I remember a day a while back when I casually asked my roommates what they thought of net neutrality. They replied that it was “Obamacare for the internet”, and I stared at them like they had told me “bats and elephants are cousins because they both fly using flaps of skin.” Let me explain. Net neutrality is the principle that all data on the internet should be available at the same speed. That principle is complicated by there being two sides to every connection. There is the speed of the site or server connecting to your internet service provider, or ISP, and then “your connection speed”, which is the speed that your computer connects to your ISP. This typically is determined by the speed included in the plan that you select from your ISP. The principle of net neutrality says, “All ISPs should connect with all sites/servers at the same speed, regardless of content or publisher”. That means the only variable is “your connection speed”. So, if all servers connect to all ISPs at 10 gb/s (that’s 10,000 mb/s) and the speed you pay is 300 mb/s. You see the site or service at 300 mb/s. Without net neutrality, if your ISP suddenly decides that it wants more money from Netflix it can throttle the connection to Netflix down to 10 mb/s. Your same 300 mb/s connection then allows you to watch movies at a speed of …10 mb/s, despite you paying for 300 mb/s, because “the ISP said so”.
Let’s look at this another way. Let’s say all websites and servers are books in a library. The rate you drive there and the time you spend deciding what to check out are all controlled by you (your connection speed). So, you go to the library and decide to check out a book. “I’m sorry,” says the librarian (your ISP), “the author of that book has not paid for premium access. It may only be checked out once a week.” The book is available, you know it is on the shelf, but a disagreement between author and library has kept it from you. This is the problem addressed by the principle of net neutrality. What’s more, net neutrality has been a fundamental and essential principle of the internet both in concept and function since its inception. So, now compare that to a health insurance bill that changes almost everything about an established industry…yep, bats and elephants.
Let’s try another comparison. This time our website/server is a merchant. Our ISP is the market owner who rents out stalls. When you go to the market, your subscription determines the size of your cart. Because you enjoy the items the merchant has to offer, you pay to expand your cart from being able to hold 3 items to 10 items. In normal operation, the merchant packs as many of his wares on the stall counter as he can fit, and you are free to take as much as you can fit in your cart (10 items). One day, Mr. ISP realizes that if he controls the rate of sales, he can charge both the merchant and the customer. The next time you come to his stall, the merchant still has a full counter, but says he is “only allowed to sell you 3 items per cart.” Your cart can hold 10, but because of the new rule, each cart only gets 3.
This concern becomes even more tangible when we examine the problem of censorship. Consider this: If Google were to load considerably slower than other search engines, would you continue to use it? If the website where Congress posts all upcoming/passed bills, as required by current transparency laws, had significant load time between pages, would you and others be more, or less likely to take advantage of the information the website is intended to provide? Imagine if your ISP could boycott an author, business, organization or group and by doing so deny you the right and capability to access it. When examining privacy and First Amendment issues, it is essential to look beyond a just, ideal, or current administration and question with what outcome the worst abuses of those issues could result. Remember, just because you trust the current pilot, does not mean the next one will fly using the same ethics.
The loss of net neutrality hurts everyone except the ISPs. Please inform yourself before repeating talking points and catch phrases. If we aren’t careful, we could end up supporting, in a best-case scenario, censorship, and in the worst, a police state.