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

WITH ONE INTRODUCTION TO RULE THEM ALL...

I am going to admit something very important.

So important, in fact, it could possibly change the world forever. Okay, well, maybe that's a fairly lofty assumption, but hey, a girl can dream, right?

The modern world is powered by the Internet.

If you listen closely, you can hear the golf-clatter creak and groan of old men and women rising up to roar in unison, WE DON'T NEED THE INTERNET! WHEN WE WERE KIDS THE BEST WE HAD WAS THE RADIO! WE HAD TO LEARN HOW TO DISCERN WORDS FROM TINNY STATIC! AND WE LIKED IT THAT WAY!

Thanks, Grandma, but this blog isn't for you. It's for people like me - but not too close to like me because then I'd just hate them - and those people are young adults who are genuinely aware of the hustle and bustle of the world around them. With us, we were born with the Internet. The Internet has become our go-to for anything and everything that we could need, and we're all the better for it ... when it's used properly, that is. But not everything about the Internet is so ho-hum. In order to access the Internet, you have to pay for the service through an Internet Service Provider - your Verizons, your AT&Ts, and (god forbid) your Comcasts, among others. Your money, their pockets, and you get the Internet. Sounds like a fairly good deal, right? I mean, the Internet is the Internet. Personally, I'd pay a small fortune for access to it.

But, alas, we live in America, land of the business empire and industry.

Their latest target for sucking away all individuality, uniqueness, and innovation from?

The Internet.(1)

Now, I feel as if I were a mother bear with one of her cubs being threatened. NO! NOT THE INTERNET, YOU BASTARD HUNTERS! YOU CAN'T SWINDLE THE INTERNET AWAY FROM ME! And, quite, they haven't - yet. But they have tried numerous times. The idea that keeps the villainous corporate barons at bay from devouring all they can from the Internet to line their already seemingly infinite coffers is one single idea. An idea so simple yet so profound it ought to ring true in both the ears of every consumer of the Internet. It doesn't take an activist to understand its importance. It begins with an N, and ends in a Y...

Face the wrath of NET NEUTRALITY!

Net neutrality has been the core essence of all that makes the Internet the Internet, and with it comes the profound sense of that it will protect us from those that seek to infringe upon it all for the sake of good business. But then that begs a very certain question, now doesn't it, dear reader? Well, yes.

If Net Neutrality is so important, then what the hell is it?

I'm glad you asked.

Footnotes:
(1): Ammori, Marvin. "A Case for Net Neutrality," par. 8