The largest companies in the world are facing off against the biggest ISPs in the country on this issue. Net neutrality is a principle currently in place that makes it so governments and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) treat each piece of data on the Internet as equal. This means it is a violation if your ISP charges you more money for access to YouTube as opposed to access to Facebook.
Last year Verizon sued the FCC to change that, as they want to start filtering website into categories and charging more money for sites that use large amounts of data. How is this bad? Well, the proposed method is to restrict access to certain parts of the Internet and stop consumers from reaching websites some don’t like, such as Netflix, which presents competition to Verizon’s video on demand service, due to its competitive pricing.
Another important aspect to consider is how the neutrality of the Internet has changed the world for the better already and how getting rid of neutrality would stop that.
One of the best things about the (net neutral) Internet is that young people with fresh ideas have the same chance of success as the big companies. The difference is that the young fresh ideas usually are innovating, shake up the world and make thing better by showing us a new way to do things that, in turn, pushes the world forward. While, on the other hand, the big companies want to keep thing the way they are generally, keeping themselves rich and stopping what they don’t understand or might challenge their profit gain.
Think about how the world has changed with Google, Facebook, Twitter, blogs the list goes on and on. Imagine how the world would have been if these companies never had a chance to start? Now imagine all the countless possible ideas that young people who don’t have tons of funds have yet to imagine and how those, yet to be discovered, ideas could further change things. Then finally imagine a world where these ideas never get the traction to take off. That would be our future with no net neutrality.
