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Appeals court halts return of net neutrality | The Sixth Circuit’s temporary stay comes only weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference, weakening the FCC (www.theverge.com)

submitted 4 months ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

69 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A federal appeals court has agreed to halt the reinstatement of net neutrality rules until August 5th, while the court considers whether more permanent action is justified.

It’s the latest setback in a long back and forth on net neutrality — the principle that internet service providers (ISPs) should not be able to block or throttle internet traffic in a discriminatory manner.

The current FCC, which has three Democratic and two Republican commissioners, voted in April to bring back net neutrality. The 3–2 vote was divided along party lines.

Broadband providers have since challenged the FCC’s action, which is potentially more vulnerable after the Supreme Court’s recent decision to strike down Chevron deference — a legal doctrine that instructed courts to defer to an agency’s expert decisions except in a very narrow range of circumstances.

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matt Schettenhelm said in a report prior to the court’s ruling that he doesn’t expect the FCC to prevail in court, in large part due to the demise of Chevron.

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[–] explore_broaden@midwest.social 44 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I like the free market too, but having a small number of companies control a necessary resource definitely isn’t a free market.

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 60 points 4 months ago (2 children)

That's part of the issue with free markets. There's a missing part to the term that most people drop for some reason, and that would be 'competition'. Competition doesn't last very long before there are winners and losers. When it comes to the economy, that means the winner is the largest company and the losers are the companies that were bought or shut down. The end game of free market competition is monopoly. The only reason the competition doesn't end is because of government regulation to facilitate and uphold capitalist free markets.

[–] explore_broaden@midwest.social 35 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah this is exactly what free market lunatics on the right don’t understand. Monopoly isn’t a free market. Free markets simply cannot exist without regulation to prevent unfair business practices.

Also any reasonable economist can tell you that the free market does not solve issues like the tragedy of the commons, because negative externalities are not factored in. It is also the government’s job to ‘internalize’ externalities so companies actually see the costs of, for example, polluting our air and water.

TLDR: free market != unregulated market

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 19 points 4 months ago

I respect your reasoning, though I disagree about free markets being better than a democratically managed economy. I think free markets are inherently oppositional to a cooperative society, and that the myth of the commons was invented as a justification for capitalism.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The only reason the competition doesn’t end is because of government regulation to facilitate and uphold capitalist free markets.

A.K.A. what Adam Smith was really talking about when he mentioned the "invisible hand" (contrary to what the laissez-faire cargo-cultists think).

[–] qprimed@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 months ago

what Adam Smith was really talking about when he mentioned the "invisible hand"

today, I got a clarified/alternate point of view. today was a good day. thank you, internet friend.

[–] knightly@pawb.social 22 points 4 months ago (1 children)

There's no such thing as a free market.

[–] explore_broaden@midwest.social 10 points 4 months ago

Yeah, I agree, I think a true free market is basically impossible because there will always be winners and those companies will certainly use their power to stifle competition. Also it is difficult for the consumer to evaluate every product they buy even if there is a number of competitors, so issues like what @Telorand@reddthat.com mentioned (sawdust in food) come up because consumers just don’t have the measurement equipment to check.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I like not having sawdust in my food and legal recourse when a company takes advantage of me, so regulated markets are my preferred method.

What do you like about free markets?

[–] explore_broaden@midwest.social 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think a free market in a given sector can encourage innovation. That’s not to say all sectors need innovation, there’s not a lot of innovation to be had in many sectors, like providing water, or housing, and those probably don’t need to be a free market. They could be provided by the government for example.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I could be convinced that some kind of hybrid market would work, though I'd have to see some reasonable examples of how we'd prevent monopolies and corporate collusion/racketeering.

[–] explore_broaden@midwest.social 8 points 4 months ago

I think that’s mostly driven by regulatory capture and the fact that lobbyists can drive regulation. If our government actually worked for the people, we could actually enforce monopoly laws, and the SEC (or equivalent in countries besides the US) would actually prevent mergers that threaten competition. The government is supposed to prevent this kind of behavior, but they have basically been bought out.

As for how to stop that from happening, I’m not sure. I think it would require at least getting rid of the two party system, because that stifles competition in the governance space. That means that even though there are probably lots of voters who would vote for a real candidate who would break monopolies, there is no such candidate available. But in order for that to work we would have to switch to a different voting method, like ranked-choice (or one of the even more fair ones).