If you’re not familiar with the issues surrounding “Net Neutrality” (and you’re more of a visual learner) here’s your chance to get the facts: The Open Internet.
I’ve also copied the entire site (click for larger view) as well. The point? You should care about this stuff:
- A free and open internet is the single greatest technology of our culture, and control should not be at the mercy of corporations.
- A free and open internet stimulates competition.
- A free and open internet helps prevent unfair pricing practices.
- A free and open internet promotes innovation.
- A free and open internet is more trustworthy and honest.
- A free and open internet drives businesses.
- A free and open internet protects the freedom of speech.
Adam Hann says
My question is… what can we really do about it? Bloggers rise up for Net Neutrality!?
Johnny says
Well I would hope in a democracy there’s a whole lot you can do about it!
BenJPickett says
Some of that will never be entirely possible due to the inner workings of proxy-anonomizers, how easy they are to set up, and how quickly they come and go. The big thing is that we should all care and we should all understand what it means on both sides. They say that the USA is one of the most expensive country’s for broadband for comparative speeds but if you look at a lot of Europe that has higher speeds at lower prices, we’ll say France who comes in about $40 with the exchange rate, they also have extremely high taxes. This skews the numbers a lot and they actually end up paying more. The large ISP’s already have a very profitable business, and while they are hoping for more, we have to look at why. They have been losing an uphill battle with advertising since the introduction of TiVo, and they had to develop their own DVRs to compete but that’s still lost ad money if the ad companies get their way of tracking actual views compared to those that fast forward. This has been a brewing problem since the introduction of record on the VCR, which had many of its own legal battles to fight. Now, thanks to Hulu, Boxee and countless other services, the networks owned by the cable companies which just happen to be the ISPs are losing advertising funds at an accelerating rate. That lost revenue must be subsidized from other parts of the company.
So in order to keep shareholders happy the company is cutting bonuses, for everyone not just the execs, they start paying new employees less and freezing raises, making customer support worse by having less happy employees; once all of the wages have been hacked to bits they start crippling network development meaning slower speeds, less broadband penetration and degrading connectivity. The only thing that can spur the growth needed is to hike their rates. And they would love, absolutely adore, the ability to charge for online services that hurt their core businesses, to them this is a win-win. The only other valid proposal is to charge based off of consumption and that creates a whole truck full of cans of worms, like what acceptable charges are and it still doesn’t put money back into the coffers of all their franchises.
The current problems with the Net Neutrality vote that passed the other morning is that it was written by the FCC. The FCC has jurisdiction to write rules for the radio communications only, they are wasting their time and our tax dollars by writing rules and regulations for an industry that they don’t oversee. I don’t know what is worse, that they think they have the power, or that the current administration is accepting of and willing to let them over step their boundaries.
Consumers: be prepared to lose.
Johnny says
This isn’t just about the consumer. It’s about having an open platform for everyone to operate on. Do you think Youtube, Hulu, Facebook or Google would’ve been possible without an open internet?
On top of that the FCC is the federal communications commission so everything that involves communication falls under their jurisdiction in the US, which involves the internet.
Not only that but the internet is a platform based off free speech, which brings up even more issues. ISPs are being greedy in that they want to make more money even though they’re making a hell of a lot of money already.
I cannot express how wrong I think closure of the openness of the internet is, and the public should do absolutely everything to stop it.