O NEUTRALITY, MY NET NEUTRALITY!

The question has been defined: What is Net Neutrality? Why should I care about it?

Both of those questions are essential for understanding both the concept itself and the ideas that it embodies - often, the public knows what net neutrality is but is unable to form an opinion on it due to stilted information, blase assumptions, or even merely not giving it their time to begin with. Here is the definition for net neutrality that will be referenced to throughout the various posts within this blog: net neutrality is the concept that all data accessed over the Internet should be treated equally to all other data -- and, by extension, no specific data should be closed off if it is available for normal access.

But what does that mean?

Let’s put it into perspective. You want to watch Netflix - everyone considers the prospect at some point in their lives, correct? In order to access Netflix from your computer, you need to be connected to the Internet. The company you pay for Internet access is known as your Internet Service Provider. For the context of this example, we’re going to use Comcast as your Internet Service Provider. You mosey on over to Netflix’s website, log-in with your (hopefully not mooched off of) credentials, and decide you want quality time with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, so you load up some BBC Sherlock. You load up “A Study in Pink”, it loads, and then ...

...

...

The video quality is terrible, choppy, and constantly buffers every three seconds! How are you supposed to be able to enjoy the complicated entanglement of Sherlock’s hand waived, entirely circumstantially immaculate logical deductions like this?! You pay good money for this! You, like millions of other Netflix subscribers accessing the service through Comcast fire off an angry email to customer support. Eventually, the matter seems to resolve itself. All is well. Except, well, it isn’t. For a customer of Comcast, nothing is wrong. For the executives of Netflix, everything is wrong. This was the very scenario of Comcast’s under the table deal with Netflix(1) where Comcast forced Netflix to pay upwards of millions of dollars in order to secure reliable connections to Netflix through Comcast’s service, under the threat of Netflix facing a huge drop-off of Comcast-using subscribers if they did not.

This was the first large scale infringement of net neutrality, and it had to have been Comcast.

Because Comcast forced Netflix into a position of paying up to secure reliable data connections, Comcast was effectively installing a premium for what it perceived as the “privilege” of having decent service to secure its subscriber base that were connecting to it through Comcast. With that door opened, the rest lie in terse uncertainty. If Comcast could make Netflix do it, what say that it wouldn’t force Google to do the same for its services? Or any other high-scale Internet based company? Suddenly, the Internet stands on the precipice of becoming the very embodiment of “hail Corporate”, for ISPs would demand rates from anything and anyone to have a stake in the Internet as “equal” as the big leagues. Startups would be unable to cope with the changes as the Internet before the corporate revolution was a breeding ground for innovation with its absurdly low entry prices compared to other industries(2). The Internet, in its untouched form, is a haven of website competition based on merit and usability instead of who can pay the ISPs the most for the best access.

That’s what net neutrality is.

It keeps the Internet the Internet.

Footnotes:

(1) Edwards, Haley Sweetland. "The Man Who Wants To Remake The Internet Does Not Wear a Hoodie”, par. 20

(2) Ammori, Marvin. "The Case For Net Neutrality." par. 9