ABDL shopping and Net Neutrality

I have an important question regarding online diaper shopping:
Lately, I have been reading how lawmakers in Washington DC are looking to dismantle net neutrality, which will supposedly have an impact on online shopping and retail.
Should we be concerned about this in the long-term future when it comes to online shopping for diapers? The two vendors I frequently use are Bambino Diapers and ABU. Are those and other similar businesses going to be intact in the long-term future or should we be concerned?
(Forgive me if this is not the right posting category. I wasn't quite sure where to post this.)

Net neutrality is more about internet providers charging content providers varying rates depending on what sort of traffic you're passing, rather than a flat rate per GB. It's a way for ISPs and bandwidth sellers (like akami and level3) to charge web site to "prioritize" (or... to not throttle) a content provider's traffic.

Think "Oh youtube, that would be a shame if all your videos started buffering really badly across the united states.... how about you pay us to 'prioritize' your web traffic so that doesn't happen?"

They're just looking for another lemon to squeeze. They're already getting paid from the ISPs, who are getting paid by you. Now they also want youtube to pay them. Notice they're going to pass traffic once and get paid twice, once from the receiver and then again from the sender. Isn't that nice?

It'd be like you paying postage to send a package, and the recipient also having to pay to pick up the package. Or like you pay to make a long distance call, and the person you're calling has to pay to receive the call. Most places call that "double-dipping". Network Neutrality aims to make double-dipping on internet bandwidth illegal or tightly regulated. It shouldn't have any effect on online shopping because of the low bandwidth requirements. Content providers like youtube and netflix are the big targets, THOSE you may see price hikes / advertising jumps on if NN gets nerfed.

That was incredibly informative and well put, thank you!

Supposedly it's a law to prevent ISPs from hurting customers, though it's probably just a powergrab since ISPs can still have caps and therefore didn't really help anything. It won't affect ABDL shopping stuff.

It could, in theory, hurt ABDL shopping because it might hurt everyone. Like, let's say that Comcast negotiates with Amazon to give their traffic priority. That would mean ordering diapers from Amazon would be the same, but you might have a more frustrating experience with small ABDL companies that can't afford to pay Comcast, leading to their websites loading more slowly, especially during peak Internet use hours.

harold42 said:

Supposedly it's a law to prevent ISPs from hurting customers

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yep, the word "supposedly" is an excellent choice there. The whole thing is complicated enough (and there's enough money involved) that what it's supposed to do and what it actually does have tons of potential for disconnect. ISPs have the resources and the motive to lobby for convoluted laws that leave them loopholes and/or get so twisted around so as to do the opposite of what they were intended for. Then on the other side, politicians aren't any better. They can scream for really draconian laws (e.g. not even allowing qos for VoIP traffic or remote medical procedures) that would cripple the internet in their own way in hopes of attracting lobbying efforts from ISPs (I.e. "that's some nice internet you're providing there, it would be a shame if something happened to it").

But echoing everyone else here, it's not going to have any impact on buying diapers online, at least nothing that will single out abdl stuff (intentionally or not).

Net Neutrality is something you should be greatly concerned about if you care AT ALL about the internet. Yes, losing Net Neutrality will hurt sites to buy ABDL supplies, such as Bambino and ABUniverse as you mentioned, as well as sites like ADISC. But not because Net Neutrality is targeting ABDL in any way, but rather, simply because losing Net Neutrality is devastating to anyone who isn't a Network Provider or a huge company.

For instance, if Net Neutrality is lost, then network providers like Comcast can jack up the prices for bandwidth, and slow down the downloading speed of certain sites in order to charge more for these supposed "fast lanes". However, if they want to speed up sites that pay their ransom, and they don't increase the amount of bandwidth, then they inevitably will have to slow down smaller sites.

If you are a big company such as Google, Amazon, Netflix, etc. You can afford to pay the ransom to Comcast. Yes, it sucks that they will then have to pay said ransom, but then they get the upside of the lack of competition. Because all the smaller companies and sites that could get huge in the future can't afford to pay said ransom, then they can't grow because people aren't going to go to that site because it's too slow. Then Youtube can make whatever changes they want, and you can't exactly threaten to go to another platform such as Vimeo because they can't pay the ransom to Comcast. Whatever the next Facebook or Twitter is won't exist if Net Neutrality is gutted.

And this isn't even getting into the fact that if Comcast doesn't like you, it can just slow you down. So any content that Comcast or any big company disapproves of, they can sabotage them and slow down their internet by severely restricting their bandwidth.

Basically, getting rid of Net Neutrality will destroy the internet as we know it. So yeah. You should DEFINITELY be concerned. Yes, it'll affect your ABDL shopping, but it affects EVERYTHING. Honestly, aside from money in politics and climate change, this is probably the most important issue facing us.
[video=youtube;wtt2aSV8wdw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtt2aSV8wdw[/video]

ArchieRoni said:

It could, in theory, hurt ABDL shopping because it might hurt everyone. Like, let's say that Comcast negotiates with Amazon to give their traffic priority. That would mean ordering diapers from Amazon would be the same, but you might have a more frustrating experience with small ABDL companies that can't afford to pay Comcast, leading to their websites loading more slowly, especially during peak Internet use hours.

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Any static web page, even one that has a number of images or switching / magnifying content is going to move a LOT less data than any video site. Assuming the webdevs aren't total retards and placing up huge images that are going to get resized way down on the receiver's end (which DOES happen from time to time), a typical web page may require up to 1mb to load. (VERY rough number there) Many web sites load easily with 1/10th that or less. A page here for example, being mainly text and some small avatars and banners and title graphics could check in at 150kb. (your avatar is 8kb for example) Contrast that to a youtube video that may be streaming say, 25mb for 5 minutes of video. (85kb every SECOND) An hour would be 20 times that, 500mb. 0.15mb vs 500mb. That's an enormous (3300x) difference in bandwidth. Don't worry about adisc or other static sites loading slowly without NN, worry about video loading slowly. And also data downloads. Think about Steam or your windows/mac os updates. Level3 would just love to sink their teeth into microsoft's updates. They're not as big as video on the average, but there are just so many of them getting downloaded constantly. How about those windows software updates taking 8 hours instead of 20 minutes if microsoft refuses to pay off their extortion? Imagine the pressure MS would get put under if suddenly their updates took bloddy ages to download? Enough pressure and MS would paya them off to recover their speed. And that cost will get passed on by microsoft to YOU. Support Network Neutrality!

Should I buy a dial up modem now? :lol::lol::lol:

bambinod said:

Any static web page, even one that has a number of images or switching / magnifying content is going to move a LOT less data than any video site. Assuming the webdevs aren't total retards and placing up huge images that are going to get resized way down on the receiver's end (which DOES happen from time to time), a typical web page may require up to 1mb to load. (VERY rough number there) Many web sites load easily with 1/10th that or less. A page here for example, being mainly text and some small avatars and banners and title graphics could check in at 150kb. (your avatar is 8kb for example) Contrast that to a youtube video that may be streaming say, 25mb for 5 minutes of video. (85kb every SECOND) An hour would be 20 times that, 500mb. 0.15mb vs 500mb. That's an enormous (3300x) difference in bandwidth. Don't worry about adisc or other static sites loading slowly without NN, worry about video loading slowly. And also data downloads. Think about Steam or your windows/mac os updates. Level3 would just love to sink their teeth into microsoft's updates. They're not as big as video on the average, but there are just so many of them getting downloaded constantly. How about those windows software updates taking 8 hours instead of 20 minutes if microsoft refuses to pay off their extortion? Imagine the pressure MS would get put under if suddenly their updates took bloddy ages to download? Enough pressure and MS would paya them off to recover their speed. And that cost will get passed on by microsoft to YOU. Support Network Neutrality!

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in reality if microsoft doesnt like it they can just bully the ISP since microsoft is probrably richer than any isp out there. after all they own many things most importantly Windows and Xbox

Increased censorship could also come into play, to some extent, if net neutrality goes away. Isps could censor things however they want.

ShippoFox said:

Increased censorship could also come into play, to some extent, if net neutrality goes away. Isps could censor things however they want.

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That could go all sorts of bad ways. Imagine mediacom or cox gets an exclusive contract with roku or netflix, and now that's the only streaming media service that plays decent without constantly buffering?

Laws like this, it's best to consider "what CAN they do if this goes through?" Because with business, there is only "what's good for business", and that's what they will do, despite any pledges or promises otherwise. Every law that can be abused GETS abused. No exceptions. Legislators need to quit writing sloppy and poorly thought out legislation.

LunaEclipsed said:

in reality if microsoft doesnt like it they can just bully the ISP since microsoft is probrably richer than any isp out there. after all they own many things most importantly Windows and Xbox

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Yeah, if Microsoft wanted to they'd just be able to go "Your organization no longer can purchase new Windows licences from us or receive official support from us. If you try to circumvent this and we discover new licences being registered by you we will disable those keys and fine you for illegal copies"

The whole reason for the net neutrality issue is and always has been largely about money. In a normal tiered model (as was largely the case in the early 2000s) the flow of money would go as follows:

[you]==>[ISP]==>[Backbone Provider]<==[Content Provider]

Content providers like Netflix still have to pay for internet access like you do, they just have different providers that [also] provide your providers access to their network.

Unfortunately, such a simplistic model has been butchered to pieces with no one coming out clean because... well money. Large national ISPs are now claiming that their own backbone that [near] exclusively interconnects their own infrastructure qualifies them as an ISP AND a Backbone Provider, ergo they seem to think that they can charge [Content Providers] for [indirect] access to their networks as well. What makes this issue even less clear is that many [Content Providers] are ALSO building backbone infrastructure to interconnect not only their own infrastructure but also to classify themselves as [Backbone Providers]. The reasoning behind this is that most [Backbone Providers] generally interconnect freely with each other.

Sooo... you have ISPs who are trying to pretend to be something they clearly aren't so they can make more money where they shouldn't;

[You]==>[ISP]<==[Content Provider]

AND you have Content providers trying to pretend to be something they clearly aren't so they can essentially get free internet.

[You]==>[ISP]==>[Backbone Provider]==??==[Content Provider]

While my sympathy is unarguably leaning towards the side of the [Content Providers], they are certainly far from being innocent of any wrongdoing.