The Vergecast - Net neutrality special edition

Episode Date: April 28, 2017

We’ve got a special edition episode of The Vergecast for you this week. On Thursday, the FCC put out a draft proposal for reversing the net neutrality order of 2015. The Verge has been following FCC chairman Ajit Pai’s actions in restoring “Internet Freedom” and how it will affect the internet for all of us. Nilay Patel invites news editor Jake Kastrenakes on the show, who has been reporting on this for the past few months, as well as senior reporter Adi Robertson, who reported on the FCC’s net neutrality rules back when this was a problem in 2014. The trio talk about the past, present, and future of the open internet and the FCC’s actions disrupting it. If you’re out of the loop or just need more information on this topic, now is the time to listen! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to the Vergecast. The flagship podcast of Theverge.com, a multi-sensory internet experience that will honestly soon be throttled by your local internet provider. That's where we are in life. Anyway, look, here's a situation. This is a special episode of the Vergecast. The usual crew, I've kicked him out. There's no Dieter. Actually, Dieter had to go to a meeting, so this is all worked out.

There's no Dieter. There's no Paul. It's me. It's Neely. But Jake Castanakis is here. Hey, Jake. Hello. How's it going?

Addy Robertson is here. here. Hi. And I want to do something special this week. We have talked around net neutrality on the Verchrist for several weeks now. But Ajit Pye, the chairman of the FCC, put out his plan today. This is Thursday. He put out his plan today for the future of net neutrality, which as far as I can tell, means getting rid of it.

That's more or less. That's more or less it. And what's interesting to me anyway is that Jake has been reporting on this stuff nonstop for the past several months. in 2014 and 15 Addie did a ton of reporting on this for us and the new plan really harkens back to the old plan so I thought it would be really fun to have both of these guys here so we could talk about what the hell is going on

because the future of net neutrality what we think of it and how it had been settled is now as near as I can tell totally up for grabs in the future of basically how we access all of the services on the internet is thus up for grabs. as well. Is that kind of your read right now, Jake? Yeah. The thing is, they've basically left the table wide open, right?

So we're going through the exact same fight that Addy covered a few years ago, where we're going, what legal authority should we use to implement net neutrality? If at all. If at all, right. Yeah, that's the thing. So, I mean, here's the really big question that they're asking with this proposal. Should we even have net neutrality? That's the thing.

They're trying to pretend like it's not a net neutrality proposal. is just like this arcane legal thing. And like there are a lot of arcane legal things. That is a fair point. However, those arcane legal things are the difference between having net neutrality and not having net neutrality. So let me just do the really fast history,

as fast as I can of this situation. It's not going to go very well, but I'm going to do my best. 1930. First there was phone lines. No, what's the short version of this? There were several attempts in like 20, between 2010 and 2014.

to impose what we think of net neutrality rules on internet carriers. That means no blocking of services, no locking out of devices, no throttling of services like Comcast can't slow BitTorn down, which they did, and no paid prioritization. No YouTube can pay to come at you faster than Femio, right? Those are like four things that a lot of Internet consumers kind of tend to agree on. the authority that the FCC had to implement those rules was constantly under attack because they had classified the internet as a Title I information service service and in order to get the authority to implement those rules, they had to reclassify it as a Title II telecommunication service. This is the heart of the debate at that time.

Which we would have to go back to the 90s to explain. Yeah, I mean, it's just an ancient debate. But that basically happened, right? So finally in 2015, Tom Wheeler's FCC under with significant prodding from the Obama White House, reclassify the Internet as a Title II Telecommunications Service and then impose these four rules. No blocking, no locking, no throttling, no paid prioritization. And if you do any of that stuff, you have to do it transparently and tell people what you're doing. Also importantly, they said mobile and wired broadband should be the same. That's net neutrality as we understand in America.

years past the internet providers in this country did not start to go out of business they continued to do just fine everyone thought Hillary is going to win the internet providers were not screaming bloody murder then Trump won and suddenly the FCC is like everything's a disaster the internet's falling apart we need to get rid of these rules I mean that's how you could read this situation that's basically the timeline now Ajit Pye who is actually appointed by Obama as a Republican member of the FCC and is now the chairman of the FCC is saying we got to get rid of this Title II classification. It's killing the internet. And I don't even know if we need these net neutrality rules. To be clear, though Obama appointed him, he's like Mitch McConnell's guy. Yeah. Which I think is very telling here because he is an extremely smart guy. He knows what he's doing.

He's doing a ton of stuff at once and very fast. Yeah. I would, can I say this? He's trumpier than Trump in a very significant way in that I said this on control until yesterday. Trump, like, hates the media, right? Like, this big performative act of hating the media. But it's, like, constantly calling the New York Times. Right, right.

He's only talking to the media types that like him, and he will not accept any challenge to what he's saying. It's like a very... I love going through what he's faved on Twitter. Yeah. Just yesterday he faves some things about how some New York Times coverage of the proposal was not quite right. I thought it was very unfair.

But so that's where we are. So today he put out his proposal. He was hinting at it for months. They say ever since he took off. Yeah. Since he got the position, he's without fully saying it, he's been dropping hints that like,

I hate this thing. I'm going to get rid of it. And he voted against Title II in 2015. Absolutely. Yeah. He's always been against this thing. And now we finally have his plan. We can finally read through it.

This is what, you know, one of the cool things that he has done is that he's putting out the full text of proposals, you know, the second that they're announced pretty much. And so we can go and read through this thing right now. And it does two things, basically. The first is this legal authority thing. It flips it from Title II, which is the real tough one that was fought for in 2015. Flips it from Title II to Title I. So back to where it was before. Back to Title I.

and in doing so, it creates the kind of legal authority issues that stopped the FCC from putting in tough net neutrality rules in the first place, the kind of stuff that Addy was covering years ago and that got brought, got them to court. Yeah. Here's how I would put this. So what they put out today is called a notice of proposed rulemaking. If you read it sounds like a long set of essay prompts, because it's all questions. The questions are insane. One of the questions like, is throttling bad for consumers?

Does harm you this? I have believed in my heart that throttling is bad on the internet. Like your ISP throttling certain services versus other services, I don't know that Vergecast listeners, like there's an argument about that. Like that's one of those like generally accepted facts that like we have moved on. I read this and it just sounds like the FCC is run by a bunch of freshmen in a dorm. And they're like, what if we erased all laws and built a new system of internet regulation? But the problem is like the internet exists and these companies are huge.

And I just as I read this and I read these questions that are like, we would like comment to see if we even need transparency rules. It just seems very idealistic in a way that given the actual reality of the internet ecosystem actually tends towards malice instead of innocence. Yeah, no, I agree completely. It's bizarrely idealistic. And there are points where you're reading it and you can kind of get sucked into the logic and go, oh, I guess if they did that sort of evil thing that could subsidize some good. But the thing is like a lot of this is dependent on there being competition between internet providers.

And, like, surprise, there isn't competition between internet providers. Yeah. And so much of it is grounded in the idea that internet providers are going to be able to compete. Consumers are going to have choice between, you know, whether they choose an internet provider that does the things that they like or don't like. And the thing is, that's not true. Like, I can choose between cell phone providers, but I can't choose between the wired internet provider that I get at home. I have one option, and that is it. and fortunately they're at a reasonable price at a reasonable speed for me,

but that is not true for a lot of other people. Yeah, and a huge swath of the country only actually have one meaningfully good wireless provider as well. Right, and I think the argument that wireless and wired can compete is just insane. Right. And I would point out that his rulemaking also suggests that wireless be completely regulated differently in wired broadband. And it's just, I can't, like, get over it. Like, it's unmooring. It's like you, there are so many assumptions we make about how the internet works and, like, how it should work and what the rules should be.

And they're pretty simple assumptions. Like, if I was to pay a provider for access, they shouldn't screw with it. That seems like a good place to start from a policy proposal. But this literally questions that foundational assumption. And then other big assumptions we make, like 5G wireless access will provide meaningfully fast speed and some people won't need wired internet access because it'll be fast enough and available enough. Well, if you treat it totally different, you've actually made a whole different kind of internet that more people will get access to. And that seems even more dangerous than the other thing.

It's near, I mean, it's just that, it's that level of here's this common set of assumptions. and in 2015 there was this huge outcry. And I think everybody remembers like the John Oliver video about net neutrality. An unprecedented number of comments, I think the most that had ever been received for an FCC question. So the FCC got ahead of it today and they said the number of comments on either side of this issue is not going to help us decide. So they already know that the overwhelming public opinion is going to be don't ruin this or don't take away Title II. and they're already ahead of it by saying, we're not going to just count comments.

Like, you can comment all you want. Yeah, I was on the call, and they basically said, oh, it's about quality, not quantity, which is like, it's very bizarre because the FCC is supposed to care about the public interest. Like public interest, that is, like, two words that are very important to them and all of the decisions they make.

But they're basically going ahead and saying, well, what if we don't listen to them, because Comcast is a better legal argument. And like, you know, I'm sure that most of the people commenting are not going to be lawyers, but like it's a lot to go and two years after you have this unprecedented outcry, just say like, well, those people were wrong. Right. And there's some like, there are some checks on their behavior, right?

They're not allowed to just capriciously change regulations back and forth. They have to demonstrate, this is true of all agencies. they have to demonstrate that something significant changed such that they need to undo their own regulatory policy. And Pai's argument is basically there was a little bit of dip in broadband investment. Yeah. Is that the whole argument? Yeah, that's pretty much it. They've said, like, since Title II was implemented, which was like about two years ago,

there's been a decline in broadband investment. But the thing is, there's actually only been one year of a dip. And the industry group that represents these companies called it small. They said oil prices could have had to do with it. So there's not a ton of evidence to back up the fact that the suggestion that Title II has completely crippled the internet provider industry. And, you know, by and large, they're doing well. Investors are happy. Yeah.

And, you know, their stock prices. Well, you wrote a great piece. Everyone should go, look, their stock prices are up. their profits are up. If they're not investing as much as they did in one year, the year after their investment has actually gone up year over year, they're doing fine. I don't think anyone's worried about comments. They're doing completely fine.

It's just that they have an opening to get rid of these rules right now, and they're going to do it because they can. This is also next year is the year that Comcast's agreement to follow the open Internet orders expires. Right. So when Comcast bought NBC, one of the conditions of that was basically to follow something that looked like the open-end out order, right? So they agreed to a bunch of net neutrality provisions,

and one that was really important was they agreed that they wouldn't prioritize NBC content over other video service content. But if you just look around the industry right now, AT&T is buying Time Warner, clearly what they want to do is sell you an AT&T mobile package that includes, like, HBO, right?

That doesn't kind of get your data plan. They're very open with that being their goal right now. And we have this Verizon, Yahoo AOL combination. The monster. Which is just horrifying. Yeah. So right now at this moment, what happens next, Jake?

So the proposal will get voted on later this month. And after that, there's going to be months and months and months of time where people are just arguing over this. And you'll be able to go to the commission's website, file a comment. They will theoretically take that into consideration. And then sometime probably later this year, they'll come out. with a new final proposal, and then they'll vote on that, and then those will be the rules. But the really tough thing right now is that we just don't know what these rules are going to look like.

Because even though they're being transparent and putting out this draft proposal right now, like you were saying, it is just filled with questions. Like a proposal, in theory, should have, you know, we are proposing doing X. But it doesn't do that. It just says, hey, what about those rules? Should we do something with him? Well, let me quote from the proposal, the notice of proposed rulemaking. And this is like, again,

when I say this thing, like, takes your connection to reality and aggressively tries to wedge under it, it's... Internet service providers, this is a quote. Internet service providers do not appear to offer telecommunications, i.e., the transmission between

or among points specified by the user, of information of the users choosing without change in the form or content of the information as it is sent and received to their users. Well, what the hell do they provide? Like, that is exactly what I want for my ISP. I want to, like, connect to the network that I pay for, be like, I would like that information from that service, and I'd like them to bring it to me without screwing with

it. And they've got this whole stuff in between, like, literally, like, I'll just read some more. Broadband internet users typically do not specify the quote-unquote points between and among which information is sent online. Instead, routing decisions are based on the architecture of the network, not on consumers' instructions. So they're arguing that the basic decentralized architecture of the internet makes it not a telecommunications service because it can intelligently send you information across the network. That is crazy. But it's crazy in the sense that, like, voice communications, which should not be part of this conversation, are now, in fact, routed over the Internet. I mean, that's been the problem with Title I and Title II for a long time, that now everything's kind of the Internet.

Like, that's the problem with zero reading a couple years ago that, like, how do you count, okay, this is TV that we provide basically over the Internet for data plans? And this is TV that we provide over the Internet that we're, like, prioritizing. Comcast did this where they were, if you watched Comcast services on an Xbox connected to your Comcast router, they wouldn't charge your data cap. And their big claim, which was technically true, was that they were routing that over a special private internet that they had brought to your house along the same pipe. Right, so everything's the internet, but some things aren't the internet. Yeah, some things are their own special internet.

To me, this just seems like the core problem is that people pay for these services. They expect to get what they get. if they don't get that, they just don't have a choice. There isn't some other provider who's like, we promise not to screw with you. Right. And so what you end up with is a lot of lawyers saying a lot of crazy lawyer words. I mean, this paragraph about telecommunications between or among points specified by the user is the most lawyerly way of cutting down the entire promise of the internet.

By saying we have defined the word telecommunications in a way that excludes the internet. So that's not telecommunications and we don't have to These companies don't have to deliver what they necessarily promised to. Yeah, I mean, it's just they're using these arbitrary legal distinct or technical distinctions so that they can get the classification that they want, which I guess is maybe true either way. But the thing is that in practice, we all think of the internet as just this thing that delivers us from point A to point B. It brings us whatever website we want to go to. So you've been talking.

to like many, many people, right? You've talked to the telecom companies. What do they want? What's the point of all this? I mean, this is the bizarre thing, right? And I mean, Adi, I'm assuming they did the same thing a few years ago. Through all of this, they keep going, oh, net neutrality. We love net neutrality.

It's just this legal classification we don't like. But the thing is that inherently not having that legal classification means they don't have net neutrality. They want net neutrality that is voluntary. They want a neutrality that they can hold to because they promise that they will hold to it, but they don't want any kind of legal ramifications for it. Yeah. And so this is the bizarre situation that they're in where they're saying they're just saying trust us, basically. I am definitely anti-murder, but I really think that we should repeal those laws.

So there's Comcast put out this number of blog posts today. And this is where I should disclose. Comcast is a minority investor in box media. The company owns The Verge. I am sure they're very pleased with their minority investment right now as they listen to this podcast. This podcast will get delivered on a higher bit rate, though. I hope so. It's going to sound great on your Comcast connection. So they put out, it was like three blog posts yesterday from like this Brian Roberts had one that's like, I fucking love net neutrality in this.

It's titled, while some try to conflate the two issues, Title II in net neutrality are not the same. Title II is a source of authority to impose enforceable net neutrality rules. Title II is not net neutrality. This is really wonky, but if you don't have authority to enforce the rules, you don't actually have rules. You just have suggestions, right? Like you have a set of like normative behaviors. And when I keep saying it's like unmooring, like the idea that our laws should not have authority behind them, that is like some deep, fucking freshman dorm room

bong rip shit. Like, what are laws man? They're just ideas that other people, like, that's what this reads like to me. Like, Title II is just the authority for the laws. We believe in the norms, but you can't make me do them. I choose, like, we as actors

together in society will choose these norms. And it's like, that's not how it works. Right. And to be from basically how business has argued for absolutely everything always. It's just they don't compete. The thing that gets me of this over and over and over again is if you try to suggest to me that the FCC should regulate the app store on the iPhone. I think that's ridiculous. Like if I don't like what Apple's doing with their app store policies, I can like throw my iPhone out the window. I can get an Android phone. I can get a window. I can do all kinds of things. Like it might not be great, but I can do them. I can get away from Apple very easily. If I almost anywhere in America, you can't get away from. a broadband provider, right? Or it comes at an increased cost or at a lower service quality.

So the idea that they shouldn't, we as like the citizens of America should not require our government to impose some rules around reasonable public policy just seems disconnected from reality in such a fundamental level to me. Yes. Well, and it comes with a lot of other things that are sort of hostile even to the idea of creating competition, like hostility. toward municipal broadband and things that would create multiple networks. Like it's just this giant package of terrible things. Wait, go on the municipal broadband. I mean, for many years, like, networks like Verizon have basically fought to get, to, like,

stop people from cities from making their own, like, municipal broadband networks. Like, we're going to just set up our own fiber or we're going to, like, run our own networks. And that means that we can compete with companies like Verizon or, like, Comcast. I'm not sure exactly what the situation is at this point, but they're basically, just throw up legislative, like, policy roadblocks that make this as hard as possible. Yeah. I mean, there's, my favorite one is in Philadelphia, the city of Philadelphia, where Comcast's headquarters tried to build a Wi-Fi network, and like literally the monster that is Comcast just made that not happen. Right. And look, you can argue that maybe you don't

think your city is going to provide you with the best Wi-Fi. Most coffee shops can't provide you with, like, good Wi-Fi. Like, I get it. But if the fundamental question is, is is Internet access a utility that you depend on or is it some specialized service that you as a consumer buy by choice? I would say the balance of it is you can't participate in the society without Internet access at a high level. So we should probably treat it more like a utility than not. Who was the person who just said you could just get off the Internet?

Oh, that was a some rep from Wisconsin. My home state where Internet access is garbage. I can tell you right now. I can look at my parents. The entire state. My parents pay a lot of money. for internet access. I believe they have Time Warner. Of course, I set up their ERO, so I can, like, go look at it whenever I'm right.

I can, like, block my parents internet. Do you see what they're visiting? I can't. How creaky is ERO? I love my ERO. But I set it up for my parents because I was, they had their old crappy internet service. Oh, it's AT&T. They have, uh, whatever, AT, youverse. AT&T's fiber, but it's not actually fiber. I always think that name is fake every time I see it.

It's not actually fiber. They run it over DSL lines. So my parents pay like, something like $75 or $80 a month to their house in Wisconsin, and they get 23 down, which is awful. Disgusting. They got three euros. That's not technically broadband, right? Yeah, it's not technically broadband, right? I think it's 50 is, right? Technically broadband now.

Which is also something that Pi is mad about, I believe. Oh, it's too high? Well, it was, they were arbitrary in determining that. Okay, let's say two nice things about a Jeep Pi, and then we'll read an ad, and then I want to talk to Adi about sort of the past. So here's what, I'll say one nice thing, and then you have to say one nice thing. here's my nice thing. I truly believe that he wants more people to be connected to the internet.

He says it very sincerely all the time. He wants to reduce, like, the, he's always, like, out in the middle of the country being like, I met with another cowboy who wants to put fiber on the ground, like, always. I think he's very sincere in his belief that if he lowers the costs for these broadband companies, that more and more networks will get built. I don't agree with him that that is the, those things. things are related, like the causal relationship between making the networks more lucrative and more deployment exists. I think that's a reasonable policy debate to be had with lots

of data on both sides. But I think he's sincere in his belief. That's my nice thing about a G-Py. Yeah, no, I, well, first of all, I definitely agree with you. I think he completely is legitimate in his belief, and he thinks that what he's doing is going to help. I just generally think He's crazy. But, I mean, the thing that makes it so hard is my, is the thing I'm going to say, is that he's just like an extremely personable, nice, funny guy. And like, he's great on Twitter. He's great during the meetings.

He danced a little bit when he got Rick rolled. Yeah. Like, he's a great guy. He drinks out of a giant, like Reese's Cup mug or something. Yeah, he's a big goofy dad. Right. And that's the thing. It's very disarming.

And then he just, you know, he just. goes up and is like, I'm going to take these nice things away from you. But I'm going to make a really cute sports metaphor for why I'm doing it. Wait, tell them what the sports metaphor is. I don't even remember. There are too many of them. Also, I don't know sports enough. I can't keep these things straight.

Well, I think it was the LA Times, right? Yeah. My also not knowing sports memory of it was we did a thing that was really bad that broke up a bunch of stuff and we wish we hadn't made that decision. I have. I pulled it up. It's not a great metaphor, but whatever. He wrote, this was his speech that he gave.

During the speech, he also referred to free press as like a bunch of commies who wanted to dismantle all capitalism. So like, he's a little bit all over the place. But his, his metaphor was that in 2012, the Oklahoma City Thunder traded away James Hardin because they didn't want three superstars on their team because they wouldn't be able to pay the salary cap. And now the Oklahoma City Thunder are any good. And his whole point is, well, they were worried about the salary cap. And now Oklahoma City basketball fans are, they'll never get a championship. And he's like, well, you did title two because you were worried about these harms, but now the Internet's bad.

That's his metaphor. There's a lot of ways to argue at that metaphor. It's just, I just don't think it's the same. The metaphor makes more sense with other things. It makes way more sense with other things. Also, we're not trying to win the NBA championship with the Internet. We're just trying to run our businesses. But like, whatever.

Anyway, let me read this ad. And then, Addy, I really want to talk to you about, our favorite shared topic, Section 706. Look, are you hiring? Do you know where to post your job to find the best candidates? Posting your job in one place isn't enough to find quality candidates. If you want to find the perfect hire, you need to post your job on all of the top job sites, and now you can. With ZipRecruiter.com, you can post your job to 200-plus job sites, including social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, all with a single click.

You can find candidates in any city or industry nationwide. You just post once and watch your qualified candidates roll in to ZipRecruiter's easy-to-use. interface. There's no juggling emails or calls to your office. You can quickly screen candidates, rate them, and hire the right person fast. So find out today why ZipRecruiter has been used by Fortune 100 companies and thousands of small and media-sized businesses. And right now, Vergecast listeners can post jobs on ZipRecruiter for free by going to ZipRecruiter.com slash verge. That's ziprecruiter.com So try for free. One more time, go to ZipRecruiter.com slash verge. All right. So Addy, years ago, you were like our

main reporter on this beat for a lot of what was happening with the FCC. Many years ago. Yeah, three years ago. Yeah. Lifetime. Many. We were different people entire. We were in a different office.

Everything was different. In a lot of what's happening right now, it just occurred to me that the debate is the same. And the only thing that's really changed about the debate is the confidence that the sort of telecom companies have in issuing the same arguments. There are a few differences, but yeah. But go through kind of like what the state of 2014 was, and we can talk about. about some differences. Okay, so the state of 2014 was that Julius Konakowski, who was the FCC commissioner back in 2010, had issued like this nice series of guidelines that was the open Internet order that basically covered the thing you just said. And then Verizon sued. And again, was like, we like net neutrality. We just don't like this thing. We don't like the open Internet order. Yes. It wasn't even Title II yet. Yes. It was definitely not Title II. It was 2010. And then Verizon sued. And there was this long legal battle basically over whether the FCC had the authority to use something called Section 706, which was that they can go outside Congress's like explicit instructions to do stuff that promotes broadband adoption. And so if you believe

that net neutrality promotes like better internet and promotes competition and promotes all kinds of great things, then you can use Section 706. A court didn't particularly agree with the authority and basically struck down part of the open internet order. Yeah. It was the no blocking and no throttling. It was the useful parts. Yeah. They kept transparency. Yeah, it was great. So in 2014, they did that. And around that time, I cannot remember the exact date, Tom Wheeler, who everyone thought was going to be this, like, the dingo. Big, like, um, big, like telecom industry guy. He'd come in from lobbying. They were like, oh, no, what's going to happen? And then he turned out to actually be very amenable toward it. But John Oliver famously called Tom Wheeler a dingo. Yes.

Right. He was the lobbyist. He came in. You're letting the lobbyist regulate the industry. But then he like did it. Yeah. He actually did. And then. And there was, obviously, yeah, there was a lot of pressure, but he put forward rules, and the rules were the Title II reassignment that we were talking about. Right. But just to get that timeline right, they lost at the DC Circuit with 706 for no blocking and no throttling. Right. Wheeler's first response was the DC Circuit has actually laid out a plan for me to do something like net neutrality still using Section 706. And everyone thought that was ridiculous.

Oh, yes. That was like a real moment where he was like, no, no, this isn't a defeat. This is a grand victory. He had some great quote. I mean, it was truly insane. It's weird how similar this is because I've been writing about this all day and I'm literally just going back to Addy's stories and everything's the same. It's all the same. This is actually why I wanted both of you here. They're going back to the same insane arguments being like net neutrality.

It can totally happen sort of. See, I think there are differences though. One of them is that Comcast's big argument was we're going to have to follow these rules anyway. Yeah. Up until 2018. Because the NBC purchased. Right, which 2018 was a very long time away at that point. And so that was a big thing that they, like that was a huge thing that they could pull out,

that now they just like, no, it's just actually going to be gone. Well, yeah, but they are saying we believe in net neutrality. We're not, we're not going to undo these things. It's in form very similar to what just happened. I think this is last month when Congress invalidated the data privacy rules. And all the, they were all like, no, no, don't worry. We're still, we're definitely still following those rules. I mean, even the figure is not now.

We just don't want them to exist. But again, this comes back to like, should there be rules or should you just blindly trust in our corporate ethic? It's like, or what if we just had rules? Like, that's like a choice that we have. Right. In our nation of laws. Like, they literally, the argument is, should we have laws or should we all just trust the corporations? And like, that is, like, very dystopian to me.

Yes. It's dystopian in a way that we've been fighting about for like 100 years. Yeah, but we had the rules were there. And now they're saying, well, we're still going to follow the rules. We just don't want them to be there. Like, they don't want, it's, that argument to me is so hollow. It's, they keep saying we're not going to do the bad thing. But if we do the bad thing, we don't want there to be consequences for it.

And I just don't understand why they think that anyone will be convinced by that. The context has also flipped a little bit, though, because in at around 2014, 2015, the, a big, argument was, well, we haven't had these rules for a while, we haven't had Title II, and everything's been basically fine. Yeah. And now their argument is, like, we are the ones on the defensive who have to say, like, no, look, things are actually going to go bad if you change this. Yeah.

We've had two years of, okay, we've had net neutrality. Now what's happened? Now they're like, oh, God, this guy's going to fall. Yeah, but they did do a bunch of bad things. Like, Comcast did aggressively throttle a bit torrent. Yes. in 2009? AT&T and Apple

definitely made an agreement to not let Skype run over the AT&T network and only let FaceTime run over. I mean, like, it's a long list, actually. Yes. Well, a lot of it happened pre-2010,

but or around then. Yeah, it was the dawn of mobile, like a lot of weird things started happening. And I think a lot of the rulemaking that Pi in his order today is referencing is like, well, we had a light touch regulatory framework in the Clinton years.

We can just go back to that because the internet's great. And it's like, dude, most of these companies didn't exist. Like most of the things that we rely on for the internet literally we're not around during the light touch regulatory framework years. Now the whole context of the internet and our economy is different. You maybe should not let carriers have that much control over such a huge chunk of the economy. And it's like a weird, to me that's weird. But let's go back to this timeline because we got off track. So Wheeler lost the D.C. Circuit court.

He came out and said, I can still do this under 706. Most people thought that was real dumb. Yes. Susan Crawford, who writes for Back Channel Now, which she was a professor at Cardoza Law School, referred to that strategy as once more with feeling because they were just going to basically do the thing that they got kicked out of court.

Yeah. Obama stepped in. This actually happened. They had a meeting at the White House and a bunch of Obama advisors told Tom Wheeler, like, you just stop it. Like, there's been a title to rulemaking. open for years, just do the thing that we should have always done. And the title two idea was actually the previous chairman's ideas. It was Julius Genakowski's idea ages and ages ago,

and they set it aside. So they basically took it off the shelf and did it again. There's a big outcry and they did it. Right. Like that's basically the timeline here. But this middle period, that's what we're back to now. This middle period where Title II is not available and everyone kind of agrees on the rules and this Section 706 authority is like the murky thing that will make it happen. I mean, the other thing is that it's that now if this gets repealed, like they are trying to fight really hard to make sure that you can't do it again. Right. Like that's the other thing is that there is a sort of finality that was not really at stake in the earlier debate. Well, right. I mean, I think a lot of what Comcast wants and actually that a PR person in a Romcast was tweeting at me today.

and her argument was, this is all a mess. What we really need is legislation. And there is like some amount of, I know, I wouldn't call it conspiracy theory, but like game theory. Not to use that phrase, but here we are. Are you ready for it's time for some game theory? That what Pye is doing is he's throwing the regulatory process in chaos so that Democrats and Republicans actually write a law that like does something. I mean, it's unfortunate, but you're kind of right because, I mean, we're really testing the limits of what the FCC can do here. Because if after two years and literally like a non-existent body of evidence, they can completely change how they regulate internet providers, then we're just going to be able to do this every four or eight years whenever the administration changes over.

And so there is an extent to which like a law would be good, especially since like a lot of the really basic stuff people are generally in agreement on. it has become very politically unpopular to be opposed to net neutrality. Even if you're, you know, against it, everybody's still out there saying, I'm for an open internet in some way, which generally suggests that something could get done. I just don't know if anybody wants to get in that fight in Congress right now when there have so much other stuff to deal with. Yeah, they're a little overloaded. Right. There's like a health care reform idea that's still like up in the air.

There's like tax reform. There's a wall to find. There's a wall to build. There's a princess to murder. There's a gilder to frame for it. There's a lot going on. To me, I just want to focus on this zone because there's this great word that I learned today in the notice of proposed rulemaking about section 706.

So they say, we're going to go back to Title I. We're going to figure out if we even need rules about throttling or whatever. and then at the very end they're like, oh, Section 706, what if that is merely hortatory? I'd never heard this word before. Hortatory means tending to exhort. So what if Section 706 is just to exhort the FCC to promote broadband? That's it. Like just a general mission statement?

Yeah, just like, I exhort you to build networks, like instead of a grant of authority. So it's a rule that doesn't actually involve any kind of rule. It's just a fistpun. It's a slogan. What if the commission was really just a state of mind? What are laws? Like all of this comes down to like existentially questioning why governments exist in the most fundamental ways. Like is this is this a law?

Is this a grant of authority? Or is this merely an exhortation that we should have the internet? Like that's the level that the FCC is at here. It's so deeply confusing. I've been so upset all day. I mean, this just, this doesn't, that's the problem is that like years ago this would have been like, oh, God, this is terrifying and unmooring. This now just feels like government. This feels like everything.

Everything is up in the air. Norms don't matter anymore. None of it makes sense. It is deeply, deeply confusing. But that's where we are. Like the DC Circuit in 2014, was that when that ruling was? Yes, because they made the, yeah, they made the rules and then passed them in 2015. Right.

So the DC Circuit. said you've classified the internet as a Title I telecommunication service, then you've tried to layer on these rules about no blocking and no throttling. Those rules make the internet a common carrier. If you're going to make it a common carrier, you need to actually classify it under Title II. That was explicitly what the court said at that time. And now we're back to, we're going to go back to Title I, undo Title II, and somehow we're going to get these rules in. And it is just deeply unclear. particularly if the grant of authority in 706 is merely an exhortation and not actually authority. It's not somehow where you get these rules in. It's somehow maybe we'll get the rules in. Because that's why there are all those questions in there. It's like, do we have the authority? But also, are they even necessary?

And so this is the thing. You could have skipped three years of debate and you're still in the same spot, except now instead of trying to put the rules in place, they're trying to see how much they can whittle them down. And it seems like that's anywhere from like non-existent to, you know, not quite anything. But you know you can get on the internet right now. Great images from graphics stock.

I'm just trying. Can I just, you know, there's one thing. I want to thank whoever from Getty went to, to Ajit Pai's speech and took some photos. Yeah, because I have been dealing. There were three images of him that were not awful for like a solid six months. And it has been terrible. And our social media managers have been yelling at me to stop using the same photos.

And they all have Tom Wheeler in the background, right? Well, this is the problem. If you want to, there are like five with Tom Wheeler in the background. And I don't want to use those because Tom Wheeler's not around. There are only three solo, and one has his like mouth hanging open. Yeah. In a really embarrassing way. He doesn't photograph well.

He doesn't. He doesn't. With him sipping the Kermit picture of him. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, there's like so many. Like, I'm not saying he's unattractive. I mean that his, like, the percentage of photos where he is making a bad face is much higher than it should be. Some people just have very expressive faces.

I think the Getty people just don't like him. Anyway, look. There's also great images on graphics stock, okay? That's what this show is brought to you by today. Graphics stock has the largest unlimited download library of graphics, photos, vectors, and illustrations with more than 350,000 images and growing. This month, Graphics Stock is also launching a new collection featuring thousands of futuristic dream-inspired images. These now all come included with your subscription. And downloads are yours forever, even after the trial ends.

They're all 100% royalty-free. The Virtchask, given me seven days of graphics stocks, you can try it out and explore this new dream-inspired collection. For free, Jake. Get on that before you get throttled. So go to Graphicstock.com slash Vergecast. Start downloading. Get started today. That is Graphicstock.

com slash Vergecast for seven-day free trial, 100% royalty-free images. Everything's dream inspired. Just ride that way. It's still better than that time that we, I took that empty picture of the FCC desks, and we used that for like 50,000 posts. I used that yesterday.

We have one that's, like I went and interviewed Julius Chenecaskey of the FCC, like, on the day that he was, like, opening his museum of old Apple twos in the basement. And, like, we took one photo of the FCC logo on a glass wall. And then we made it black and white, and we just used that one all the time. And it looks totally foreboding. But that day was like, it was just a bunch of, like, kids at the FCC building being like, I'm playing with an Atari.

And it's like, we made it super black and white and foreboding. And now we use it all the time. I have always wondered where that photo came from because it's not the, it's not. the best as far as like illustrative photos go like you can't really see a logo through like a glass sheet yeah well I didn't know why it was black and white

yeah it was just one of it's like I took it I understand an old it was I think we took it it's like a photo we took with a video camera so I get the grain out we made it black it's like that level well this is the early internet man there's no net neutrality back then we were just trying to sneak it by

it is so let's talk about the future such as it makes it continue to exist. So, let's, Adie, I want to start with you. So in all the Title II stuff happened. Yes. It did happen. We think. Reading this document, then the world ended,

the internet shut down for two years. But during that period of argument, what was your kind of read on the shape of the debate, right? Because it was a lot of consumers, there was the Oliver video, we wrote a bunch of very strident pieces. It seemed like the great weight was to make neutrality happen.

Yes. There was a great way. There was, I mean, internet companies like Netflix very famously, they would just do what amounted a little bit to publicity stunts, like that they would be like Verizon slowing down our traffic guys. Now your service is terrible. Yeah. Like whether or not that was true, which was complicated.

But anyway, so it was very, very visible. And also, there were not a lot of protests about other things compared to now that you could have these giant net neutrality protests. You could have like the you could have like tumbler do banner ads and shut down. You could have these like huge internet wide things that it seemed like everyone could agree on. Like it was, I think Russell recently called it like a third rail issue. Yeah. That it was just, it sounded terrible to say anything. I mean, we have written stories now that are like Trump supporters on Reddit have to pick between net neutrality and supporting the Trump administration. Which is actually really interesting because you go read R the Donald.

and they don't know how they feel about it right now. It's not a unified voice from that area right now. There have always been, like, libertarians have very consistently and, like, consistently with their values, said, look, we just want regulation to not happen, period. Like, there are reasoned arguments against it. Like, reasoned not that I agree with them, but reason that they come from a genuine place and that they are logically consistent. And that they at that point would argue basically, look, we don't need this. We've not had it for a while. It's okay.

which may or may not have been true, but that was their, that was their Trump card at the point. Trump card. I can't say that anymore now. I said it. All right. So based on that, let's talk about now. Because that was then, and Netflix really was at the forefront of this. They were pushing very hard for net neutrality.

They were rallying their subscribers. You actually wrote a piece. Was it last month? Well, that's interesting because Lauren Good. asked Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, what he thought about net neutrality now the Trump's in office. And he kind of just brushed it off. I mean, with Netflix, that's like the argument that people would always make during the protests was that once you're a big internet company, you don't actually have any incentive to fight for net neutrality anymore. Then you're like

the people who can pay to have your traffic prioritized or to make your deals with like John Ledger and stuff. So this is true of us too, right? Like it is. is true that one of the reasons that I deeply care about net neutrality is that this business we started the verge five years ago only exists because we could just start a website and start publishing. Right?

Now we're like a really big company. We have a minority investor in Comcast. If it all goes to hell, we can probably pay some money and get prioritized and be fine. But that means the next set of creators won't be, but fuck them because we're the winners. Right? Like that's fine.

But idealistically, I I think it's more important that new people have access to, like, the audience. And in a really sort of free market-e sense, that is the way that things get better, that people will, like, compete with us and push us to get better. So we don't just, like. No, Marquez is going down. That kid is done. He's great.

Okay, so based on all that, that was the argument then. How do you see this argument shaping up now over the next few months? Is Netflix going to come out hard? There's a bunch of startups that wrote a letter. This is weird, right? So, yeah, there were like 800, like, startups and investors and, like, Wycom, and organized him. They wrote this letter being, like, net neutrality, it's great.

Don't change it. And then there's this group called the Internet Association. They represent, like, Netflix, Google, Facebook. There's 40 different big web companies. And they were like, don't change anything. Net neutrality is great. But the interesting thing is that in a lot of these statements, I'm not seeing the words, the words title two.

Right. They're just saying net neutrality. And the thing is, I think they might prefer title two, right? But I think they know that it's not going to happen at this point. So they're just fighting for net neutrality saying, give us something. And I think it's going to be interesting to see how strongly they come out. Because right now, there hasn't been a preemptive fight. This has been, Pye has been telegraphing this for months.

It has been very clear this is going to start. And if they had wanted to make this harder for him, they could have been out there fighting back against him for months now. But they largely haven't. Well, so this is the thing, though, is that they've been fighting about a million other things. Like, I really wonder if this has been easier than it would have been otherwise because they're fighting H-1B. They're fighting the immigration ban. They're fighting any number of other things that have happened in the first hundred days of the administration. That, like, there are protests for absolutely everything.

If you protested net neutrality, no one would even notice. Yeah. I mean, there's an extent to which I'm wondering, I mean, so much of the last net neutrality debate was propelled by just individuals who were pissed off that their internet was getting meddled with. But now I feel like I wonder if people will have the energy to fight for net neutrality on top of all of these other things that feel so much bigger. And that also the converse of your saying that like Trump people are being split by net neutrality, is also true, which is that net neutrality people can no longer count on like this bipartisan

support because it is like, now if you're part of the Donald, you have to like stand your ground and not say stuff. I don't know if that's true. I mean, I think it could still happen. People could still cross the aisle, but I think it's not reflexive anymore. I think you don't reflexively have Reddit on your side opposing, I mean, Reddit as like it feels more dangerous. Like it doesn't, yeah, it feels like it is partisan.

You know, I've had this conversation a few times with a few different people. And I think ultimately it comes down to me is it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you are on or your politics or whatever. You have a shitty relationship with your internet service provider. That is just a truth of the American experience. Like you pay for some internet and you get some of it and mostly you get bad experiences and high prices. Right. And I think that is why it's a third rail issue. It just crosses outside the boundary of your particular politics, and it comes down to how do you as a consumer have a relationship with this company that mediates so much of your life?

If you want to talk to your family on Facebook, you've got to go through your internet service provider. If you want to start a small business and sell stuff online, you got to go through an internet service provider. By the way, square space is a great way. They didn't pay for ads this week, so they get nothing. Literally, if you want to watch some YouTube, if you want to cut the cord and save some money in TV. You got to pay for your internet service writer. There's just nothing that doesn't involve that relationship. If you want to get a job, you kind of need an internet connection in America. And by that, I mean, like, you need to email your resume to employ. Like, very basic stuff

requires you to have an internet connection. I think that, I don't think people have great relationships with these providers. I don't think they feel like they have an extraordinary amount of choice. I don't think they feel like they can, like, you can delete Uber if you're mad at Uber. you can go use Lyft. It's a thing you can do, no matter how woke or unwoke you think Lyft is, but you can just delete Uber and go somewhere else. If you hate Comcast and you live in Chicago or Philadelphia

or wherever Comcast is, you can't. You just can't. You're trapped in that relationship with them. And I think most people feel that intuitively. And I think the question does come down to how much more energy do you have to like fight a political battle, right? even though your politics might not matter here.

And I think it comes down to, is a company Netflix going to be able to rally all of its customers? Because that's what they really did a good job of that in 2015. And will they? Especially, we're talking about Netflix. Yeah. And Netflix is much more comfortable than it was, you know, today than it was in 2014, right? It is, it is huge. It is expanding in a big way.

It is global. And I don't know. I mean, Netflix now has the power where it knows that if Comcast starts throttling Netflix, like Netflix can just like point at it and be like, you're screwing us, and people get very mad at Comcast. That power has been expressed so hard that Comcast finally broke down and put Netflix on the cable box. So Netflix is just in this different position. But that is the argument for net neutrality because Vimeo is not in that position. I think you talked to Vigio's general counsel.

Just like an hour ago. and they, you know, they called it, the person I spoke with called it a gift to internet providers. Because the thing is like, it's just pure deregulation for the sake of, you know, they don't want to follow these rules. They want to, you know, these put Vimeo at a disadvantage because, right, Comcast owns NBC. It could, you know, make it easier to get to NBC programming instead of Vimeo's programming. And Vimeo is not big enough to fight back, not against YouTube or Netflix. Netflix or something like that. I feel like the sort of element in the room is zero rating, though, that like we've had

these rules, like Title II has been in place and zero rating is still happening and sponsored data is still happening. Like how much of that is going to change? Do they just take all the stops out now? Or was this kind of a mood issue already? Yeah, I think that's like a really, that is, I think, where the argument really got complicated for me was zero rating. Because there's the way that T-Mobile was doing it, which is you could just, if you were

Spotify or whatever, you could just use the T-Mobile API and, like, it would zero-rate the data. So it was open, it was free. They just wanted some technical constraint amount of data setting to phones. So if you ran YouTube, like, you could just use the API and they could detect, like,

you're going to a T-Mobile phone and they would downrise your thing and whatever. The way Verizon did it was like, you just paid Verizon the money, right? And like, then Verizon zero-rated your data. Like, those are different approaches. I think T-Mobile's approach, and this is basically the FCC found as well was T-Mobile's approach is like interesting because it actually makes it cheaper

for customers without, and it's open, like any, any startup could just like go use T-Mobile system. Verizon's approach was just like cost, passing costs around, and that is like a little bit more, I don't know, I don't want to say malicious. It's just a little bit less like, we're making the internet happy for everyone, right? It's just more, it's more Verizon. If that's an adgerier. Yeah, it's not very uncarrier, right? God, everything about this conversation is horrible. But that was an argument worth having.

I think now the question is like, you get rid of all these rules, and you say there's not even authority to impose similar rules. You really do come to a point where AT&T is like, well, we own Time Warner. When you sign up for AT&T, all the Time Warner family of channels are free, high quality. And if you would like to watch Viacom channels, you owe us another $5 a month. That's out there. Now, they're all saying we're not going to do that.

But that temptation, I think, for them is all going to be very real. They're committed to an open internet, but they're not specific about anything. That's the thing, right? Like, so long as these things are just like guidelines that they can kind of commit to but aren't legally bound to, like this is the reality that we're facing, right? like, there's nothing to stop them from at least experimenting with these things if they want to, right?

I think they know that they're, that they face backlash if they go too far. But the thing is like, if it's these things that are a little more insidious, like, we will give you this for free and you may not realize it, but that disadvantages a bunch of other parties, consumers aren't going to have as much of an outcry, I think, because that feels good. You're getting something for free. And it's not clear who that's hurting. I mean, that's the thing is I think throttling is dead. Like, first of all, because BitTorne is not a gigantic thing anymore the way that it was in like 2008.

The second of all, because you can do the same. I don't know how you get your movies. No, I'm kidding. I don't pirate anything. No, it is. Yeah, maybe I'm just getting old, so I don't recognize it anymore. But no, streaming media actually did change a ton of things. Right.

Like, it is not nearly as endemic as it was. Like, there are ways to get things that are not downloading them. Anyway, that's a side note. But that it's much easier now to say, like, we can just make other things free, especially because so many people have mobile broadband now. And so it's not really speed that's the problem. It's data. Yeah, but it's dumb thing.

I mean, part of it's dumb because if you speed other stuff up, other stuff is slow by default. Yeah. The argument breaks down on two, I think on two fronts. One is like the user experience is bad. So if you don't have Verizon, it doesn't matter how much money you pay for like NFL Sunday ticket. You can't watch it on your phone because Verizon owns the mobile rights to the NFL. Like that's just annoying, right?

And more and more slicing up the internet in that way will just become more and more annoying. So that's one part of it. And the other part of it is the much more sort of ineffable. we're going to harm innovation in the internet ecosystem because the cost of access will get higher. And by access, I mean the cost of accessing every customer because you have to pay for prioritized access in order to compete on a level playing field.

I mean, I mean it less than a sort of this will harm the internet less way and more in that the optics are going to look a lot better. Like when companies were just blocking Skype or something or like throttling bit torrent traffic, that was a thing you could point out and go, you as a consumer, this really, really sucks for you. Yeah. It is harder to point at something and go, you as a consumer are getting that for free and that is hurting you in a larger economic sense.

No, but that was like the T-Mobile versus Verizon zero-rating problem, right? To the consumer, all of the strategies, the end goals look the same, but the means by which T-Mobile was accomplishing zero rating from a policy perspective much better than how Verizon AT&T were accomplished in zero rating. So like, it's great that Go-90 was free on Verizon. Great. It really helped Go-90. It's like, every Verizon customer is like, I love that free Go-90 video. Literally, to my last day on this earth, I will love making fun of Go-90. We're all going to end up working for Go-90 someday.

I know that's going to happen. But the way that Go-90 was free for Verizon customers was Go-90 is a separate subsidiary inside of Verizon that paid Verizon wireless for that access. Oh, my God, that was it. Right? So they're just moving money around inside of Verizon. Like that is bad. Like that from a policy perspective, you don't want anyone to like pay Verizon for that access. From the customer perspective, it all looks the same. Like Spotify is free to stream on T-Mobile.

That's great. You really like it. Go-90 is free to stream on Verizon. Please God, use Go-90. We really want you to use it. But like the methods are important here. I think us not pushing through to the underlying method of that customer relationship is like the big problem here. And I think that's where all these companies saying, we believe in the open internet.

Well, the question is, are they rules? Are they just suggestions? Is there authority behind them? And all of that right now, I think, is up for grabs. Yeah, I mean, you're completely right. The proposal we're looking at, there is basically no guidance. You could go absolutely anywhere. And the thing is, it's probably going to be very lenient. And I think the FCC wants to give Internet providers a lot of options. I think it likes the idea of them trying out these different business models and seeing how they go. I think we see the obvious flaws in them, but they're going, but what if that turns out okay? Like, how bad could it be? If there were multiple broadband competitors, that argument would have some merit.

Yeah. Right. Like, right, that would be competition. Right. That would be great. In a world where we can all, you know, switch between four different wired internet providers too, that would be, I mean, I don't think we would really be having this debate. We would be saying that the stuff that Verizon is doing. We're having it with wireless. That's true. That right. Right. But here, right, we're saying like Verizon is being sketchy here.

But like what T-Mobile is doing, like, they're onto something. That's, you know, that's good for consumers. Something worked out here. But the way Verizon responded to it was by zeroating everything and giving it unlimited data. Right? Like that, they just landed back at the thing that you want. Like, it just circled it all the way back around. And they said, well, we'll just zero rate everything. And now it's a separate issue about how all these data caps are just complete nonsense. It's unlimited, but like they throttle you after a number, right?

Yeah. Oh, that's true. Yeah. It's always there. Somewhere in it Verizon is like, but we built this throttling system. We should use it. We can't let it go. Their new prepaid unlimited plan is throttled from the first bite.

Really? Yep. It's incredible. No why. Everything is just Verizon. Like, Verizon, to me, is the one. They're the ones who filed the court order against the first open internet rules. When all the other carriers, like, this is probably fine.

Like, basically, like, in 2014, 2010, like that area, AT&T, Comcast, all the big ones were like, we'll deal with these rules, just don't give us Title II. And Verizon's like, we're going to court. If you're going to do this, you're going to do Title II. And that is the root of this moment. My favorite thing is that in every statement, they'll always say, oh, these FCC rules create regulatory uncertainty. What they actually mean is that they are suing to stop them and they don't know if they're going to get overturned or not. They could just not sue.

Yeah. Problem solved. No, no, no. What are laws? They're just ideas. What is the nature of government? I mean, that's where we are. Yeah.

What if we just keep it in flux for an infinite period of time, and then they can just do whatever they want in the meantime. That's going to be great. We're going to have to build a post-apocalyptic mesh network soon anyway. So we're going to have to deal with that. ERO should have sponsored this show. So I'll build Squarespace is on ERO, everybody. Okay.

That was an hour where I think we just were basically what we've decided is that governments are good ideas, but not necessarily good in practice. It just decided everything is that. What are laws? So honestly, what happens next? What's the timeline? Don't know the exact timeline, but next month they're going to vote on this thing. Then there's going to be months and months and months where you'll be able to file a public comment and call the FCC and yell at them and say how crazy they are and how you're so much smarter than them.

And you should probably do that if you are angry about this because the thing is they are held to, they have to listen to you. On some level, they have to listen to you. And it makes their life harder if like in 2014-2015. they have this massive outcry of public support that makes it harder to ignore, which is kind of part of what happened last time, right? There were so many people saying, do Title II, that they had really good reason

to go and switch course and do Title II. Right, people literally knew the words Title II. Yeah. Which was absurd. But that comes back to this, like, fundamental thing, which was, at that time, the only way to get the rules people wanted was to use the authority of Title II.

That is still true. We think. No, it's definitely. It is definitely still true, and they want to make it a mess because then... Well, it wouldn't be true. They passed a law that was literally, this is a special thing that is net neutrality, and like it's purely Congress-based. Yeah, that's super going to happen.

I'm just saying technically it could happen. And a lot of people think Pye is gaming his way towards that, where he's thrown it all in a disarray, people are going to streaming it mad, and then something will happen in Congress. I don't really see any incentive for them to make it. any rules if they can get rid of all the rules? I mean, there's a line in here that's like, we love the idea of no blocking, but we, I mean, how could we possibly use our authority when we have none? Like, that's in here explicitly almost.

Like, we love this. We just don't know how we could possibly impose this rule. Yeah, that part's actually- given that we've taken away our authority to impose any rules. That part is particularly weird because it says, we love no blocking, we think it's great. But codified rules? Like, it's like what other kind of? They explicitly say also like this is going to hurt, you know, rural Americans with broadband because people won't invest if you can't block stuff.

I wonder if Pice kids have strict rules at home. He has like adorable children. He's always tweeting about his kids. They're always saying like the craziest things. But like you have to wonder if he's like, if he's like a put his foot down parent or if he's more like, these are suggestions. And if you break these suggestions, everyone will be very mad at you, but nothing will happen. You will feel shame in your corporate arts. All right, that was a rich cast.

It's been an hour. It's been emotional. I've enjoyed having both of you here with me. This is just going to keep going and going and going. It's not going to stop. And the debate, like, so much of this debate is the same debate that we have, like, a rich library of pieces that Addie wrote to draw on. We have a lot of the characters that we talk to are back.

So there's a lot here for us to do and to get into. I think, like I said, it's a particular point of. passion for me and The Verge because we cover the Internet. Our whole point of our publications, the Internet has, like, changed the world, so we should probably pay attention to it. So we'll be doing a lot more. I suspect we'll have many more special episodes of this show. I would like to get a Jeep Pie in this show.

He only talks to people who don't disagree with him. Can we hire somebody new? Yeah, like a hardcore, conservative telecom analyst? Yeah. Yeah, that seems like a good use of money. Barron Soka. on the show. We'll see what we can do.

I love Burns. Okay. He's great. I suggested in all sincerity. But tweet at him. He's at Jeet Pie, A-J-I-T, P-A-I-F-C-C. Tell him to come on the Vergecast. We'll be nice. We said nice things about him.

What does he love? Tweets. Right, he faves, I know he reads his Twitter. He know he reads his Twitter. I know he reads his comments. I'm assuming I'm muted at this point. But what are you? do. But we'd love to get him on the show. Walt has offered to interview him. Kara's offered

to interview him. Whatever he wants. I think he should show up and answer some hard questions, particularly like, what are laws? Like, I would just like to start there with him and see where we go. But we'll be covering way more of this. We talked about it. There's other stuff to listen to if you don't want to just do an hour of this. Walt and I talked about a little bit yesterday on Control Alt Delete. Listen to that. That's great. Lauren Good has too embarrassed to ask, which is wonderful. Peter Kafka has Recode Media and Kershisher has Recode DeCode. All wonderful shows on iTunes go, rate, review them. You can talk to us, you can tweet at us, Jake.

You're Jake underscore K. Addie is at the Dexterity. Yep. Which I can't spell it. It's a joke. It's a good, yeah. Just tweet at her. It's great.

I'm at Reckless. We love your feedback. Come talk to us. We're back next week here on the Burgecast. It's going to be fine. Rock and roll. Paul.