Before Jan. 14th, millions of Americans had never heard about the concept of net neutrality.
Following a controversial court ruling last week, the concept of net neutrality could end if the Federal Communications Commission, also known as the FCC, does not appeal the ruling.
Although the laws behind ‘net neutrality’ are fairly complex, the Washington Post defines it as, “No Internet service provider (ISP) should be allowed to speed up, slow down or block Web traffic from getting to where you, the customer, want it to go.”
Basically, net neutrality and its proponents have prevented Internet providers from raising rates based on usage, similar to the way one is charged on water, electricity, or other utilities.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the policy of net neutrality was put in place to reduce the power of Internet providers to raise usage fees and slow Internet speeds.
The LA Times also added the decision to challenge Net Neutrality was made by a three-judge panel of U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. Such a ruling could give powerful Internet providers such as Verizon or Time Warner the ability to charge sites like Netflix and YouTube more for giving content to consumers.
Although the concept of net neutrality may interfere with the control of Internet providers, its intentions are very clear.
The hyper-commercialization would not be good for the hundreds of millions of Americans who depend on the Internet everyday.
It is not as if major Internet providers like Verizon are hurting for an increase in profit. Charging more could just ruin a public good and hurt the companies in the long run.
According to the Washington Post, many things could occur if net neutrality is permanently thrown out.
An Internet provider could charge consumers more to use sites such as Netflix. If an Internet provider doesn’t pass down the costs directly to consumers and instead opts to charge a fee to companies like Netflix, the increase in cost could come through higher subscription rates for sites like Netflix. This may result in Netflix losing subscribers and causing a negative effect in the economy in the long run.
Balancing the rights of Internet companies to charge for their services and the integrity of the Internet is what is at stake.
Let’s hope the FCC will appeal the court’s decision and keeps the Internet from being an over- priced, hyper-commercialized industry.