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2 comments

[–] PMYA 0 points (+0|-0)

I think this is fucked up, but I'm going to play devil's advocate.

If these rules were rolled back all across the board, and no ISPs were bound to them, would it really mean that they would all start engaging in these practices? The main argument I see for keeping these rules in place is that ISPs would start throttling less visited sites in favour of making things like Netflix, Facebook, Amazon etc. faster because they would take bribes from larger sites or companies. Some customers are not going to have a problem with this, but internet users as a whole seem to be largely against this sort of thing happening.

If this is the case, and I think it is, then people are just going to stop using the ISPs that are throttling. It isn't difficult to figure out if they're doing it. That means that the ISP isn't going to be able to keep asking Amazon for that bribe every month because Amazon isn't going to pay an ISP that nobody is using anymore.

The only issue is areas where you don't have a range of ISPs to choose from. There is a certain irony to be found in this quote then:

"I firmly believe that these ISPs should spend their limited capital building out better broadband to rural America, not hiring lawyers and accountants to fill out unnecessary paperwork demanded by Washington, D.C.,"

Because the people who will be hit the hardest by this are people in rural America.