http://news.yahoo.com/u-appeals-court-kills-net-neutrality-152413671.html

So... I'll take the package with the gamesas forums for an extra .99 cents.

Thoughts?

Next up? Hopefully the US Supreme Court. Choice of providers is a rumor in some areas and price prohibitive in others.

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What does this mean? I don't know much of anything about politics and the like.

Doesn't it only apply to wireless providers?

Yeah, I read through the article earlier this afternoon and I have to admit I don't understand it myself.

The days of the Internet Wild West are unfortunately coming to an end here soon, these are just the first steps.

No, that was before.

http://www.thenation.com/article/177425/verizon-fcc-and-what-you-need-know-about-net-neutrality

FCC's next move is either go to Congress, go to the Supereme Court, or attempt reclassifying ISPs as Title-II providers.

Long ago before there was an internet there were 'on line services'. When you subscribed to one on line service you didn't have access to content hosted on another on line service. Then the internet connected the on line services, but it was still possible to make accessing content on another service slower or even impossible, and/or deny access to content if the connection involved a rival service. Despite the seemingly obvious question 'why would anyone sign on with a provider that does that?' many people did.

In those days there were at least plausible reasons, like 'our servers prioritize and take care of our own subscribers first' so when you tried to pull up content on a rival service it might just be way slower. I don't know if current tech would make blaming limits on equipment plausible.

And since this is a gamer forums: this would drastically affect all consoles, steam, online gaming, and other digital download services.

Things like private servers for just you and your buddies? Kiss them bye-bye if Net Neutrality goes away.

It basically means that your ISP has more power over your internet as it gives them to right to block certain sites or charge you extra to access them if they wish...imagine having to pay to use Google? I don't like the possibilities of this passing, especially since there's this quiet change concerning governing the internet also going into effect soon.

Not quite, rather ISPs can bully companies like Netflix and Google into paying them if they don't want to be blocked or significantly slowed down.

It's akin to the mafia going to stores back in the 1900s and selling ”insurance” so no ”unfortunate acidents” happen to the store.

In a nutshell theyre proposing that internet service providers can deny access to websites and limit your speeds on them. For a fee they could be unlocked.

Nobody is going to want to deal with these kind of headaches. The ISP who doesnt choose to adapt this will be the most successful.

So more microtransactions?

Doesn't it also give them the right to charge the consumer in the same manner? You would think that they would charge the companies but I see the possibility to charge both the company and consumer. At the very least I see the likely squeezing of companies as you point out and in turn they will rely on using even more ads then they do now...the internet could become one big commercial or billboard. It's an all around bad move that will not be pleasant for us paying customers.

Another scary thought...will this ruin internet porm as we know it? *gasp*

BS. There are ISP monopolies all over the country where you don't even have a choice.

It's possible they could, but quite frankly I see it more likely for them to go after the companies. It'd be easier to hit them "Oh, it'd be horrible if your website was slowed down on our network..." rather than going after their customers. Going after customers would alienate customers, whereas going after companies wouldn't.

Of course the buck would be passed on to you and me anyway: sites like Netflix would charge more, other sites would start charging, and still others will increase ads. Those that don't use ads may be forced to start using ads just to pay off the mafia ISPs.

If so, I'm considering buying a buttload of external harddrives and saving every dirty pic and movie I want to have for future use that I can get my hands on.

So basically this sets up battles in the CBS vs Time Warner mold. CBS sells advertising. TWC said 'without us delivering your programming no one would buy ads'. TWC sells service. CBS said 'without our programming no one would buy your service'. They squabble for a while, but ultimately they are both right so they make a deal.

The internet has not had these issues because every ISP has had equal access to every source of content, and every source of content has been equally accessible to every user. In the end, every user will have access to all the content, but in the course of negotiations between ISPs and content providers there will be a huge number of lawyers making a huge amount of money, which will be paid for by users and advertisers.

Here's to hoping this get's shot down by the Supreme Court, the implications of this passing? I feel bad for the many people in areas where there is only one real choice for an ISP, not to mention any small businesses in those types of areas that require an internet connection. This whole ruling gives Telecommunications companies a scary amount of power.

They tried that in the UK, http://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/porm-filters-block-six-education-charity-websites/

basically internet providers want to controll what websites their customers can visit, this way they can set up a tiered system. Which means for example, if you wanted to visit facebook you would have to have the "gold package" which costs an extra $15 a month.

the court in this appeal has ruled that this is fair because consumers can choose which internet provider they pay services for, but this is moronic because this will become a false choice. No matter what happens net neutrality will mean consumers will either have to pay extra money each month on top of their default internet bill to use popular websites OR they will have to pay extra for ISPs who don't restrict websites on a tiered system but WILL charge more for their service because they will claim unrestricted browsing as an expense because they aren't making as much money as their competitor.

its the new age price fixing

Imagine ISP's offering the Google package with unlimited high speed access to Google? I see this sort of thing being right around the corner once this takes effect and the greedy money ball starts rolling.

I see Facebook and Twitter being squeezed hard as nearly everyone uses those sites.

ha I hear you, the internet has spoiled us with unlimited access to all our dirty desires without having to feel like a weirdo shopping in those shady little advlt stores

What happens to democracy when the website for the candidate who is amenable to corporate lobbyists is on the preferred access list, and the website for the pro-neutrality candidate isn't?

well ideally, if the old farts who preside over such regulations didn't have their heads up you know where about technology, there would be the same rules that corporate news sources are held too, equal candidate air time thing. can't properly explain how that works since i don't know in detail.