Net Neutrality

I don't particularly care for getting political, especially not on the internet.  I prefer to keep my mouth shut, because there really are no right answers, and you can't think of everything.  Someone, somewhere will present you with facts that could shut down your whole argument.  It's a maze of compromises, and it's a headache to get into.  But, there is something that's been in the news of late that is of political nature, and its something I feel very strongly about.  It looks like the FCC is going to get rid of net neutrality.

What is net neutrality?  Basically, what it means is that internet providers have to provide the same internet speed to all websites, no matter what the content.  Without it, providers can slow down connection speeds to whatever websites they wish.  Let's take a site like Netflix.  It takes a lot of bandwidth, and a lot of people use it.  With net neutrality in place, everyone can access Netflix freely, at whatever their connection speed is, and everything is fine with the world.  This irritates the providers, because Netflix eats up bandwidth and that is a bad thing, apparently.  Without net neutrality, providers can slow down people's connections to Netflix, which means less bandwidth is being used, but the user is less able to use the web.  Unless of course they're willing to pay more money, in which case the provider will be happy to give the user a nice, fast connection.  Don't forget, in order to even have the opportunity for people to use their site, Netflix has to pay money to the provider, which raises subscription costs.  So, internet users have to pay twice to get the same service they had before.

This whole thing reminds of modern-day gaming.  Back in the day, you paid money, you got a full, complete game and that was it.  Now, this is still the case sometimes, but unless the game was developed by Nintendo, it probably isn't.  Now, you buy a game for the same price, but it isn't the full game anymore.  It's playable, and you can finish the game, but unless you buy the twelve different DLC's that eventually come out, you're missing part of the story, and that's annoying.  What's basically happening is the gamer is paying for two games, but only getting the content of one game.  That same basic idea is what will happen without net neutrality.  You'll be paying for two internets, but only getting the content of the internet you had before.

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