Net Neutrality is the idea that internet providers will not block, slow down, or charge for certain websites or services. Some people argue that net neutrality hinders the rights of ISP’s (Internet Service Providers). It prevents them from charging sites that use more bandwidth, a.k.a the companies that are more popular and have more people visiting their sites everyday like Netflix and Facebook. The other side of this argument is that, without net neutrality, we as Internet users are at the will of the ISP’s; they have control over what websites we can access.
Before examining the topic, I was all for net neutrality and really did not understand the other side of this issue. In my research, I believe I have gained sympathy for this other side. One of the articles I read was “Net Neutrality Is Anything But ‘Neutral'”. While I found a lot of issues in this article, such as claiming that all bills ultimately do the opposite of what they claim to do, the analogy about toll roads made sense to me. The analogy compared ISP charging more for websites that use more bandwidth to tollroads charging more for semi trucks because they cause more wear and tear on the road. The laws enforcing net neutrality prevent ISPs from being able to charge more from these websites that use up more of their bandwidth. They argue that these laws are unfair to these companies.
While I do understand the pleas of the ISP’s, there are some issues with their argument. Along with being able to charge more for more bandwidth, this could lead to charging more for, or even preventing some websites for any number of reasons. Those in favor of net neutrality worry that this gives the ISP’s too much control over which sites succeed and which ones fail. The only argument against this is that these worries are “absurd”. Given the current political climate, I really don’t think anyone is in a position to say that their concerns are absurd, since so many absurd things have actually happened.
The pro net neutrality side of this issue worries that without these laws enforcing net neutrality, we are at the mercy of the ISP’s. We must trust that they will not prevent sites at their will. Or allow sites to pay them more in order to get more bandwidth. We as users have a certain expectation that we can access whatever sites we want to, regardless of which provider we are using. And as entrepreneurs, we should expect that everyone should be able to access our sites at their will. And we are now supposed to trust the ISP’s to ethically charge more only for more bandwidth. When in reality, this opens many more possibilities.
I understand now the issues with all the regulations with net neutrality. But I do not think that not regulating it at all is the solution. If there was a way to allow the ISP’s to charge more only based on bandwidth, this might make more people happy. But I do not know how to ensure that these increases in charges are solely for those reasons.
I do strongly believe that the Internet is a public service and fair access should be a basic right. And I believe that most people, at their core, agree with that. I do not trust a free market to not infringe upon this right. I believe there do need to be some regulations that prevent this, but maybe not as many as there are currently.