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Never
Mind the Death Knell
For much of this year, there’s been a simmering battle in
Congress and in geekdom over something called “net neutrality.”
It’s been a little frustrating to figure out what it’s about.
The explanations I’ve heard and read about net neutrality
have been pretty much incomprehensible. And to make matters
worse, the various sides of net-neutrality debate have been
issuing Chicken Little threats that have the sound of naked,
over-the-top hyperbole.
So I went to what’s become my main source of everything fact-wise,
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia made up entirely of volunteer
contributions, and was immediately presented with one of Wikipedia’s
shortcomings. The Wikipedia page for “net neutrality” had
a comment on the top that said “The neutrality of this article
is disputed,” apparently an allusion to a net-neutrality issue
of a different sort. Wow! This is what we in the irony business
call irony!
You see, whenever there is a current controversy about something,
it’ll usually be reflected in its Wikipedia entry. And there’s
a lot of controversy about net neutrality right now, thus
the Wikipedia page I found is a rambling, convoluted mess,
the result of geeks on all sides of the issue spewing geek-ese
at each other. There were lots of links, though, that allowed
me to read more-complicated stuff that got me further confused
and frustrated. But, what the hell. Here’s my report:
On one hand, how can one be against net neutrality? The Internet’s
great, it’s neutral (whatever that means), and it should stay
that way. Right? Then I learn that net neutrality requires
legislation, requires new regulations, which has resulted
in an anti-neutrality group calling itself “Hands Off the
Internet.” Which sounds pretty good, too, doesn’t it? Who
wants anybody’s hands on the Internet?
Then I saw Sen. Ted Stevens, who chairs the Senate Commerce
Committee, which deals with issues like this, arguing on TV
against net neutrality. What a freakin’ idiot. You can go
to YouTube and see and hear him; there’s even a couple cool
techno tunes based on Stevens’ incoherent, ignorant rant about
the Internet on the Senate floor. It occurs to me that as
a general matter, anything this boob is against, I tend to
be for, and so I figure I’ll be for net neutrality until I’m
strongly dissuaded otherwise.
As I understand it, proponents of net neutrality want to keep
the companies that sell access to the Web—mainly Internet-service
providers, cable companies, and telephone companies—from tinkering
with what is today universal and nondiscriminatory access
to the Internet. For the most part, everybody’s Internet today
is the same. But the access providers have been talking recently
about selling the equivalent of “fast-lane passes” for a premium
price to those who want the fastest Internet service. For
a fee, your Internet will be a lot better.
Which may not seem so bad at first glance, but a big fear
is that these providers will keep the fastest Internet service
for themselves. Your cable company delivers movies and broadband
Internet service. What happens if the cable company starts
delivering its movies faster than it allows any other companies
to deliver their movies? The consumer gets screwed, that’s
what. Already, there have been scattered reports of access
providers trying to block or hinder their customers access
to things like VoiP phones, which would compete with the provider’s
own phone service. Even more spooky are providers that decide
to block customer’s Internet access to certain Web sites that
are critical of the provider, or in one case, advocated for
the unionization of the provider’s employees.
Another fear is that only the biggest companies will be able
to afford the fastest service, which will then stamp out smaller,
slower competitors, leading to the Wal-Mart-ization of online
commerce, and along with it, the death of new and innovative
business models that a leveled Internet encourages. For example,
say Google could, for a fee, make its user-posted video service
go really fast. Google would do it, because Google has more
money than God. If I were Google, I’d do it. But it would
destroy less-funded upstarts like YouTube, if it couldn’t
afford the faster service.
The big telecom companies say two-tiered pricing is necessary
to pay for all of the infrastructure, and that bigger users
need to pay more. They say that new neutrality regulations
will destroy the Internet, because they won’t afford to build
it up anymore. Which is utter nonsense. First, the big telecom
companies have used the infrastructure ruse every time they’ve
wanted money or favors, and they usually grievously overplay
their hand. The Internet got built up so far with these premiums,
and everything I’ve read is that the Internet’s infrastructure
is currently being, if anything, hideously overbuilt. Second,
while big users ought to pay more because they use more, that’s
not the same as saying the big users then have a right to
go faster. They don’t.
Some net-neutrality proponents say that tiered pricing and
allowing access providers to tinker unbridled with Internet
access will be the death of the Internet. C’mon, get real.
It’ll still be there, and it’ll still be the Internet, it
just won’t be as cool or exciting. It won’t be as good, but
it certainly won’t be dead. So dudes, don’t insult our intelligence,
and get your rhetoric together. You’re not going to beat an
imbecile like Ted Stevens by sounding as crazy as he is.
—Paul
Rapp
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