#protecttheweb

[marsnmango]

It got personal when my porn was threatened.

[marsnmango]

While net neutrality is awesome and shouldn't go away: No one is putting forth that the different companies wouldn't fight each other to undercut prices. Unless you want to believe there's a huge conspiracy between every ISP in the country to plunder their customer's pockets.

I agree! Not every ISP is evil, and I don’t think there’s a secret ISP cult out there trying to swipe our $$$$$. But I don’t feel comfortable banking on the moral integrity of big corporations. 

‘Competition’ also seems to be deficient in the states, due to the fact that cities/communities/towns (etc) with a smaller population are likely to have fewer ISPs available. Those who live in bustling, urbanized areas (like NYC or Sac) are less likely to have this issue! But in places where there are fewer ISPs available, it could potentially be an issue to such a degree where undercutting prices isn’t even effective. 

For example: (sorry, I know this is getting long; bear with me) 

X, Y & Z are ISPs localized to a single suburban community. X provides that fastest internet with the most assets, but the price is unreasonable. Y is less so, but the consumer in question can’t afford that, either. However! ISP Z (a locally owned business) is completely willing to sell its service at a reasonable price. …Assuming that it 1. hasn’t already been bought out by ISP X or Y 2. is capable of providing the same amount of bandwidth while remaining sustainable as a business3. is even accessible. The only thing stopping its competitors from putting its website/online resources/etc into a choke-hold is integrity: something that is a lot less definitive than a law. Anyway, thank you for your question! I’ve been meaning to address this.