I find NN to be a tricky issue because the devil is very much in the details, and the history of "platforms" and "networks" in the abstract is a rich text (especially viz. some pretty obnoxious examples of brinkmanship where multiple parties were all convinced that they were the pivotal gatekeeper to the audience/customer base, e.g. [1]) .

I don't think there's necessarily a problem with having multiple service tiers where low latency/jitter or high throughput is only guaranteed on a higher tier. But if the network is rigged so that low-tier customers get a bad experience even in low-demand conditions, there's almost certainly some unethical fuckery going on. Basically, there's probably some point where "best effort" needs to be imposed as a baseline rather than a premium option.

[1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/company-town-blog/sto...

RIP Internet of old. The Internet is truly going to shit from all angles. Squeezed by ever rising costs to get on the net. Bombarded by ads on every single page (trying to browse the net on a mobile device and most sites take up 40-50% of screen real estate on ads). Subs on top of subs for every single service. We really are entering a dark era.

The title seems to not include that this is about 5G. The next question then is how many gamers really use mobile broadband in the US? Ericsson making the claim that people are willing to pay more for low latency might be the case in the Nordics where uncapped mobile broadband starts from 3 euros/m and fiber is not always available.

There used to (currently?) be a revolving door between bank regulators and banking industry.

Bank regulators would “retire” after a deregulation push then banking industry would so happen to hire that same person as some midlevel executive or director. GS was infamous for this [1]

Wonder if we see the same between telcos/major ISPs and FCC

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140220160810/http://www.nytime...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)

This opens the door wide enough for extortion and the end of net neutrality, and for this to happen again:

> Second, that the company repeatedly promised reliable, “no buffering,” “no lag” internet, especially to services like Netflix or to online games like League of Legends, but was in fact purposefully letting the interconnections between TWC and outside companies degrade to an alarming degree — unless the companies, like Netflix, were willing to start paying for access to TWC customers.

> https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/02/time-warner-cable-la...

Emergency responders need higher reliability and priority, even when the network is degraded. That is something that costs more to provide. Those who need such things need to fund it, and not just expect they'll get such service with consumer grade plan/equipment. Police don't drive consumer grade vehicles, they pony up for a vehicle meant for the job.

Several years ago, emergency personnel in california were dismayed when their consumer grade plan didn't give them good service in an emergency. There was a big stink about it, but requiring the provider to eat the cost when the government doesn't pay for what they need is short sighted. Those emergency personnel were unprepared, and they tried to shift blame for their foolhardiness.

It may be possible to give everyone the same emergency grade service for the same price, but that price will be extremely high.

It may be possible to give everyone the same low jitter, low latency experience that gamers want, but the cost will be higher for people who don't care about such things.

Before people cry about the falling sky - read the article. This is specifically about 5G Connections, largely impacting mobile phones and those few who have 5G home internet connections (I pity you).

With that said - many of you already pay for "enhanced" video over cellular data connections - and few gripe about it.

I'm all for open, dumb pipes and all, but the mobile device space is very crowded as it is, and it's really not a lot of fun to have Google Maps fail to load when you're in a crowded area because a ton of people are posting on Instagram or playing Fruit Ninja.

Which service tier would apply to ssh/vpn traffic?

Games require very low bandwidth. They just require stability. So what are the ISPs even going to do? Just worsen the experience intentionally if you don’t pay more? This is late stage capitalism garbage.

They're just going to keep try and obsolete net neutrality every couple of years aren't they?

And so the enshittification of your connection to the internet begins.