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Friends, South Carolinians, countrymen, lend me your ears! Wait- I know, I know. This wall of text can be intimidating. (I mean, I feel the onset of a panic attack just walking into a library, much less opening a book.) You’re on the internet. This is your sanctuary of rest time. This is your free Facebook time, why would you spend it learning instead of watching cat videos? Well someone wants to take away the freedom that is associated with your internet time, and I’m here to tell you who and how. Don’t let this wall of text frighten you. We’ll make it through this together and you might just ‘learn yourself’ a thing or two in the process.
Net Neutrality? Sounds like a law to keep fishermen from using illegal nets. There’s a joke somewhere there… So Net Neutrality, what is it and why should you care? Net neutrality, or open internet, is the principle that internet service providers, ISPs, should give consumers access to all legal content and applications on an equal basis, without favoring some sources or blocking others. It prohibits ISPs from charging content providers for speedier delivery of their content on “fast lanes” and deliberately slowing the content from content providers that may compete with ISPs. To help you out, I’ll break down in real terms what that means. Right now, you pay one price for the whole internet. Though expensive, (Extremely expensive, and much slower, if you compare it to the rest of the world) it gives you access to all websites that are in existence and ones that will spring up in the future. Those websites will all load at the same speed no matter what (And just in case you don’t understand what I mean by load I mean the time you have to wait for the content to be displayed on your monitor/smartphone/tablet). Our website, or any smaller websites, will load just as quickly as the behemoth Facebook. It’s remarkable. One minute you’re on YouTube, the next you’re googling how they jar mayonnaise (Not as crazy as I thought it would be). |
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Unfortunately, big behemoth sites (not all of them) want to change this. They would make each content provider (the people who run the websites) pay an astounding fee so that their website would operate in the “fast lane”. Anyone who doesn’t, or can’t, would be stuck in the “slow lane”. This would obviously hurt the businesses of those who can’t afford the fee. The scariest part of this is that the fee can change from business to business. But you’re saying, “Hey, they probably would just agree upon a lower price when it comes to smaller websites.” You’re right, they would probably agree upon a price with the company they would actually be able to pay. However, this is where it gets worrisome. Say Facebook pays Time Warner a massive fee for their website to be fast, but Facebook also tells Time Warner to crack down on any websites that could be a competitor to Facebook. Any new and upcoming websites, no matter how good the ides they offer, would be at the mercy of Time Warner (or an equal ISP). And if Facebook felt threatened by their existence, they would tell Time Warner to designate a price that the small company couldn’t pay. This would effectively end the smaller start-up company and rid the world of new wonderful ideas. This is why we need to work to keep Net Neutrality. It insures the playing field is fair and equal, even for the little guy.
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