Net Neutrality 101: Why It Matters

It’s January 2018, after the apocalypse of the Internet. In this world, it took about 5 minutes for this article to load before you were able to read this. You can’t access Facebook or Twitter; you’ll have to pay an additional fee to access certain websites. Developers of your favorite sites pay extra to avoid their sites being blocked by your ISP, but there are small-time sites with less revenue that can’t make it. Vimeo is taking longer to load because YouTube is paying your Internet Service Provider to run their site more quickly to drive up traffic. You also have to pay extra to download anything, including your Spotify or Apple playlists and all of your favorite podcasts. Same goes for any MMORPG’s you wanted to play… [divider type=”space_thin”] You also can’t use PayPal because Comcast has a deal with another payment service. What’s worse, you HAVE TO USE BING. Because Bing is paying your ISP to slow down Google. Bing!!! [divider type=”space_thin”] This is the dystopia we face if we lose the battle for net neutrality. Here’s what’s going on: The Federal Communications Commission is the entity that oversees the regulation of interstate communication including television, radio, satellite, and cable. This agency, which prides itself on promoting competition in an open market, encouraging innovation, and revising regulations for new technology to bloom, has been proposing for years to end net neutrality, and thus ending its opportunity to be able to do its job. But what ex…