Opening a can of worms

As I read through the reading regarding net neutrality I felt like I was running through a labyrinth. First, definitions of net neutrality were similar but yet different. It is like trying to define what is meant by communication. It means different things to different people. I felt dizzy after reading the arguments for and against. However, a few themes came through, money, regulation and monopoly.


In the end, I came away with a few things. Net neutrality really wasn’t about freedom or free trade to the corporations but it was all about money. Nobody wants regulation because who wants rules? They only restrict us from doing whatever we want. Monopolies hurt us in the end. As a watch corporations like AIG get bailed out by the government, I see how monopolies can hurt. Here is a corporation that grew large enough that it carried enough weight in our economy to get a "pass" when its business failed. In support of its greed, after receiving a bailout loan from the government, AIG flexed its “Teflon” muscles and blew a considerable amount of that money on a spa retreat for bigwigs and then spent more on executive payouts. So who really makes the rules when colossal entities are players? Corporations want a competitive market but in order to get large, they seek to kill their competition.


The current debate:
The most common theme for the definition of net neutrality was freedom and equality. Freedom for users’ access and equality for Internet services and service providers were the main arguments. However, many issues clouded the arguments, which is what typically happens when lines are drawn. Rock stars and corporations argued “on behalf” of users saying that users have a right to visit the websites that they want at equal speeds and levels of accessibility regardless of content. Internet service providers argued that in order to foster a competitive environment, there needed to be platforms and levels of access that came with pricing structures in order to keep internet technologies on an evolutionary path. A plethora of “what ifs” ensued, primarily in fear of regulation. Analogies (which in my mind tend to cloud the issues) also emerged; users (computers) were even equated to toasters and irons!


Whose interests are at stake and what are they?
Herein lays the problem. Who can speak on behalf of others? Aren’t the rock stars who argued against file sharing of their music a bit hypocritical when they argue that the internet should be free and without regulation? (Don’t they mean as long as it doesn’t affect us?) Do they have the right to speak on behalf of all users?


Do corporations have a right to say “it isn’t fair to our users” when what they really fear is loss of profitability? Internet service providers have to make money to stay afloat just like everyone else but they want more than just business funding. They argue that in order to keep technology moving, which would allow them to improve their services, they need to make more money and be in a competitive market. Again, they are not just there to provide a service to customers; they are there to make money.


A few years ago, we had a rainy summer and people were not watering lawns nor were they using as much public water. The public was shocked when the water authority said they had to raise rates. There was a simple misunderstanding of the basic principle. Water is not entirely free; money is needed to run any and all businesses. If people were not using as much water, not as much money was coming in. The water authority wasn’t looking for profit, they were low on funding. So why do I tell this story? Well at the same time, the bottled water industry was surging. People were also using less public water for drinking and a twinkle of panic started the notion that we could stand to lose our public (“free”) water supply to a “water for profit” industry. Could we lose internet freedom to an internet for profit industry?


Support or oppose and why?

I am not really in support of net neutrality because I am in favor of some regulation. What would happen to our society if we had no laws and people could do whatever they wanted? On the flip side, what would happen if our government had complete control? Neither is good.


What has bled into the net neutrality argument is regulation of the internet (not just access to it.) It has moved away from speed and freedom to that speed to regulation of the places we go. Without any regulation in our society, it would surely fail. Since the internet is becoming a larger and larger part of our society, it should be regulated as well. The Wikipedia reading says it all, “network neutrality regulations threaten to set a precedent for even more intrusive regulation of the Internet.” We fear too much regulation.


I don’t know what the answer is but I know that all things objectionable will never be removed from the internet. However, we need to return to the notion of Web 2.0 technologies. That is the real beauty of the internet. Perhaps the net needs to be split in the way that radio was split between public and satellite radio? Maybe the best route is to have separate internets? Is that even possible? Users and corporations alike have to remember that every freedom comes with a price.