Do you think todays FCC vote will have any effect on Wikitree? [closed]

Question

Simple question.Yes or no.

Comments

What does FCC mean?

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Type FCC in your search bar.

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Well among other things that gave me an English Waste Management Company :) However, I now see you are referring to the net neutrality vote.

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My most humble apologies, Lnyda. You are correct. Thank you for your interest. Cool way to spell your name.

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No problem James. It was a genuine question, not just me being awkward. Google doesn't throw out the same search results in Europe as it does in the USA, and as I had not yet watched the news today I really had no idea what you were asking at first.

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have to add more words.....Yes

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Lynda, My fault entirely. I sometimes forget that not all of us are from the U.S. Blame it on my ADHD or simply a lack experience communicating with people out side the states. Nonetheless I feel this is a global issue.

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Correct it is a global issue. No need to apologise. We all forget sometimes that abbreviations that make sense to us are a puzzle to others.

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I had to google this :)  and then I had to smile.

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oops I did it again  http://www.dictionary.com/browse/adhd?s=t

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Thank you Jeanie. Cool way to spell your name also.    https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:Relationship&action=calculate&person1_name=Thornton-1836&person2_name=Collins-5662

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Jeanie There must be a meaning to this, "have to add more words.....Yes"  Some subtle reference to data throttling? Or the manner in which I phrased my question?

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James, you have to put in a few words in the comment box in order to respond to a question, a simple "yes" is not enough.

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Michael got it, you can't just put yes or no in an answer, have to have more letters

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Thank you, Michael. Please feel free to answer any way you would like.

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Thank you everyone. I did not intend for a one word answer. I meant it was a simple question. Although many try to to cloud the issue with talk of politics,half-truths and double speak. It is really about fair play. I worded my question so as not to prejudice opinion. Rather to encourage awareness.

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If I asked a question then told some one how to answer would I get their answer or mine?

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Julie, Ellen And I were just discussing this. Frankly I too was out of points to make. I did not close it my self yet because it was still getting views. I wanted to give it a little more time in case someone wanted to add other pertinent information. As I have said this is NOT a political issue.The question and concern is world wide as you can see by the comments here in. I believe that a lot of people THINK that they know what net neutrality is. My intention was only to get the FACTS exposed. I have no desire for blind arguments. My wish is for clear concise discussion of the facts. I value everyone's opinion. I encourage correction if I am wrong but desire proof. I apologize if I have given offense. It was not my intention.

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déjà vu all over again.         https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-to-open-broad-new-antitrust-review-of-big-tech-companies-11563914235

Answer 1

OK, I have now read what this is actually about. Looked at CNN, CNBC, and also at BBC where there was a brief article. In the two Norwegian newspaper websites I follow it didn’t even get a mention.

My initial reaction is that it is not possible to answer yes or no at the moment. It will all depend on whether today’s vote is formally challenged.

Comments

Lynda, Thank you for spending your time to  research this issue. here is one more resource.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality  The first sixty or so so words should be enough to show the reason for my concern.

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"Article 3 of EU Regulation 2015/2120^[120] sets the basic framework for ensuring net neutrality across the entire European Union. However, the regulation's text has been criticized as offering loopholes that can undermine the regulation's effectiveness.^[121] Some EU member states, such as Slovenia and the Netherlands, have stronger net neutrality laws."  Direct quote from wikipedia.

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The decision has now also been covered in the Norwegian newspapers. They are saying that it is likely to be challenged as the FCC have not followed appropriate procedures.

Norway had a unanimous vote for net neutrality legislation in March this year.

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James, Thanks for the best answer star.

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Lynda you are most welcome. It is possible that you were the catalyst  I needed to get some interest about this issue.

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Happy to help. It is turning into an interesting discussion.

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Returned for the third time. Best answer

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Thanks again James. Unfortunately whoever is deselecting is not prepared to do you the courtesy of explaining why they disagree with your choice

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I was taught, that I had a right to voice my opinion AND the obligation to support it with facts. I was also taught, that I should take responsibility for my actions. But I realize that maybe others may have not been taught the same. Forgot my manners for a moment. You are welcome.

Answer 2

Absolutely,without a doubt YES. The fact that we are discussing the issue here today, is proof. Raising awareness of it"s importance, not only to us at Wiki but world wide. This is the the world wide web. Not the USA wide web. Lynda is correct in her answer, that the most  significant effects will depend on weather or not WE accept this decision. Now my next question. If this decision stands, do you think we will still have unrestricted, access to Wikitree? Bear in mind this is not pay to use site!

Comments

The ISP model is very complex.  As for-profit businesses, their end goal is to maximize their profit.  They have three main potential income sources:

1. Consumers, who pay them to provide internet service.  The cost of physically delivering service to each individual customer's location substantially cuts into their net income from this source.  Most ISP's do things to increase profit:
   • They have a rate table (i.e., 1 rate for private individuals, a different rate for businesses)
   • They have a rate table for amount of service (i.e., how much data can be transferred per time unit after which there is an additional charge)
   • They have a rate table for speed of service (i.e., higher price for faster service)
   • They lure customers from each other with introductory rates and bundles to combine television and telephone services with internet service.
2. They can sell advertising to companies who pay to have their content delivered to the ISP's customers directly (not by visiting any particular website).  This adds another dimension to their customer rates - they can charge different rates for different levels of add censorship, thus playing both ends.
3. They can vary the speed at which they deliver content from specific content providers who pay them for priority.  The priority system works backwards - the delivery speed you pay for is not increased for those services that pay for priority treatment.  Instead, it is decreased for those that do not pay.  To my way of thinking, this is equivalent to a content provider paying a bribe to an ISP to deliver their content at the speed paid for by the end user.  Limiting this part of the ISP's business model is what net neutrality is about.

The content providers, on the other hand, have 2 potential income sources:

1. Sales to their customers, which are either products (that you buy and they ship to you) or services (i.e., use of their website content)
2. Companies that pay them to put ads on their website

James, as a web developer, I am especially concerned about the loss of net neutrality regulations because of its impact on my clients.  They are small businesses and small to medium non-profit organizations, none of which could (or would) pay ISP's for priority content delivery service.  Only one of my clients ever tried to use advertising and found that it was a waste of their money because they were way too small to afford the cost of doing it on a scale that could be meaningful.  If you want an idea of the economics involved in website operation, there is a website (at http://htmlsrank.com) that provides a valuation of any website you want to check, which is based solely on advertising revenue potential.  This is vastly oversimplified - so much so that it should not be thought of as very meaningful, but it is interesting to see.

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Thank you Gaile, What about the ISP's that are also content providers? If you really think about what that mean's, it should scare you.

Answer 3

I was going to avoid commenting, but I'll add this as an opposing viewpoint and explain my reasons why.

You asked for a one word answer - in general, no.

But the reasons - net neutrality is all all about open and equal access by all providers to all things. In general and at a high level, at least. Removing this essentially means that providers are free to adjust paths based on any number of economic factors. However, keep in mind that this is primarily "provider-based". The real aspect of this is will "WikiTree be affected" - absolutely not, unless they decide to pay providers to give them preferential treatment with one provider or another, which is extremely unlikely to happen.

Big players like Hulu and Netflix have already made implications that they would be willing to provide some compensation for setting their traffic up as preferential, which gives better options through those providers that choose the deal to stream television and movies. I get that.

However, this opens the market up for smaller providers, like the one I heard on the radio recently, who was happy to hear it would be repealed and flat out said that they have NO intention to change anything - in fact, they expected their customer base to grow as a result, which allows consumers to choose the carrier that benefits them most, increases competition with carriers so that prices should drop at least a little, and increase options on types of traffic and such that you may want to see go faster on the internet.

So I guess I'll be in the minority on this one, but I just don't see how this affects WikiTree at all.

Comments

This topic has run its course. Let's discuss genealogy instead.

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Delete by request....

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Delete by request.....

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"I am trying to discuss a issue that is important to all of us."

It's not important to me..

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Delete by request....

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I will return this (best answer,For the second time). to its proper place.The votes,comment's,fact's and evidence all point to current misplacement.

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We may need a moderator to step in.

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James --

This conversation has run its course, and I'm going to close it. We try to avoid political discussions here as a courtesy to one another. While this isn't strictly political, it could easily head in that direction, and it would be best to discuss this in a different forum.

Thanks!

Julie

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Julie, Ellen And I were just discussing this. Frankly I too was out of points to make. I did not close it my self yet because it was still getting views. I wanted to give it a little more time in case someone wanted to add other pertinent information. As I have said this is NOT a political issue.The question and concern is world wide as you can see by the comments here in. I believe that a lot of people THINK that they know what net neutrality is. My intention was only to get the FACTS exposed. I have no desire for blind arguments. My wish is for clear concise discussion of the facts. I value everyone's opinion. I encourage correction if I am wrong but desire proof. I apologize if I have given offense. It was not my intention.

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As I have said this is NOT a political issue.The question and concern is world wide as you can see by the comments here in. I believe that a lot of people THINK that they know what net neutrality is. My intention was only to get the FACTS exposed. I have no desire for blind arguments. My wish is for clear concise discussion of the facts. I value everyone's opinion. I encourage correction if I am wrong but desire proof. I apologize if I have given offense. It was not my intention.

Answer 4

Thank you Scott. First let me say I did not ask for a one word answer, there was a period after my statement "simple question". I again made clarification in response to Michael's comments. I will also say that I respect your opinion but I disagree. For me the first sixty or so words from  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality%C2%A0  tells me where the truth is. The way I read this is that without FCC restrictions the ISP"s will be allowed to charge different content providers different rates to transfer the same amount of data.Therefore in theory if ABC genealogy Inc.( a pay to use site) can afford to pay the ISP more per unit of data than Wiki a non pay to use site, and then the ISP is further allowed to slow wiki"s transfer of data to a crawl because they do not pay the higher rate. I am prety sure who loses. Am I wrong about this? You said " Big players like Hulu and Netflix have already made implications that they would be willing to provide some compensation for setting their traffic up as preferential" Do you think that they will not just pass these extra cost onto their customers? They are pretty generous with someone else's money. I think if you do some looking you will find that Netflix has already been forced into this decision,when this happened " AT&T was also caught limiting access to FaceTime, so only those users who paid for AT&T's new shared data plans could access the application.^[11] In July 2017, Verizon Wireless was accused of throttling after users noticed that videos played on Netflix and Youtube were slower than usual, though Verizon commented that it was conducting "network testing" and that net neutrality rules permit "reasonable network management practices".^{[12] " this is coped verbatim from the Wikipedia page .Even if this had not happened, why would these two large profitable company's not be willing to pay a premium to kill their competition? You said " The real aspect of this is will "WikiTree be affected" - absolutely not, unless they decide to pay providers to give them preferential treatment with one provider or another, which is extremely unlikely to happen." Tell me what if ABC genealogy Inc.decides to pay providers to give them preferential treatment? What do think will happen to our free site? I could go on for day's about this but I think my point has been made.}

Comments

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Coincidence?