Net Neutrality - And why it matters
Net neutrality is the fundamental idea that all internet traffic must be treated equally by your internet service provider(broadband or wireless). This idea may seem vague since its hard for us to quantify what internet traffic means but we can use analogies to get the core of the problem - and hopefully find a solution.
The simplest way of thinking about internet traffic is by drawing similarities with real traffic - the one you get stuck in, every day. Imagine you start of at your house - the internet browser and want to go to different locations, say website A and website B. In a world where net neutrality exists, the path to both these websites would be identical. This means that both roads would have the same length, width and speed limit and be subject to the same governmental regulations. This would mean that your choice of visiting either website A or website B would be based entirely on the experience you have once to reach your destination, an environment controlled entirely by the respective company. This eliminates any decision making based on the time you would take to reach the location and encourage companies to entice customers to use their service by providing better features and experiences.
However, this freedom goes out of the window when the path ways to get to a pair of competing companies are different. You leave home and going to website A takes 10 minutes while going to website B takes 40 minutes. In this situation, you might choose to go to website A even if the destination is worse, just because it takes less time to get there. This creates a situation where an objectively worse website gets more traffic just because the pathway has higher speed limits. This ultimately results in reduced market competition since a company has an unfair advantage.
But here's where thing get even more interesting. These metaphorical pathways are seldom controlled by the companies but rather by internet service providers. They can artificially alter the the length or speed limit of the pathways to maximize their profits. Imagine a situation where a website pays your ISP money to give preferential treatment to them, higher speed limits for example, over their competitors even though the smaller, less cash rich company might give a better experience.
This implies that money can not only buy your way to the top, but also sniffle competition. This is obviously dangerous since giant corporations can reach more customers and crush any upcoming startups.
Democracy, even on the internet, is one of the most important ideals to hold up and net neutrality in its very essence prevents the misuse of such prioritization. This is why its important and this is why you should care
The simplest way of thinking about internet traffic is by drawing similarities with real traffic - the one you get stuck in, every day. Imagine you start of at your house - the internet browser and want to go to different locations, say website A and website B. In a world where net neutrality exists, the path to both these websites would be identical. This means that both roads would have the same length, width and speed limit and be subject to the same governmental regulations. This would mean that your choice of visiting either website A or website B would be based entirely on the experience you have once to reach your destination, an environment controlled entirely by the respective company. This eliminates any decision making based on the time you would take to reach the location and encourage companies to entice customers to use their service by providing better features and experiences.
However, this freedom goes out of the window when the path ways to get to a pair of competing companies are different. You leave home and going to website A takes 10 minutes while going to website B takes 40 minutes. In this situation, you might choose to go to website A even if the destination is worse, just because it takes less time to get there. This creates a situation where an objectively worse website gets more traffic just because the pathway has higher speed limits. This ultimately results in reduced market competition since a company has an unfair advantage.
But here's where thing get even more interesting. These metaphorical pathways are seldom controlled by the companies but rather by internet service providers. They can artificially alter the the length or speed limit of the pathways to maximize their profits. Imagine a situation where a website pays your ISP money to give preferential treatment to them, higher speed limits for example, over their competitors even though the smaller, less cash rich company might give a better experience.
This implies that money can not only buy your way to the top, but also sniffle competition. This is obviously dangerous since giant corporations can reach more customers and crush any upcoming startups.
Democracy, even on the internet, is one of the most important ideals to hold up and net neutrality in its very essence prevents the misuse of such prioritization. This is why its important and this is why you should care
Comments
Post a Comment