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How Will Net Neutrality Effect Fiverr?


lucycodex

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Posted

Despite trying, most of my income still comes from Fiverr, so I am worried that the recent US deregulation of the internet and the recent repeal of Net Neutrality, which can ultimately be harmful to small business owners, can affect my bottom line as a freelancer.

My ISP is based in the US, so despite Fiverr being based in India, most users are from the US, so I still think that traffic to this site can ultimately be affected. Fiverr has also addressed their concerns as well, but has not mentioned how this will effect Doers.

Maybe I am just being worried for no reason, but as a freelancer and technically a small business owner, I am worried about my ability to pay rent and afford food.

Mod Note for Correct Info: Fiverr is headquartered in Israel, not India.

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Posted

It’s gone when it comes to the FCC board, however, it still has to pass through Congress and several states are said to be suing the FCC as an attempt to save Net Neutrality. We can’t lose hope yet so anybody based in the United States text “resist” to 50409 or “battle” to 384-387. This won’t just impact the United States, either.

Posted

It’s gone when it comes to the FCC board, however, it still has to pass through Congress and several states are said to be suing the FCC as an attempt to save Net Neutrality. We can’t lose hope yet so anybody based in the United States text “resist” to 50409 or “battle” to 384-387. This won’t just impact the United States, either.

That sounds lovely, but as the congress is republican-run, I have my doubts.

Posted

That sounds lovely, but as the congress is republican-run, I have my doubts.

It’s very much worth calling and/or using the “resist” text system (which is SO easy to do!). Things are changing in Congress and they don’t have the guaranteed votes any more. Don’t lose hope yet!

Posted

It’s very much worth calling and/or using the “resist” text system (which is SO easy to do!). Things are changing in Congress and they don’t have the guaranteed votes any more. Don’t lose hope yet!

It’s very much worth calling and/or using the “resist” text system

What exactly does that do if we do that?

Posted

I have a bit of a unique perspective on this.

Malta being a corrupt, murderous, mafia-run country already, only pretends to have net neutrality. - At least with my ISP. When I arrived in 2012, I signed up to a $20 100GB Internet package offered by one of the only two ISP providers. I was freelancing then but still testing my feet. Things didn’t take off until late 2013 (pre-Fiverr) and a couple of months later I started getting warnings that I needed to upgrade my download allowance as I was blitzing it which was impossible. Anyway, I gave in and did. Then after joining Fiverr, I started getting warnings sometimes 2-days after the start of a billing period saying I had reached my ‘traffic threshold’ and may suffer service interruptions unless I upgraded again.

I ignored these until early this year when I finally went into the office to complain. Then in a roundabout way, I was told that since I work online, I need a business package. - I have never told my ISP I work online. I rarely (because keep a network traffic log) exceed 50GB in downloads a month despite paying for unlimited. My ISP however, has basically spied on what I use the Internet for and decided I should pay more.

Luckily I met someone having exactly the same problem shortly after discovering this. He, however, is a former UK journalist and is taking legal action as a result. Now things are pretty stable but I have to keep a 2GB mobile internet balance on my phone as I do have service crawl to a snail pace or get cut off completely occasionally.

Basically, net neutrality getting thrown out will (as I see it) lead to problems just like this for freelancers everywhere. Also, in Malta exactly the same limiting of service and artificial inflation of usage happens if you use Netflix or similar programs. You don’t suffer disruption, however, if your package price includes a TV subscription to the ISP provider you are using. They basically give their (absolutely awfully cable TV services) priority and see anyone using a different service via their network as adversely impacting on the Internet and viewing experience of the majority of other service subscribers.

That’s what a world without net neutrality looks like.

Posted

So all sellers in the US will have our gigs suddenly not appear, but the rest of the sellers in other countries will still be here?

In fact I won’t be able to access most sites? What a great idea, thank you US government.

Posted

So all sellers in the US will have our gigs suddenly not appear, but the rest of the sellers in other countries will still be here?

In fact I won’t be able to access most sites? What a great idea, thank you US government.

No. That is nonsencical.

How it could work could be that the freelancing site which is willing to pay for the most amount of exposure and traffic would appear higher in searches as a result. A world without net neutrality, however, would also be a decentralized one. In the US Fiverr could pay to be top dog but in Canada PPH might pay more and therefore get more exposure.

I’ve done a lot of work this year for 2 (to me at least) promising freelance startups which will be launching next year and will be purely app based. If net neutrality does get thrown out, the easiest way for Fiverr to protect itself would be to start mirroring more desktop functionality into its own app. - Just an assumption.

What a world without netneutrality means is that ISPS can determine that certain sites or users should pay more because of the kind of activities they engage in online. The problem is that this will always be open to interpretation by ISPs and private groups themselves.

i.e. If AOL is affiliated with Disney they might decide you should pay more to watch Nextflix.

All that said, a budding entrepreneur with a few billion to spare could save net neutrality by setting up a global neutral ISP.

Posted

It’s very much worth calling and/or using the “resist” text system

What exactly does that do if we do that?

It asks for your zip code and then you can text them the message you want to send to your senator or representative and it sends it for you. It’s so simple. I really hate calling and such, so this makes it something I’m willing to do. If you text the number, it will tell you just what it needs.

Posted

No. That is nonsencical.

How it could work could be that the freelancing site which is willing to pay for the most amount of exposure and traffic would appear higher in searches as a result. A world without net neutrality, however, would also be a decentralized one. In the US Fiverr could pay to be top dog but in Canada PPH might pay more and therefore get more exposure.

I’ve done a lot of work this year for 2 (to me at least) promising freelance startups which will be launching next year and will be purely app based. If net neutrality does get thrown out, the easiest way for Fiverr to protect itself would be to start mirroring more desktop functionality into its own app. - Just an assumption.

What a world without netneutrality means is that ISPS can determine that certain sites or users should pay more because of the kind of activities they engage in online. The problem is that this will always be open to interpretation by ISPs and private groups themselves.

i.e. If AOL is affiliated with Disney they might decide you should pay more to watch Nextflix.

All that said, a budding entrepreneur with a few billion to spare could save net neutrality by setting up a global neutral ISP.

I agree with this. The main thing that Net Neutrality stopped was ISP’s blocking or preventing access to certain “competition” sites. For instance, AT&T can slow down, lower the quality of, or block access to YouTube in favor of Netflix, unless the customer is willing to pay a monthly rate.

Fiverr still has 100% control over how it runs their own business, it just might be harder for them to garner traffic if the general public has to pay extra to access their site.

Posted

So all sellers in the US will have our gigs suddenly not appear, but the rest of the sellers in other countries will still be here?

In fact I won’t be able to access most sites? What a great idea, thank you US government.

This will better explain what can happen as a result of the appeal:

favicon-32x32.png.5cebb26807d54e91834382bd0619b086.png Wccftech – 23 Nov 17

net-neutrality.thumb.png.41a574512995d3529addf957df8bff8f.png

Before Net Neutrality, Real Abuses Happened Consistently (Brief Timeline)

Before Net Neutrality Real Abuses Happened Consistently - Here Is A Brief Timeline of Only Some of Those Open Internet Violations.

Posted

No. That is nonsencical.

How it could work could be that the freelancing site which is willing to pay for the most amount of exposure and traffic would appear higher in searches as a result. A world without net neutrality, however, would also be a decentralized one. In the US Fiverr could pay to be top dog but in Canada PPH might pay more and therefore get more exposure.

I’ve done a lot of work this year for 2 (to me at least) promising freelance startups which will be launching next year and will be purely app based. If net neutrality does get thrown out, the easiest way for Fiverr to protect itself would be to start mirroring more desktop functionality into its own app. - Just an assumption.

What a world without netneutrality means is that ISPS can determine that certain sites or users should pay more because of the kind of activities they engage in online. The problem is that this will always be open to interpretation by ISPs and private groups themselves.

i.e. If AOL is affiliated with Disney they might decide you should pay more to watch Nextflix.

All that said, a budding entrepreneur with a few billion to spare could save net neutrality by setting up a global neutral ISP.

What´s Elon doing these days, actually, wasn´t there some plan about thousands of satellites for ultra speed internet for the whole world or something?

Posted

What´s Elon doing these days, actually, wasn´t there some plan about thousands of satellites for ultra speed internet for the whole world or something?

Logistically the whole thousands of satellites and free internet idea is impossible and silly. You could never have 2-way data unless you had a personal microwave emitter strong enough to cause a wildfire. One way beaming of information from space from a shoebox is easy, beaming your email login ID data back would be a nightmare.

A far more practical solution would be to make an analog Internet by pairing some old ham radio tech with someone with a bit know how. Also, this might happen one day. A while ago someone recommended that I listen to analog tape music instead of digital (just get an old car cd to cassette set up and plug it into your iPod or whatever) and the result is AMAZING.

It is honestly like hearing music again for the first time in the way a song can send shivers down your neck, even when playing a song you’ve head just a moment ago playing on your phone. What is more, this itself is actually a bit of a movement. Hence why my old crappy childhood ALBA gettoblaster derivative (RRP £39.99 in 1996) is now selling on Ebay for £300.

In this case, who knows, maybe analog will save us all.

Posted

I will leave the country to go to one that has net neutrality. I am thinking of Costa Rica.

There is a multi-state lawsuit being brought by the Attorney General of N.Y. against the FCC to stop this.

We only have one internet service provider that has broadband where I live so they will be able to charge $2000 a month for service if they want to.

The FCC is supposed to have an overwhelming reason to change the rules and cannot do it “arbitrarily and capriciously”. So the reason the FCC gave for doing it was that supposedly net neutrality blocked research and development by internet service providers, which is a lie.

So this will go to the courts first before it is allowed to take effect.

Posted

I will leave the country to go to one that has net neutrality. I am thinking of Costa Rica.

There is a multi-state lawsuit being brought by the Attorney General of N.Y. against the FCC to stop this.

We only have one internet service provider that has broadband where I live so they will be able to charge $2000 a month for service if they want to.

The FCC is supposed to have an overwhelming reason to change the rules and cannot do it “arbitrarily and capriciously”. So the reason the FCC gave for doing it was that supposedly net neutrality blocked research and development by internet service providers, which is a lie.

So this will go to the courts first before it is allowed to take effect.

Costa Rica does not have Net Neutrality.

Posted

I’m happy net neutrality ended. The Internet should be FREE from government interference.

The Internet should not be treated like a public utility. Do you like dealing with your electric company? I don’t.

As an article on Reason puts it:

Yet the panic over the repeal of net neutrality is misguided for any number of reasons.

First and foremost, the repeal simply returns the internet back to pre-2015 rules where there were absolutely no systematic issues related to throttling and blocking of sites (and no, ISPs weren’t to blame for Netflix quality issues in 2013). As Pai stressed in an exclusive interview with Reason last week, one major impact of net neutrality regs was a historic decline in investment in internet infrastructure, which would ultimately make things worse for all users. Why bother building out more capacity if there’s a strong likelihood that the government will effectively nationalize your pipes? Despite fears, the fact is that in the run-up to government regulation, both the average speed and number of internet connections (especially mobile) continued to climb and the percentage of Americans without “advanced telecommunications capability” dropped from 20 percent to 10 percent between 2012 and 2014, according to the FCC (see table 7 in full report). Nobody likes paying for the internet or for cell service, but the fact is that services have been getting better and options have been growing for most people.


Indeed, even more worrying than the decline in investment following the implementation of net neutrality is the attempt by its supporters to assume that the current moment is how internet access will forever be delivered. Last year, for instance, mobile traffic surpassed fixed (or desktop) traffic for the first time, so the territory is changing fast. Pai told Reason about a variety of moves that will allow for new ways to deliver the internet, especially to rural areas that are currently lagging behind. He also noted to Reason that many of the legal actions lobbed at mobile carriers by net neutrality proponents have been to challenge “zero-rating” plans that allow customers to stream unlimited amounts of music, video, and other services without counting against a monthly data cap. Exactly how such services are bad is unclear, especially since they don’t block or throttle anything. In most contexts, giving customers something extra and unlimited is usually considered a good thing.

For Pai, repealing net neutrality isn’t being done to bolster the bottom line of ISPs. Rather, it’s to enable the very sort of innovation and experimentation that has worked so well from the early days of the commercialized internet. As Hazlett suggests, giving the government the ability to regulate business models is rarely a good idea, especially in fast-changing tech fields; there will be many competing models and many will die while some flourish. Pai’s FCC would still insist on transparency from ISPs and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would be able to investigate anti-competitive practices by ISPs (Pai says that the FTC is actually better suited to this sort of role than the FCC, which is open to question). And in his interview with Reason, Pai also laid out some benchmarks by which to judge whether the repeal of net neutrality is successful or not.
Source Reason Magazine: Why Net Neutrality Was Mistaken From the Beginning (AOL Edition)
It turns out that Tom Wheeler, the FCC head who imposed the rules, doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Nick Gillespie|Nov. 26, 2017 11:05 am

Posted

I will leave the country to go to one that has net neutrality. I am thinking of Costa Rica.

There is a multi-state lawsuit being brought by the Attorney General of N.Y. against the FCC to stop this.

We only have one internet service provider that has broadband where I live so they will be able to charge $2000 a month for service if they want to.

The FCC is supposed to have an overwhelming reason to change the rules and cannot do it “arbitrarily and capriciously”. So the reason the FCC gave for doing it was that supposedly net neutrality blocked research and development by internet service providers, which is a lie.

So this will go to the courts first before it is allowed to take effect.

We only have one internet service provider that has broadband where I live so they will be able to charge $2000 a month for service if they want to.

The laws of Capitalism would prevent that from happening. Nobody makes money if only a fraction of the market can afford your product. Mass market products like the internet need to have different packages for different budgets. Comcast already does, net neutrality rules did not prevent them from charging more for faster Internet.

Furthermore, the end of net neutrality means less red tape for future ISP’s. It means a better internet for everyone!

Posted

I’m happy net neutrality ended. The Internet should be FREE from government interference.

The Internet should not be treated like a public utility. Do you like dealing with your electric company? I don’t.

As an article on Reason puts it:

Yet the panic over the repeal of net neutrality is misguided for any number of reasons.

First and foremost, the repeal simply returns the internet back to pre-2015 rules where there were absolutely no systematic issues related to throttling and blocking of sites (and no, ISPs weren’t to blame for Netflix quality issues in 2013). As Pai stressed in an exclusive interview with Reason last week, one major impact of net neutrality regs was a historic decline in investment in internet infrastructure, which would ultimately make things worse for all users. Why bother building out more capacity if there’s a strong likelihood that the government will effectively nationalize your pipes? Despite fears, the fact is that in the run-up to government regulation, both the average speed and number of internet connections (especially mobile) continued to climb and the percentage of Americans without “advanced telecommunications capability” dropped from 20 percent to 10 percent between 2012 and 2014, according to the FCC (see table 7 in full report). Nobody likes paying for the internet or for cell service, but the fact is that services have been getting better and options have been growing for most people.

Indeed, even more worrying than the decline in investment following the implementation of net neutrality is the attempt by its supporters to assume that the current moment is how internet access will forever be delivered. Last year, for instance, mobile traffic surpassed fixed (or desktop) traffic for the first time, so the territory is changing fast. Pai told Reason about a variety of moves that will allow for new ways to deliver the internet, especially to rural areas that are currently lagging behind. He also noted to Reason that many of the legal actions lobbed at mobile carriers by net neutrality proponents have been to challenge “zero-rating” plans that allow customers to stream unlimited amounts of music, video, and other services without counting against a monthly data cap. Exactly how such services are bad is unclear, especially since they don’t block or throttle anything. In most contexts, giving customers something extra and unlimited is usually considered a good thing.

For Pai, repealing net neutrality isn’t being done to bolster the bottom line of ISPs. Rather, it’s to enable the very sort of innovation and experimentation that has worked so well from the early days of the commercialized internet. As Hazlett suggests, giving the government the ability to regulate business models is rarely a good idea, especially in fast-changing tech fields; there will be many competing models and many will die while some flourish. Pai’s FCC would still insist on transparency from ISPs and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would be able to investigate anti-competitive practices by ISPs (Pai says that the FTC is actually better suited to this sort of role than the FCC, which is open to question). And in his interview with Reason, Pai also laid out some benchmarks by which to judge whether the repeal of net neutrality is successful or not.

Source Reason Magazine: Why Net Neutrality Was Mistaken From the Beginning (AOL Edition)

It turns out that Tom Wheeler, the FCC head who imposed the rules, doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Nick Gillespie|Nov. 26, 2017 11:05 am

one major impact of net neutrality regs was a historic decline in investment in internet infrastructure,

I used to live on an Island called Skye in Scotland at one of its most remote points. Because of this, the business dial-up Internet and phone system my business relied upon was serviced by individual 1930’s paper insulated copper wires (encased in rubber) which didn’t meet a more up to date junction point for 6km.

In the UK and most of the rest of the world, telecom and Internet infrastructure is already rolled out by private companies. Private companies, however, never have a vested interest in bringing the Internet to people when it will take then over 10 years to justify the investment of laying a cable. In this case, the only reason that the area I used to live in has broadband today, is due to the fact that I, my successors, and other community members, directly petitioned the government to make funding available to the private company in question.

I do not disagree that private companies do innovate. Saying, however, that private companies can only innovate when they have free reign to do whatever they want, falsely paints a picture of them being limited by a government in the first place when many are most certainly not.

I can’t remember now exactly but the first BT Open feasibility study I saw at the time, put rolling out broadband internet in my area at $15’000. That is nothing for a giant company which makes that much in ad revenue alone per day. Please do not be brainwashed by free market speak. Free markets work when there is one, What we live in now is nothing but a high surveillance plutocracy.

Posted

The FCC is supposed to have an overwhelming reason to change the rules and cannot do it “arbitrarily and capriciously”. So the reason the FCC gave for doing it was that supposedly net neutrality blocked research and development by internet service providers, which is a lie. They have increased the speed of Comcast many times over the past years.

So this will go to the courts first before it is allowed to take effect.

Guest neromare
Posted

I will leave the country to go to one that has net neutrality. I am thinking of Costa Rica.

There is a multi-state lawsuit being brought by the Attorney General of N.Y. against the FCC to stop this.

We only have one internet service provider that has broadband where I live so they will be able to charge $2000 a month for service if they want to.

The FCC is supposed to have an overwhelming reason to change the rules and cannot do it “arbitrarily and capriciously”. So the reason the FCC gave for doing it was that supposedly net neutrality blocked research and development by internet service providers, which is a lie.

So this will go to the courts first before it is allowed to take effect.

I think the end is near. Seriously! 😀

Posted

It’s gone when it comes to the FCC board, however, it still has to pass through Congress and several states are said to be suing the FCC as an attempt to save Net Neutrality. We can’t lose hope yet so anybody based in the United States text “resist” to 50409 or “battle” to 384-387. This won’t just impact the United States, either.

It’s gone when it comes to the FCC board, however, it still has to pass through Congress

Agreed. Regardless of your stance on Net Neutrality, Congress is the only constitutional US Authority that can make laws – especially overturning a law like this. It’s not official, from a legal standpoint, until Congress approves it, and President Trump signs it.

Whether that is or is not what will happen is best left to the ongoing debate/process.

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