>Yes, that's actually how the law works.

I am really trying to understand your perspective on this, because it's so obviously not true. Companies are regulated by the government and limited with what they can do in a lot of different ways.

Net neutrality is a form of regulation that I am advocating for - and it sounds like you're in support of it too which would seem to contradict this.

I was looking at some of your other comments on this subject and saw you posted this one day ago:

>Maybe Cloudflare et al should also be required by law to serve everyone regardless of content.

You're advocating for regulation of tech companies here too.

Let me clarify. I support net neutrality. Including DDOS protection in that is to ensure that you can't be taken offline even if every hosting provider in the world hates your guts and you have to self-host (as might be the case for a lot of the people and organizations being banned these days). And I'm not an expert on DDOS mitigation, so it might be that you don't have to require even them to serve everyone.

I was pointing out the irony that net neutrality was repealed under this same administration.

I am yet to be convinced that "neutrality" or a requirement to provide service regardless of content should be enforced by any government regulation above the network layer.

Companies IRL have the right to discriminate against their customers based on their speech. If I walk into your bar and start insulting other patrons it's totally legal for you to kick me out. And in fact if you fail to do that, your other patrons might leave and never come back.

I don't see why that shouldn't extend online. Except at the network layer. Because if you don't have that, you can't have any speech online. Which is also unjust.

I think this is self-consistent. Feel free to tell me if there are any holes in it.

First of all, this is a great reply and yes it does clarify your viewpoint. I really value that it's possible to have discussions like this on the internet.

>I am yet to be convinced that "neutrality" or a requirement to provide service regardless of content should be enforced by any government regulation above the network layer.

I agree with you. I wouldn't be in favor of a government regulation at the level of social media that would prevent specific services like Facebook or Twitter from banning things. But the bigger problem for me is that we've all just decided that it's okay for really fundamental things about the web to be controlled by private companies.

The web was designed to be an open system and it's slowly being more closed in. There's still areas of openness, but they get smaller every year. And every time there's a new layer of restriction added there's always someone to point out that you still can do x y and z, it's just 10-20% harder than it used to be.

When apps for phones came out it was "Well, you can always just make a web app. They have no control over that." but consumers are less likely to use a web app and you don't have the same access to the device.

Now it's "Just move to a different hosting company!" which is disingenuous for several reasons. First, any company they move to is going to get pressured to drop them in the same way. Secondly, even if they did find a new hosting company that was okay with them, the pressure would just get applied to a different point (like Cloudflare.) You can roll your own hosting system but it's prohibitively expensive for most people especially if the site has a lot of traffic, DDoS and regular hacking attempts. The fact that web hosting beyond the basics is complex and hard is the reason that cloud services exist and are so popular these days to begin with.

So yeah, I think we're basically on the same page. I don't see this getting better. But I still think it's worth pointing out.

>The web was designed to be an open system and it's slowly being more closed in. There's still areas of openness, but they get smaller every year. And every time there's a new layer of restriction added there's always someone to point out that you still can do x y and z, it's just 10-20% harder than it used to be.

I agree with the tone of your post, but it's not the web that's open (every website is created/owned/controlled by someone), it's the Internet as a whole that needs to be open.

>When apps for phones came out it was "Well, you can always just make a web app. They have no control over that." but consumers are less likely to use a web app and you don't have the same access to the device.

I understand your frustration, but while we have freedom of speech and freedom of association, etc.

And while you certainly have a right to start your own business, you don't have the right to force others to make it easy for you.

Again, I understand your frustration, but what you're arguing for just doesn't make sense.

Why should other companies be forced to change their business practices to make your life/business easier?

That's a rhetorical question of course, but you don't have to treat it as one if you don't want to.