How will net-neutrality affect WoW and subscription fees?

[Queen of Hamsters]

So many people placing their hopes of WoW going F2P on this.

WoW had a sub fee before the net-neutrality act, they'll have it moving forward.

[Ragemistress]

It really isn't a laughing matter. These laws banned ISP's from giving preferential treatment to companies that paid more, and prevented them from blocking or banning content.

I doubt WoW will be majorly impacted, but I could be wrong. What will be effected is the amount of time it takes to load a site like google or amazon vs loading the local bakery's webpage.

Another interesting effect will be the power of information made available to the public.For instance, Company A supports Tom Green for president and provides internet to 75% of the country, while company B supports Andy Dick for president and provides 25% of the country with internet. Without these laws, customers with customer A could be slowed or even blocked entirely from sites that give a favorable viewpoint on Andy Dick. This is obviously problematic, as it allows for corporations to Influence elections even more so than they are already capable of.

Main argument for the repeal is that the free hand of the market would move these companies to act morally, or risk losing customers to a rival. The problem is in almost 80% of the country there is 1 option for internet and that is all. So there is no competition, don't like Comcast because they're screwing you, and they only allow access to Clown porn when you'd prefer midget porn? Too bad, no other option; the market doesn't correct itself.

The good news is that 5G mobile networks will be rolling out nationwide over the next 3-5 years, until then situations like the above could happen. Once 5G is in place, customers would have a choice in providers, and the hand of the market would move to prevent the above scenario.

If you want to know what the internet will look like without these protections in place, turn on cable TV; the content you're able to view is very restricted and programmed to fit within a corporate agenda.

Oh and btw, all Obama did was renew legislation put into place by W in 2004.....these weren't Obama regulations.

TL;DR: Corporations can eventually control all exchange of information over the internet, 5G incoming giving customers a choice to "vote" with our dollar 3ish years, won't be an issue for long.

[Dartz1979]

guys just my opinion and what not if It's anyone to blame it's all donald trumps fault he was the one who appointed that guy as chairman of the fcc

[Swizzington]

May I ask what exactly are you worried about? Are you afraid that there's now nothing stopping ISPs from throttling speeds, blocking content, or creating content? What if I told you...

Does it seem reasonable to you that these large ISPs would spend so much time and money lobbying and scheming for the removal of NN if it did not benefit them? Can you explain to me then, if their intentions are not nefarious, what they plan to do now and why it was so important to have it gone? (Serious question)

[Deianeira]

You are ridiculously exaggerating it like many others because their knowledge of the subject is limited to what they read about it before "rallies".

WoW traffic is insignificant. As such, WoW is unlikely to ever enter the picture.

Yes your WoW traffic is insignificant and mine is but all of them together and with Blizzards other games there is some 30+mill users playing games on a daily basis, do you really think that the ISP will not squeeze Blizzard for that traffic? And that Blizz will not pass on that cost to the endusers? And you talk about people not having any knowledge, lol.

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This was your first problem? LOL. Lesson for life right here my friend, what ever happens in the states, will eventually happen elsewhere. Time delay usually 2-3 years for everything in eu.

hahahahaha ahhh yes i know the US have sooooo good internet to the general public and hey its cheap aswell LMAO. Im not saying that you CANT get fast internet there but comeon, you still use CABLE ffs while most of the EU is on fiber more or less everywhere which is cheaper and faster all around. Yea right we will get this in 2.3 years hahahahaha

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It's not over yet? So many people act like the sky is falling...it's going to go to the courts and the last few times it did it went in NN's favor.

The thing is if people hadnt made themselves heard and protested noone would have known and the politicians that vow to fight for NN would not have been pushing this into the courts and the congressional sphere. So yes be LOUD and protest, the majority of the people do want NN to stay and still they just steamroll them "cuz reasons" If this gets forgotten and people stop talking about it it WILL probably be alltogether forgotten and a few years in the future all this shit will come to pass.

[Galluccio]

No, but they were throttling your internet for stream services.

Source please.

[Jellybear14]

If ISP's start introducing specific packages aimed at various types of users and increase prices by charging premiums then they would be stupid imo....

But then we are talking about the USA, a country where money is the most important thing in the world.

[Propainn]

Source please.

They don't have any. The willfully ignore the Comcast/Bittorrent case that happened almost a decade prior to the 2015 laws, and seem to forget that the 2017 Verizon accusations happened during the active lifespan of said laws.

Everyone also ignores that Canadian ISPs have already been throttling more content for longer, including Rogers who has been recorded throttling 78% of Bittorrent traffic.

[Nathanyel]

hahahahaha ahhh yes i know the US have sooooo good internet to the general public and hey its cheap aswell LMAO. Im not saying that you CANT get fast internet there but comeon, you still use CABLE ffs while most of the EU is on fiber more or less everywhere which is cheaper and faster all around. Yea right we will get this in 2.3 years hahahahaha

It's not the customer side that will affect the rest of the world, but we will see increased costs for services from companies based in the US, too. Even with worldwide CDNs, price hikes in the US will be applied to other countries, too.

[Zantos]

this is spectacularly dumb; the exact net neutrality rules now being repealed were put in place by a democratic administration, with the (tacit) consent of democratic majorities in congress. The problem is that the people in their wisdom voted for a republican president and republican congressional majorities, which gave the FCC commission a corresponding republican majority (enter: Ajit Pal.)

Pal is a useful minion at best; if you don't want regulators to openly encourage profiteering by adopting loose standards like this, don't vote republican

ed: the FCC are controlled by congress; the agency has statutory authority.

Trying to say "don't vote for x party" as a means to disregard things is horrid. This just in, its a two party system where either party has, at Worst, a 50% chance of getting in! But realistically, it depends on your district or state if your vote even matters in the winner take all crap basket we have. If your in a district that is now Red instead of Blue, well, you can vote blue all you want, but it will end in favor of the red.

The Real problem are big corporations who were able to pay to get it repealed so they can start putting in ways to make money.

[lummiuster]

No it won't affect things that way. I find it very unlikely that they will change our connections with servers that are neutral for them.
However, I am 100% sure it will affect everything where they have an interest. For example, if AT&T invest in a TV stream website, I totally see Netflix users suffering.
Or, if they are in favor of something (could be business related or politic or educational..) they will totally use their "legal" power on their side.

[Deleted]

So Americans might have to pay premium for their Internet access.
*shrug* literally one cares... Americans deserve what they're getting.

Nothing in EU changes.

[Micronetic]

Sounds like SKYNET wins!

[Deleted]

Prior to Obama passing Net Neutrality, were your ISP's charging you for an 'Entertainment/Gamer' package, to be able to play online games?

that is EXACTLY what they were starting to implement, hence why it became such a big deal that the FCC moved them to title II effectively forcing them to stop their 'new-found' goldmine.

[Lahis]

So Americans might have to pay premium for their Internet access.
*shrug* literally one cares... Americans deserve what they're getting.

Nothing in EU changes.

Except american sites can be harder to reach. And services can (significantly) up their prices to cover up teh extorcion fees the ISPs are gouging from them.

[Torrasque]

We all will likely be given the "option" of a gamer package/bundle from our ISP which can be any ungodly cost that they wish, either that or Blizzard will pay that price for us, but it will result in there being more micro-transactions, possibly more store items instead of in-game items, or the basic subscription module may go up... or any given combination of those.

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Nothing will change. At least not for EU. We've had subscriptions before NN was even a thing.

It will effect the EU, though. Blizzard could accept the ransom from US ISPs and decide to raise prices of subscriptions, add more micro-transactions, or whatever else, across all of their playerbase to soften the resentment on the home-front.

[Drilnos]

Nothing's going to change, leastways that end-users will be able to tell. This isn't a country with one or two service providers that can do anything and not lose customers.

[Torrasque]

So Americans might have to pay premium for their Internet access.
*shrug* literally one cares... Americans deserve what they're getting.

Nothing in EU changes.

In addition to what I mentioned before, ISPs will be allowed to throttle traffic to and from US servers that utilize their hardware which is surprisingly more than you may assume. For example, all Cloud hosting that stores anything of your in a US server can and likely will be ransomed. Do you like Steam? They will likely be throttled and you may see that in either increased store costs, less and smaller deals, or simply the implementations of more micro-transactions.

When you sit there and take a serious look at all game companies that use either Cloud storage software or have localizations and development centers in the US, you'll see everything that can potentially be an avenue for US ISPs to ransom.

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Nothing's going to change, leastways that end-users will be able to tell. This isn't a country with one or two service providers that can do anything and not lose customers.

Actually, have you looked at the US service provider listings? Then look at which service providers own other service providers. For example Comcast owns Spectrum which owns Xfinity. Hughesnet owns Wildblue and has majority shares in both Exede and Earthlink, dominating an entire market. The big three Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon share less than 1% of their coverage area with each other.

[Hellrime]

Comcast has already taken down the statement of their commitment to fair pricing for consumers that has been up for years. That should give you an idea of the non-lubed shafting that the population is about to receive.

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So Americans might have to pay premium for their Internet access.
*shrug* literally one cares... Americans deserve what they're getting.

Nothing in EU changes.

Well Blizzard is in America you twit, so welcome to thunderdome. The cost will affect your tea and crumpet asses too.

[HuxNeva]

This is about bandwidth, that's why it all began and that's why it went where it went. If bandwidth wasn't being dominated by several big content providers, we wouldn't have the debate / decision.

Sad thing is that uninformed people like this get to vote.