lot of insidious things that will spawn from it. "Is that a rival's website? Let me just lower that speed to less than dial-up then. Civil unrest? People trying to stage protests? Let's throttle all the social sites like twitter and fb."

It just sickens me that in other countries people are paying less than a third of what I am for speeds tens of times faster. Ah well, just one one more reason to take the first job offer abroad.

In the past, the government actually payed the cable companies 3 billion to set up a good broadband fiber whatever infrastructure, but the money "mysteriously" dissapeared, the government then gave them another 3 billion, to the same result. So yeah, no chance this won't get abused.

edited 14th Jan '14 2:03:14 PM by jeorg

A love that crushes like a mace.

Internet isn't a right, it's a product. That's what muddies the issue so much: it's no more a "right" than a car, a phone, or a house is. There is no such thing as "online rights".

edited 14th Jan '14 2:09:12 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Just because something isn't a "right" doesn't make shitty things corporations do less shitty.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

The people trying to oveturn the ruling are currently trying to recalissy the internet as "telecommunications media" meaning it's necessary for day to day life and shouldn't be subject to price gouging. More info here if curious, [1].

A love that crushes like a mace.

So you don't believe in consumer rights? Also, the right to housing is recognized in many nations.

Another thing, the right to freedom of speech online is also recognized pretty much everywhere (mostly...), and many countries also have laws protecting online privacy.

I think he's saying that the problem is that Internet access isn't viewed as a right, but rather as a commodity, which is why they can get away with this stuff.

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

Depends where you live. And let's be honest, it's increasingly likely to become a human right given the way our world does work.

Edit: You don't believe in the right to housing? Wow. Okay, we're done here.

edited 14th Jan '14 2:28:57 PM by Nicknacks

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He didn't say "housing", he said "a house". And no, there's nowhere on earth that I'm aware of where owning a house (or even living in a house rather than a dorm or a flat) is a right.

Currently, no, Internet access is not a "right". It's in many ways and in many places almost a necessity, but it's not a right.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Boycotting Viacom managed to get them to layoff youtube. for all of six months but that was just one website that had long since lost its way. I suppose if you had the entire internet as motivation you could pull off longer lasting results from a boycott. Alternatively, we could shut down a website like Wikipeidia. That usually works(assuming Wikipedia is compliant and not force to shut down)

Or we could take hostages and threaten them with fire.

Again, depends where you are. e.g. Finland.

This post has been powered by avenging fury and a balanced diet.

Did it, though? I don't remember that ever happening. And, if anything, beyond simply Viacom, companies in general have become more harsh on You Tube.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

It's a DC appeals court, but it affects the FCC's regulations nationwide.

And the DC Appeals Courts are also a major source of precedent for the rest of the US.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

"Internet is not a right": Technically you're right (lol), the Internet isn't a right. Although it isn't a product either.

I'm guessing you're talking about internet ACCESS? Hmmm....

I'm reading this because it's interesting. I think. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, over.

From my perspective, this isn't really going to affect gaming, so Don't Panic.

ISPs won't throttle the big sites like You Tube or Facebook, because they're such an intrinsic part of the web that cutting more than one or two of them off defeats the purpose of having internet access in the first place, which results in lost customers. (Plus, those companies would be pissed, and they've got the monetary muscle to back it up.) They won't throttle the smaller websites because there's no real money in that (very few people would pay money to access those).

It's the medium-sized sites and services that are going to be the focus of any "tiered" internet plans, and for the most part gaming in general isn't really dependent on those. Steam is clearly in the big category, and Microsoft's and Sony's online services (due to them being big multi-industry companies) are probably safe as well. Nintendo is probably the only one whose online service might be at risk, so fans of that do have some reason to be worried. Otherwise, I don't see any problems on the gaming front. (There are other problems with this, but they aren't really related to video gaming, so...)

edited 14th Jan '14 7:44:11 PM by TotemicHero

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

I'm a Nintendo fan D:

The Protomen enhanced my life.

Nintendo at risk? They are clearly the masterminds behind this farce! No I don't have any proof yet but I know it had to be them. Only a company capable of making the virtual console without allowing us to download WWF No Mercy three times in a row could do such evil!

@Totemic: Big Internet companies won't complain about tiered services if they get a piece of the pie. While colluding like that is, IIRC, not legal in the US, there are a hilarious number of ways around things like that, and given how huge Facebook and You Tube are, they probably wouldn't see a major drop in users, especially I'd similar tiered service policies were applied to potential competitors, (who would benefit far less than big sites, id at all), which doesn't technically violate anti-trust laws.

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