The Net Neutrality Truth

Choices are a staple of American life. You can choose where you want to live, where you want to work, where you want to eat, what you want to eat, what you want to wear, what you want to drive, how much you want to spend, who you want picking up your garbage. Choice is freedom. Choice allows us to make our own decisions that make us feel good about what we are doing and how we are living.

Now imagine those choices are all taken away. You are told where you will live, where you must work, where you will eat, what you will eat, what you will wear, what you will drive, what you will spend, who will pick up your garbage. This doesn't appeal to you does it? If it does then by all means support Net Neutrality because by supporting Net Neutrality this is what you are going to get.

We are told that Net Neutrality will level the playing field on the internet. How? By making access costs the same? By making internet speed access the same? By forcing companies with information they want to share charge the same amount as all the other companies providing similar services that may or may not have the same level of quality? By forcing gaming companies to charge the same for games that may or may not be as advanced as another company's game? Or how about streaming audio and video should "Joe the Mechanic's-How to change a Tire" get paid the same as the "Blockbuster of the Year Movie"?. Perhaps everything should be the same but let me pose a question. Do you think you should do more than your co-worker yet get paid the same?

Imagine that. Everything cost the same to access. Everyone is paid the same. This is what will happen if Net Neutrality becomes law of the land. Development companies will not be able to afford to run the equipment or pay employees to maintain and develop content. A web site for their database of information they make available may use more bandwidth than another company providing lesser quality data. Or the games company's developed are all the same because developing something better is cost prohibitive. Or video streaming sites will not be able to afford the cost of bandwidth needed to smoothly broadcast their streams to accommodate the people wanting to view their streams and the receivers of the streams will become frustrated because of the throttled streaming bandwidth which makes the videos choppy and difficult to watch. Companies that want to introduce new technologies will have to wait for government review and approval. Is this what your want?

The internet provides you with many choices. If you want to play a game you can go to a website and play a game. Some games are free, they are not all that great and not really worth paying for but they help pass the time and some are kind of interesting . Then there are the "in-demand" games. These "in-demand" games require a monthly fee. If Net Neutrality is enacted that "free game" will cost the same as the "in-demand" game. "Why do I have to pay a fee, shouldn't it be free like everything else?" You ask? Well fees pay for hardware, software, domain name registration, technicians who keep the software and equipment up-to-date have to be paid because they won't work for free. Fees pay for programmers to develop the applications, services, and technologies made available on the internet because the aren't going to work for free either. If everyone who has access to the internet is paying the same fee there will not be enough fee revenue to spread around to all the different websites, developers, and companies that host web sites. There won't be an incentive to innovate or make anything of higher quality that the next company or person. You start to see a decrease in the availability of choices on the internet. You start to see anything worth spending time reading or listening to or watching because the quality is only as good as good as what is being paid for. Government regulations and approval processes will limit technological development because whenever the government is involved in any project not only is the process slowed to a crawl but in many cases completely killed due to regulatory concerns. Things get tied up in the legal system and it takes years to come to a consensus. People wanting to make money and expand technology will not want to sit around waiting for government decisions and approvals. They will lose interest and in turn potential users my lose out on a possibly great product. Net Neutrality is not good for the internet, the job market, hardware technology, or innovation.

One more example why Net Neutrality is such a losing proposition. Suppose you are a car enthusiast. You love the new Lamborghini and you can afford to pay the outrageous price for the car but "Car Neutrality" has been passed and the new Lamborghini is no longer available because the company cannot build this fine machine and sell it for the lower price that "Car Neutrality" requires it be sold for. The removal of that beautiful Lambroghini from the market due to prohibitive manufacturing costs has forced you must buy what is availble buy; that might be a Toyota Prius or a Chevy Volt or a moped. Do you see the problem yet?

In conclusion Net Neutrality is not the panacea but the festering cancer waiting to limit technological advances on the internet. Don't be fooled into thinking that paying the same price for internet access that everyone else pays will make everything fair and better; the only thing this policy will do is destroy innovation, technological advancement and turn the internet into a useless censored controlled medium no one will want to use. Net Neutrality is not a good idea.