Those appear to be economists, not Internet domain specialists.
Less than half agree or strongly agree and in the weighted chart, a whopping 41% are Uncertain, which suggests they recognize that they don't know much about the subject. Many of the comments by Agree and Strongly Agree respondents indicate they don't understand the subject fully.
>> comments by Agree and Strongly Agree respondents indicate they don't understand the subject fully
> So according to this reasoning no matter what answer you give, you don't understand the issue.
I'm not referring to their responses, I'm referring to the comments quoted in the table below the charts. Some indicate clear ignorance of the subject. Others acknowledge pitfalls while handwaving them away.
This comment is ignorant and hand-wavy:"Seems like those who cause congestion should pay more. I know some worry that ISPs will play favorites, but that should be preventable." The question posed is whether content providers should pay ISPs, but this first sentence talks about those who cause congestion, it's the ISP's customer causing the congestion! Then he acknowledges ISPs playing favorites but assumes it's preventable. It is preventable, by having regulations that require net neutrality, what else is there?
Some economists are experts in the domain of regulation. These economists were not picked for that specific domain knowledge and clearly not more specifically the sub-domain of regulation of this kind of service (utility or at least utility-like).
We should, and then they'd probably stop killing tens of thousands of people every year (cf http://www.fdareview.org/05_harm.php and studies cited within)
I haven't looked into it enough to have an opinion one way or another. I suspect that the article is cherry-picking, but perhaps the FDA is so critically fucked up that randos off the street could do a better job. But this isn't about the FDA. You're claiming that knowing a lot about economic regulation makes you a superior domain expert in any field which can be regulated. That economists are better qualified than doctors to regulate dangerous medicines, better qualified than ecologists and meteorologists to predict human-caused climate trends, better qualified than automotive engineers to determine what makes vehicles safe. That's very silly.
"You're claiming that knowing a lot about economic regulation makes you a superior domain expert in any field which can be regulated."
Not quite. I'm claiming that knowing a lot about regulation makes you more qualified to study the effects of various regulations, after listening to input from domain experts in the field.
An automotive engineer can tell you that requiring component X in all vehicles would make accidents Y% less fatal - an economist can tell you whether that actually translates to lives saved (maybe it increases the risk of accidents due to behavioral changes? This was a theory around seatbelts for some time although I can't speak to the current consensus in the field).
Sure, an economist who isn't allowed to speak to the relevant domain experts wouldn't do well. But likewise, a domain expert who doesn't know economics wouldn't do well either. Understanding side effects of regulation, incentives, etc are critically important for crafting regulation/public policy that actually help.
The relevant domain for regulations is economics. 45% agree or strongly agree compared to 14% disagree, which is a 3-1 ratio. Excluding the uncertain ones because they likely don't know much about the topic.
Could you give examples of what you think they don't understand?
Economics is not the only relevant domain for public policy.
Just because someone is confident in their opinion doesn't mean they're knowledgable, surely you see that regularly online. Economists are not especially self-aware or more humble than other people.
Here's an ignorant comment: "Net neutrality is a fiction. Hire Akamai (et al.) to mirror your servers worldwide to speed content to your users." Using Akamai isn't going to do shit if Comcast decides your videos are hurting their cable TV business and start dropping packets, or set a data cap that counts your traffic while they zero rate their own competing product.
Another one: "If all qualities sell at the same price, markets cannot allocate quality efficiently. Works for soap, wine, and haircuts; why not Internet?" ISPs do not operate in a market, consumers have little to no choice amongst providers. ISPs provide a service, not a good like soap or wine; haircuts are a service but have nothing in common with Internet access, you can cut your own hair but you can't make your own Internet.
> That's already illegal under existing anti trust law.
Comcast and others have already done exactly that and it was the FCC that went after them, not the FTC. And how does anti-trust apply when it's the actions of a single company? There's no collusion between businesses to drop packets, one business just does it and other businesses may decide to do it also, they don't have to all agree to do it for it to be effective (from their perspective).
It's true that the question posed in the survey was specifically about content providers paying ISPs for access (or better access) to us, the people ISPs think belong to them. But the article and the overall debate is about far more.
Monopoly cases are extremely difficult to prove and rarely brought, regardless of which party is in power. With ISPs, if consumers can choose Verizon or Comcast, neither is a monopoly but both could still be acting against competitors (or simply people who didn't pay their extortion) to the detriment of their customers.
I don't think that's clear from how the comment is written.
I just realized the presumption embedded in the original question, "Considering both distributional effects and changes in efficiency, it is a good idea to let companies that send video or other content to consumers pay more to Internet service providers for the right to send that traffic using faster or higher quality service."
It assumes companies paying ISPs to reach consumers is normal. It's not. So even the people asking the question don't understand the subject.
> It is asking whether paid prioritization should be allowed.
Yes, but they're assuming that some payment is already the norm when it is not. It's like the punchline to the apocryphal story that goes like, "Madam, we've already determined you're a whore, now we're just dickering over the price."
The subject at hand has nothing to do with how much companies pay their own ISPs, of course they pay more for using more. This is about whether those companies should also have to pay my ISP if I want to access their content without that content being treated unequally by my ISP.
Less than half agree or strongly agree and in the weighted chart, a whopping 41% are Uncertain, which suggests they recognize that they don't know much about the subject. Many of the comments by Agree and Strongly Agree respondents indicate they don't understand the subject fully.