It’s hard for some people (including me) to understand the concept of Net Neutrality and the importance of the political battle being fought over it. I’m not going to focus too much on the geeky side. Instead, let’s focus more on the political and economic issues involved.
Okay, first, my (very) basic understand of Net Neutrality is this: Currently, websites are generally treated the same. Ending Net Neutrality means that system providers can pick and choose who gets better service. They can play favorites, slow down some sites and speed up others, charge more to one than another and otherwise manipulate the system in order to increase their own profits at the expense of the content providers and the public who uses those sites. Please pardon me, in advance, for anything I got wrong.
Searching the web you can find a lot of info about this—and I suggest you do, because this really is a very important issue. This fight has been going on for years. Bills have and are now being introduced and debated in Congress. Politicians are taking sides (and the accompanying campaign contributions are pouring in). Opponents are organizing to combat the proposals.
I’ve followed this for awhile and the typical flow is that a bill ending Net Neutrality, backed by powerful corporate interests, is introduced. Other ‘powerful corporate interests’ begin screaming about the bill. The public joins in and also screams about the bill. The bill is withdrawn and reworked and reintroduced as a ‘compromise’ which is pretty much the same bill, or worse, and it fools no one.
This illustrates how our current political system is (not) working. I guarantee that the only reason this bill hasn’t become law yet is that it is a fight between different CORPORATE interests. It really didn’t, and doesn’t, matter how many of us poor slobs oppose this action. The ONLY thing actually preventing its passage is corporate interests. When our politicians are confronted by opposing corporate sides, they freeze! They panic! They know not in which direction they should stick out their palms.
On the one side, AGAINST Net Neutrality, we have Internet Service Providers (for this article we’ll refer to them as ‘the bad guys’). This includes players like Charter, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Verizon, AOL and a host of other bandits in suits. On the other side, we have corporations which base all or most of their businesses on-line (we call them the ‘not-as-bad-guys’). These players include Google, Netflix and many others. Then, we have the little folk who have firmly sided with the ‘not-as-bad-guys’. We’ve flooded our politicians with notes and even crashed the FCC website with complaints (thanks for that, John Oliver). There is very little, if any, of the public organizing in support for ending Net Neutrality.
So, why does this bill keep boomeranging? Why hasn’t the loud and clear public message been heard in those decision-making halls?
Simple. Because, in America, the little folks no longer matter (if they ever really did). The public is not a part of the equation. We have become, we have allowed ourselves to become, powerless. Corporations just want our cash and politicians just want us tranquil enough that we don’t start throwing eggs at them. I have no doubt at all that a real compromise between these corporate interests will eventually be worked out. And I have no doubt that both sides will benefit while we, the users, will pay. We will pay more money for our internet service, we will have fewer options within that service and the service will suck even worse than it does now.
From now on, the only chance at fairness the public has is when major corporate interests share our concerns. Only when the wealthy decide that being on our side favors their greed can we expect even common sense to prevail.
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