Are you paying a dollar and ninety-nine cents just to search and receive information on Google? Or three dollars just to watch a video on Youtube when you just paid the wifi and cable bill? If the government gets rid of net neutrality, this is what the citizens of United States will have to pay in order to use the internet each time. Although we pay a monthly bill to the internet providers for the usage of wifi, you will have to pay an additional charge per search. However, there are ways you can prevent this from happening such as protesting or even boycotting. Before explaining and going into further details, it’s important to know the start of it, what the problem is and what the solutions is for the problem.
Net neutrality is a principle that stops the Internet service providers from blocking certain products or websites but still allows you to access the internet for no extra fee. Before net neutrality received its name, it was previously called The Communications Act of 1934 for many years (Chan). The name net neutrality was created from law professor Tim Wu but was not established until 2003 (Chan). It has been a debate topic for over 25 years but was passed by former president Barack Obama in the year of 2014 (Chan). He ruled for the classification of the Internet as a utility and proposes that ISPs have a legal obligation not to block or limit a user's access to a website (Chan).
In January 2017, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and president Donald Trump selected Ajit Pai to be the new chairman (Selyukh). After being in office for only a couple of months, he shared his thoughts on how he strongly believed in having free and open internet however, not as a regulator but as a consumer (Selyukh). Â At that moment in time, the debate about net neutrality has invigorated (Khan). Leading to where there has been a huge voting in late November 2017, whether or not the internet will charge you per search or to leave it as it is (Khan). Unfortunately, there was a 3-2 voting indicating the repeal for net neutrality protections has been defeated (Khan).
The problem about this is that the internet has been around for many years and now in society, the usage of technology and internet has increased tremendously. Everything, including fast food restaurants, has some type of technology or electronic gadget involved such as cash registers, apps to pre-order food, computer systems, and etc. This procedure makes a company run more smoothly and efficient and will also decrease the paperwork.
Social media is where people market their businesses, contact with family members across the country, and also a place for people to express their feelings. If media corporations and their government enablers have their way, the space you rely on for communication, for organizing, for the ability to hear from folks who are not bought and paid for by big business will disappear(Jackson). Due to the fact that, this is their marketing place. Companies are realizing how much their business will decrease. The Internet of Everything (IoE) is having an enormous impact on business. Companies that are more harnessing the power of IoE are excited to realize that it will impact their overall business strategy, not just their technology. (Wired.com)
The chances of making the internet an utility bill is at a high percentage but it will be extremely bad for consumers. Mainly because, public utilities don’t serve consumers (Downes). The cozy relationship between regulated industries and their regulators — their true customer, not us lowly rate payers — invariably leads to competitive inertia, corruption and deteriorating facilities (Downes). Reasons behind charging additional fees is because America needs $3.6 trillion just to repair the utility (Downes). However, this will not gain money, it will only lose money. Meaning less people will use the internet because of the prices and their income. Which explains why it will not serve the consumers.
I can further this argument by also saying, it will take a dip in the education system. Mainly because, majority of schools rely on technology for things such as typing papers, online homework, Youtube videos, powerpoints and etc. This will also affect some Americans’ jobs, especially technicians and IT technicians as far as the payroll. The pay will definitely decrease and may result in some people losing their jobs because they can’t afford that many workers. Which will put the government more in debt than what they’re in now. Â The society will be different from that day forward and as stated before, because in the grand scheme of things, everything revolves around technology/internet in some way.
Not only will this affect America, it will also affect me personally. I say this because, I was surrounded by technology and internet for 18 years so I am now accustomed to using the internet without any additional charges. This will be a dramatic change for me and also my generation. It’s been said that the generation that’s more associated with smartphones and communications technology is Generation Z (Downes). Which starts in the year of 1996 and ranges from ages five to nineteen. So to completely disrupt and or eliminate free internet searches would be detrimental to the educational health of that age group alone, and that doesn't include the many others.
From my knowledge, I know there also have been numerous examples where forms of internet provider bullying have already been displayed. In certain examples of these where it has been called throttling internet providers have slowed down or blocked their customers from visiting internet or using certain app functions. Some companies that have been accused of this were Verizon, Comcast, and also At&t. Comcast were accused of slowing services of applications for file sharing. Verizon wireless slowed their customer's Netflix and YouTube viewings. And another example amongst others, At&t limited customer access to FaceTime. Often than less, companies like those mentioned above, come up with an excuse that they are conducting network testing when confronted about these issues. Because network testing falls under network management, which is allowed by government, incidents like this go approved, without much consequence.
Net neutrality has been a democracy for the internet since we have been  introduced to it (Graves). Although in my opinion, the pros outweigh the cons. There is a list of debatable cons the other side argues. I strongly feel the pros outweigh the cons and stand for net neutrality. Some cons the opposing side have mentioned have been as followed. Some state that net neutrality provides enormous amounts of information with no compensation. Meaning in their opinion, people should pay for data given on a regular basis.
Another con stated has been because of limited income from internet services, infrastructure maintenance and improvements are limited. Simply stated that making consumers pay more would increase funds for advancement of the internet’s infrastructure . Also a con net neutrality opposers have used to their advantage is the claim that net neutrality allows for offensive or questionable content to be readily available on the internet. The claim here is that although there's already ways for consumers to block content they don't want to see, the argument is that filters would help to block the information before it even reached the consumer.
In rebutting of the cons, there's the pros to net neutrality. First being, it keeps down the cost of the consumer. Especially with an example of non neutral net being that a person who only uses the net for one hour a week to do something as simple as check their email, would automatically have to pay a set amount, and that set amount would be the same as a person who uses the internet daily for a numerous amount of hours per week. Another major pro, that outweighs the cons is that the internet providers can't discriminate or favor a certain demographic or content. It keeps the power in the peoples hands for what they choose to see, hear or be exposed to. In a sense non net neutrality takes away from freedom of speech and being the land of the free period, and gives that freedom in the sense of the web to big fish internet companies.
There has been protests against this that are still happening today and there is still time to save the internet. Even if we do lose the protest or the second voting, we can always boycott which will really open the government’s eyes. Not only is the people's creativity and art at stake, but also the livelihood and employment of many. This idea should be looked at from each angle and thoroughly magnified before such a huge decision that would affect millions is made.
