Goodbye Net Neutrality - Hello Net Discrimination
Well, it was a good idea.
Everyone, everywhere, regardless of your size or complexity, should have unfettered access to the Internet; everyone's packets should get treated the same way no matter who you are; the superhighway shouldn't get an HOV lane or a premium lane or levied a toll for crossing; the Internet should be a neutral place where anyone could get their foot in the door, to become the next Facebook, Apple, or Google.
Net Neutrality has been a long-standing idea behind the design and implementation and regulation of the Internet. Until now.
All that's about to change.
New changes in upcoming FCC regulation will allow ISP's (already fattened, regulated monopolies in this country) to charge for higher speed access to American consumers, effectively creating a fast lane for premium rate-payers.
That's bad news for small business who'll end up having to pay more to keep up with a premium "look and feel" as the larger companies who can afford the higher transfer rates.
It'll also keep downward pressure on startups and innovators who want to disrupt the ecosystem and dethrone the reigning content providers.
It's bad news for web design and developers who'll need to create tiers of design strategies based on the bandwidth budgets of their customers.
And it's bad news for the consumer who'll suffer through second-class speeds unless they browse to the websites of premium rate-payers. Let alone our Internet speeds suck. In Seoul and Stockholm, users are paying $25/month - 1/17th of the American price-tag - for gigabyte service: 100x faster than what we in the United States experience. The average Joe from South Korea flies out here and thinks we live in a 3rd world banana republic because our Internet connectivity is so bad. And with the recent Time Warner/Comcast merger, US consumer is left getting kicked in the ribs over and over again.
If the Internet is the emergent platform for innovation in business, commerce, medicine, engineering, biotechnology, nanotechnology, cloud computing, big data, research, and education, the FCC and SEC are doing their darnedest to keep the United States in a perpetual state of uncompetitiveness. Over time, greed and discrimination hurts everyone - even the greedy. Except it'll hurt our small businesses and our kids even more.
R
