Is it actually different tariffs or do they offer free “social” data? If they do offer it, that’s not against net neutrality unless they throttle other traffic.
I think that this is one of the main reasons that it is harder than it should be to convince average people in the US, especially on the political right, that we need net neutrality.
Take the plan I'm on with T-Mobile. I pay a fixed monthly amount and get 3 GB of data per month. If I go over 3 GB, T-Mobile reserves the right to give me lower speed for the rest of the month.
T-Mobile has a thing called "Music Freedom". Under Music Freedom, they zero rate around 45 streaming services.
Look at this from my point of view as a consumer. I signed up for 3 GB of full speed data a month, and I get that. There is never a situation due to Music Freedom's zero rating where I find myself short on data and think "dammit...I could have downloaded this if it weren't for that zero rating!".
All that Music Freedom does from my consumer standpoint is make it so sometimes I get more than the 3 GB my plan entitles me to.
Compare this to throttling and blocking. With throttling and blocking if T-Mobile were, say, throttling Skype or blocking it, then I could find myself saying "dammit...I paid for this and they are not giving it to me!".
In the Music Freedom case, they give me all I paid for and they toss some free extra on top. In blocking/throttling, they interfere with me using what I paid for. From a consumer point of view equating these two as net neutrality advocates do just seems odd on the face of it.
If we keep net neutrality focused just on making sure that we get the data we pay for, free of blocking and throttling, and if the ISP wants to give people extras on top of that let them, and I think net neutrality would then have near universal strong support among consumers, maybe even sufficient to get laws through Congress.
But what about the actual potential harms to competition from zero rating, which is one of the main points brought up in favor of covering it under net neutrality?
We can deal with that without shoving it into net neutrality. We already have a whole legal framework and associated regulatory infrastructure in place to deal with that: antitrust. We can use that to distinguish between the kind of zero rating this is probably good for consumers (Music Freedom) and the kind that is not (ISP zero rating just their own streaming service).
> If we keep net neutrality focused just on making sure that we get the data we pay for, free of blocking and throttling [...]
If I didn't get included in your zero rated list of services, or put forth the effort to conform to your amp-like provider-specific rules, then I am blocked or throttled or charged more for or whatever.
Pipes picking and choosing winners should be a no compromise situation. But you have to tackle the lack of alternative ISPs before you can get there (and you then probably will get there even without legislation).
If I didn't get included in your zero rated list of services, or put forth the effort to conform to your amp-like provider-specific rules, then I am blocked or throttled or charged more for or whatever.
If you aren’t willing to put forth the effort to be competitive, whose fault is that?
Right, but what happens when they start raising the prices for non-zero rated content? Or when they start zero-rating everything except their competitors services?
In the end, zero-rating is the exact same as charging more for some content.
This is like the difference between charging $0.95 for something with a $0.05 credit card fee versus charging $1.00 and giving a $0.05 discount for cash customers.
> Right, but what happens when they start raising the prices for non-zero rated content? Or when they start zero-rating everything except their competitors services?
This should raise antitrust issues. The competitors could sue under antitrust law to stop the practices and get damages, or the government could handle enforcement, or both.
> We can use that to distinguish between the kind of zero rating this is probably good for consumers (Music Freedom) and the kind that is not (ISP zero rating just their own streaming service).
Those two are indistinguishable and certainly not good for the consumer.
Zero rating just their own service and a bunch of competitors still has the same overall effect of raising the barrier to entry and thus prices with absolutely no benefit to the consumer.
The "benefit" of "free traffic on top" is an illusion, there is no free traffic. You are buying a 20 GB/month package (or whatever the actual value is) of which 17 GB are limited to particular services, it's just that it is framed as a "3 GB traffic with music free" package in order to manipulate the public into objection to network neutrality by then claiming that network neutrality would make it illegal to offer the "free traffic", which is absurd as any carrier is free to offer a "3 GB/month with 17GB/month free on top" package--which is exactly what we would see if net neutrality were a thing, except that it would be labeled as a "20 GB/month" package. The price they are asking obviously is paying for the 20 GB plus their margin anyway, and the price obviously is not the price that the market is willing to pay for "3 GB/month", but for "as much traffic as I actually use per month", which isn't 3 GB but 20 GB.
All of this zero rating stuff is marketing bullshit to make you believe they are on your side when they limit your freedom. There is zero reason why I shouldn't be able to buy a 20 GB/month package at the same price as the current "3 GB plus music free", except that I could stream music from my own server instead of having to pay yet another service from a number of winners chosen by my carrier.
Zero rating isn't free, there are bits transiting the network in all cases. That transit costs actual resource and is paid for.
It's a trope when someone points out that google isn't free, and if you are getting something for free then you are not the customer actual. With zero rating, it's not even free! So then you ".. pay a fixed monthly amount .." to be the carrier's product, no?
This is a great deal if you're one of the heavier music streamers. Everyone's paying for more than 3 GB, and people who try to use it for things other than music streaming get throttled earlier.
One problem is that “zero-rating” isn't as well defined as network neutrality and there are two forms of service we see:
1. Network operators exempting an entire class of service, such as T-Mobile's “Music Freedom” which has the same terms for everyone who applies
2. Network operators accepting money from specific service providers to exempt only those services, such as the Facebook-only service offered in some parts of the world
Most people consider the second form a problem since it heavily favors large companies, especially since a less-favored company doesn't even have the guarantee of being able to reach a deal at all, but opinions vary more about the first and a lot of advocates have either inadvertently or deliberately confused the issue. I'm choosing to see that advocacy as well-intended but I think it's alienated a lot of people who really don't see a problem with the first form (at least as long as it's really open) but would agree to bans on the second.
> 1. Network operators exempting an entire class of service, such as T-Mobile's “Music Freedom” which has the same terms for everyone who applies
Which is irrelevant as the terms themselves are discriminatory, plus the mere fact of having to apply is a major barrier to entry.
If you want to build a new streaming service of any kind (a niche radio station, say?) in a world with network neutrality, you need a server with an internet connection, so the barrier to entry is ten bucks a month or so and you can start streaming to a few hundred listeners. If you need to apply for zero rating, you now have to read and understand the requirements of a few hundred carriers around the globe, adapt your software so it can meet all those varying requirements ...
Also, it is inherently incompatible with many use cases. I have my own server, and I can stream my own music. What are my chances of success if I tried to get T-Mobile to zero rate traffic from my own streaming server? Do I have to allow them to listen into the connection?
And then, what if I wanted to sell a device for people to do the same, say? A home NAS that allows people to stream music to their smartphone? How do I get T-Mobile to zero-rate that?
> but I think it's alienated a lot of people who really don't see a problem with the first form (at least as long as it's really open)
But the problem is that if you don't fight the first, you effectively get the same result as the second. The long-term effect on innovation and prices is the same, as it is inherently not "really open". Also, carriers offering these packages is not an accident, it is intentional manipulation by choosing a misleading framing. But choosing not to fight the framing doesn't help you--while you might have more allies then, you would effectively also not have anything left that is worth fighting for. The idea of selling 20 GB/month packages to the public as "3 GB/month plus music traffic free on top" in order to then be able to correctly claim that "this would be illegal with net neutrality" in order to make people incorrectly think "with net neutrality I would only get 3 GB for the same price" is genius, but you really shouldn't fall for it.
In France it was actually the norm for cellular data, and the hellish nightmare of favoring one own service was even advertised ("with universal mobile, you get unlimited data for universal music service!!!").
We also had service tiering, such as pop/imap being priced differently than http, etc...
Free mobile then came in and used the same tactic they used on adsl, single pricing, large amount of data, no differentiation between websites / ports / data types (even including peer to peer) etc... And others had to follow.
So we're in a status quo right now, but just like our fixed line Internet, its quality depends on one of the providers not aligning with the others. If they change their mind, get bought or whatever, the game could change quickly.
>In France it was actually the norm for cellular data, and the hellish nightmare of favoring one own service was even advertised ("with universal mobile, you get unlimited data for universal music service!!!").
Took me a minute to parse, since I didn't realize that universal was the name of a content company, rather than a service plan's name and access to all music.
Kind of reminds me of the (also French) company Total, who seems like they were invented to make tabulation charts about the oil industry hard to read.
