Yes, Net Neutrality Matters. Here's Why...
The ISPs Are Playing While The FCC's Away
If you’re in the niche and dare I say, lonely, world of caring about Digital Rights (is there a name for us? Digital Righties? Meh, I don’t like that one. I’m a lefty), you’ve likely faced the long list of rebuttals around Net Neutrality. Most if not all of these revolve around the common theme: It doesn’t matter, it’s not important. Well, it does, and with the FCC in 2-2 gridlock preventing Net Neutrality from being reinstated, ISPs are pushing their luck already, more on that later, first, the common anti-Net Neutrality talking points and why they’re short-sighted and wrong (Because most if not all of them likely came from Big Cable think-tanks):
We only had Net Neutrality for a few years, nothing changed, therefore Net Neutrality’s not important.
This talking point exists because in the literal sense there’s some truth to it. We got Net Neutrality officially on the books in 2015 and then of course it was repealed by Ajit Pai and Trump’s FCC a few years later. Does that mean we only “had Net Neutrality” for a few years? Absolutely not. In reality, we’ve had Net Neutrality since the advent of the Internet. ISPs were expected to provide non-discriminatory speeds to users and websites the same way water flows through pipes or a telephone call works. This rule, however, was not an official one, just one ISPs were expected to follow. For years, NN advocates were pushing for the FCC to designate the Internet a Title II utility in our lives so we could have Net Neutrality be the official law of the land. Shockingly, we were told it wasn’t all that important. Then, 2014 happened. Verizon went to court saying they didn’t need to follow Net Neutrality. The court ruled in Verizon’s favor. There was public outcry, which eventually lead to getting Net Neutrality on the books. Celebration! Then, the new FCC repealed Net Neutrality, which, once again resulted in public outcry. States started passing their own Net Neutrality laws which kinda stifles the ISPs from unrolling anti-Net Neutrality packages because there’s so many customer bases in which they can’t unroll them. So, in short, on the large scale we haven’t experienced a post-Net Neutrality Internet. It’s not from Big Cable’s lack of trying though, and they’ll get their way the day we stop fighting.
Net Neutrality allows the government to control the Internet.
No, it doesn’t. That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what Net Neutrality is. Net Neutrality means the Internet is a utility, it has to flow like running water, so nobody can prioritize certain websites or content providers over others, nor can they create fast lanes or slow lanes for users.
Net Neutrality stifles innovation.
This is a fun one. Because, here’s the kicker: This one is actually TRUE, BUT, they don’t tell you what kind of innovation. Net Neutrality stifles an ISP’s ability to price-gouge consumers via fast lanes and slow lanes, it stifles their ability create a fee schedule for content providers to pay for their websites to load faster than others, it stifles their ability to screw over poorer neighborhoods, it stifles their ability to make the Internet look like Cable TV 2.0 complete with different pricing packages ($10 extra a month for Twitter), and it stifles the ability of Big Cable marketing departments to sell this BS to the public. So yeah, it stifles innovation alright, the really, really bad kind. It’s interesting, all of these companies say that they wouldn’t mess with Net Neutrality, yet being required to follow such rules would “stifle innovation”. That’d be like somebody promising they’re never gonna kill anybody but they don’t think there should be laws against murder, it stifles their innovation. At the very least that person would be super creepy, right?
So, how are the Big Cable Companies pushing their luck? We can go back to 2018, when shortly after federal Net Neutrality was repealed Verizon throttled the data for firefighters while they were fighting wild fires. I guess Net Neutrality stifles the innovation of cable companies’ ability to help burn our planet to the ground.
And here’s a more recent one: Four cable companies, AT&T, Verizon, Earthlink, and CenturyLink, are currently charging the same price for Internet in different neighborhoods. Guess what though? The wealthier and more white neighborhood gets better service than the less wealthy, less white neighborhood less than 1/2 mile away. Big Cable is making it harder for poorer people to participate in remote learning, remote jobs, online commerce, basically everything in our lives we’ve come to rely on the Internet for, which, for better or worse, is a bunch. Oh, and this wasn’t just some fluke thing either. They’re doing this in over 30 cities across the country. Without enforced Net Neutrality, nothing’s really stopping them. Think it’s important yet? If so, let Congress know.