Thoughts On Net Neutrality

If you are unaware of what exactly "Net neutrality" is read the following snippet from wikipedia.


"Net neutrality (also network neutrality or Internet neutrality) is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication. "

 This is good for you because it prevents ISP's like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T from charging you or anyone else a premium for carrying a certain type of traffic. This means that you shouldn't be charged more money for making a Skype call to your grandmother in New Jersey than you would for reading this blog. This would be like the electric company charging you more for using electricity to cook your food or watch television or the local water utility charging you more for water to bathe your newborn child than washing your car. This is a bad model for consumers and only serves to line the pockets of these providers.

Some of you may be saying that this is the nature of business. If you have a service, you should be able to charge what you want for it. For the most part, you are correct. However, when your service is access to something as critical to the current state of civilization like the internet or electricity, or water or gas, charging premiums for using the service as it was intended should be restricted.

I pay roughly $70 a month for my internet service. Some people pay more, some people pay less. But lets say you pay what I pay for the sake of this argument. What is to stop Verizon from telling me that I am now only able to access websites that align with their business interests. Now, I cannot not get access to eBay, or GoDaddy or my online banking. This sucks for me because I've been making a few hundred bucks a month selling widgets through my website and eBay store. Now I have to upgrade my access plan for an extra "$19.99 per month" to include a subset of out of network websites which after reading through the offer still doesn't allow me access to my online banking. Not to mention, after the service fees, and service access fees, and the account service access fees and the one time (per month, hidden in the fine print) dip-shit surcharge comes out closer to $45 bucks.

If you want to make sure you aren't bent over and screwed because you want to read about Linux, just because your ISP is partnered with Apple this quarter, sign this petition.