Why We Need Net Neutrality
- A.J. Voiles
- Jul 12, 2017
- 1 min read
In response to an article published earlier titled Net Neutrality is a Terrible Idea!!!!, the author didn't even seem to touch base on what net neutrality is. Net neutrality is the internet exactly as it is now. Open to all, and an almost completely free market.
See right now, internet access is considered a utility as opposed to a service. This means that they must give everyone the same routes of using the technology. When you pay for telephone, you can’t buy a line higher quality than other customers because it's all the same infrastructure. In the internet infrastructure world, it's not as clear cut. Your data makes pit stops. Without net neutrality, larger corporations could pay internet service providers to host a server directly in their datacenter, giving them a “fast lane”, which not only stifles competition from the little guy who can't afford that, but could lead to corporate censorship.
Let’s say your ISP is Comcast, but they begin making it much harder to access Google and Time Warner sites because they fear competition. Or a site posts a negative story about them and all of a sudden, you can't access that website. Lack of net neutrality would almost certainly bring an even worse corporate mafia feel to the media, and would be the demise of independent sites such as FiendFix.
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