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Who could have seen this coming...

Arkady said:
You earlier warned that there was an expansion of the Universal service Fund program in the regulations? I did a quick search for posts of yours referencing that fund and came up empty. Could you link me to the evidence that you saw this coming?
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I said costs to internet users would go up, service levels would fall and businesses would not get started that otherwise would have as a result. You said it would lower costs (or keep them low) for the end users if I recall. And what do you know, so far it's me 1 you nothing!
 
connieb said:
Gee, nice of them too to say - well we will just lower it on your phone bill - Yeah.. you know.. the thing most people have gotten rid of. Which is why they wanted this so much. Got to keep those fees rolling in one way or another.
Pigs.
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The funny part is how this was so terribly predictable yet the usual progressive spinners were here almost 24/7 saying that it would only make things better for us all. Effing liars!
 
Lukey said:
I said costs to internet users would go up, service levels would fall and businesses would not get started that otherwise would have as a result. You said it would lower costs (or keep them low) for the end users if I recall. And what do you know, so far it's me 1 you nothing!
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The issue we were discussing was whether the net neutrality rule concept itself would benefit or hurt users. This is a separate issue, about a charge that the government can include in order to fund the subsidizing of broadband development in under-served areas such as rural parts of the country. I'm a lot more conflicted about that question. On the plus side, there is a great history of success with an analogous effort: the rural electrification project during the New Deal. By helping to build out electric infrastructure in rural areas at a time when the market incentives weren't there for that, the government created the playing field for some really dramatic rural economic growth in the decades after WWII, which would have been delayed if that infrastructure weren't there. On the minus side, we already effectively subsidize rural settlement patterns in so many ways (e.g., spreading out government facilities into the boondocks, where the per-person service costs are extremely high), and that is arguably environmentally destructive, since rural living tends to be very fuel intensive. So, even though I'm strongly in favor of a net neutrality rule, I don't have a strong view in either way about this tag-along issue of whether the government should be putting a service cost into cable bills in order to subsidize building out that infrastructure in under-served geographic areas.
 
Arkady said:
The issue we were discussing was whether the net neutrality rule concept itself would benefit or hurt users. This is a separate issue, about a charge that the government can include in order to fund the subsidizing of broadband development in under-served areas such as rural parts of the country. I'm a lot more conflicted about that question. On the plus side, there is a great history of success with an analogous effort: the rural electrification project during the New Deal. By helping to build out electric infrastructure in rural areas at a time when the market incentives weren't there for that, the government created the playing field for some really dramatic rural economic growth in the decades after WWII, which would have been delayed if that infrastructure weren't there. On the minus side, we already effectively subsidize rural settlement patterns in so many ways (e.g., spreading out government facilities into the boondocks, where the per-person service costs are extremely high), and that is arguably environmentally destructive, since rural living tends to be very fuel intensive. So, even though I'm strongly in favor of a net neutrality rule, I don't have a strong view in either way about this tag-along issue of whether the government should be putting a service cost into cable bills in order to subsidize building out that infrastructure in under-served geographic areas.
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And there you have it - the (tacit) endorsement of the redistributionst aspect of this Marxist policy by the Obama Administration by one of our most ardently Marxist posters. Nothing to see here folks, move along...

Bottom line here is I said this sort of thing is EXACTLY what we can expect from this move and you said it would bring us nothing but unicorns sh*tting skittles. Me 1 - you 0
 
Lukey said:
And there you have it - the (tacit) endorsement of the redistributionst aspect of this Marxist policy by the Obama Administration by one of our most ardently Marxist posters. Nothing to see here folks, move along...

Bottom line here is I said this sort of thing is EXACTLY what we can expect from this move and you said it would bring us nothing but unicorns sh*tting skittles. Me 1 - you 0
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Please leave Skittles out of this. They are one of my staples. :)
 
Lukey said:
And there you have it - the (tacit) endorsement of the redistributionst aspect of this Marxist policy by the Obama Administration by one of our most ardently Marxist posters. Nothing to see here folks, move along...

Bottom line here is I said this sort of thing is EXACTLY what we can expect from this move and you said it would bring us nothing but unicorns sh*tting skittles. Me 1 - you 0
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You're fundamentally misunderstanding the discussion. There are two distinct issues here. One is whether broadband carriers should have to treat data on their networks in a non-discriminatory manner, and the other is whether the government should put an extra cost on broadband bills to fund subsidization of broadband development in underserved areas. The discussion we had was as to the first issue. If the second issue gave rise to higher broadband costs, that's another matter entirely.
 
Arkady said:
You're fundamentally misunderstanding the discussion. There are two distinct issues here. One is whether broadband carriers should have to treat data on their networks in a non-discriminatory manner, and the other is whether the government should put an extra cost on broadband bills to fund subsidization of broadband development in underserved areas. The discussion we had was as to the first issue. If the second issue gave rise to higher broadband costs, that's another matter entirely.
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Sorry Arkady. I have to call complete BS on that one.

We had several net neutrality conversations, some going at multiple times. And, Lukey's point was always that it was going to lead to more regulation and fees. If you did not get from his posts - then you misread them.

But, it is utter BS to even act like the "greater good" of bringing this to rural communities was more than ever even the tiniest fraction of the conversation. Or that was what we had discussed before.

To be honest, I don't even remember talking about that at all as a major point of concern. The issue was the resulting regulation, oversight, fees, and potential censorship this would result in.
 
connieb said:
" The issue was the resulting regulation, oversight, fees, and potential censorship this would result in.
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This certainly was the crux of the matter in all of the discussions I was involved in on this board. It was all about "a foot in the door" and where it will inevitably lead from there. Taxing, assessing fees, monitoring/directing content in the name of 'balance', and so forth.

...And the above is precisely where this will lead.
 
connieb said:
Sorry Arkady. I have to call complete BS on that one.

We had several net neutrality conversations, some going at multiple times. And, Lukey's point was always that it was going to lead to more regulation and fees. If you did not get from his posts - then you misread them.
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I invited him to link to him making that point. He declined. I also searched for any reference to this fee, and found none.
 
RickWA said:
This certainly was the crux of the matter in all of the discussions I was involved in on this board. It was all about "a foot in the door" and where it will inevitably lead from there. Taxing, assessing fees, monitoring/directing content in the name of 'balance', and so forth.

...And the above is precisely where this will lead.
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Could you link to one of those "foot in the door" posts?
 
Arkady said:
I invited him to link to him making that point. He declined. I also searched for any reference to this fee, and found none.
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I do not recall that he said THIS particular fee. But taxes and fees were certainly parts of the discussion. The main ones to be exact.
 
RickWA said:
Here's one:

https://www.politicaljack.com/threa...k-for-their-masters.76449/page-3#post-1208370

And here:

https://www.politicaljack.com/threads/keeping-the-internet-open-and-free.76431/page-2#post-1208228

There are actually quite a few in several strands from a few different posters which speak to the fact that once the state foot is in the door, there will inevitably be "mission creep".
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Fair enough. While you didn't specifically address this potential fee, you were clearly signalling a concern that this general kind of thing would happen. I don't believe I saw those at the time. I was focused squarely on the net neutrality issue itself, not the idea that letting the federal government intervene in that way would somehow give it more ability to intervene in other ways (which I still don't see to be the case -- they're distinct issues, and you can support one, or the other, or both, or neither).
 
Arkady said:
Fair enough. While you didn't specifically address this potential fee, you were clearly signalling a concern that this general kind of thing would happen. I don't believe I saw those at the time. I was focused squarely on the net neutrality issue itself, not the idea that letting the federal government intervene in that way would somehow give it more ability to intervene in other ways (which I still don't see to be the case -- they're distinct issues, and you can support one, or the other, or both, or neither).
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Particularly troubling to me (besides the proposition of state hands-on here in principle) is that I can't stand our regulating bureaucracies. The extent of their activism and power grabs is excessive - and it ebbs and flows over the years in a manner untethered to sufficient, specifically enumerated boundary. They essentially self-accumulate new reach - and typically with only vague (at best) fence lines.

Regulatory bureaucratic agencies are too autonomous in my view.
 
Lukey said:
I said costs to internet users would go up, service levels would fall and businesses would not get started that otherwise would have as a result. You said it would lower costs (or keep them low) for the end users if I recall. And what do you know, so far it's me 1 you nothing!
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Costs have not gone up and service levels have not fallen. But otherwise you are 100% correct....o_O
 
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