Net Neutrality : What it means and why you should be concerned

When we go online to surf the web, we expect to have access to any website we want without any limitations. We know that the cable company or our ISP (Internet Service Provider) wont mess with the content we choose to surf and allow us to freely connect to websites and any sort of content we wish to explore. We expect to be in control of our internet experience without any sort of shackles on our surfing capacity. We expect Net Neutrality.
Net Neutrality is the basic principle that the internet should be free from any sort of tampering by our ISP's from blocking content, slowing or speeding up websites and content we wish to access. All ISP's must treat its users by not discriminating and charging differently according to different users, websites, platform, application , specific content etc.

Due to certain opinions against Net Neutrality, some governments across the world have or had started to treat the internet as a public utility service, like water, electricity , gas are regulated. They started to thus regulate broadband internet services along with limiting the providers.

Supporters of Net Neutrality, such as in the USA want to designate the ISP's in a manner such that they would allow free access to the internet without being able to block, interrupt or screen content that the users wish to access without a court order. The telecommunications companies have been accused for having the power to control which websites load faster, which load slower and which dont load at all.

Cartoon by Rob Rogers, The Pittsburgh Post-Gaztte

Another opinion in favour of Net Neutrality argues that banning Net Neutrality would mean an infringement on the freedom of speech of the people. In other words, banning Net Neutrality is against the democratic notion of allowing people to freely put forward their arguments in favour of their rights. Giving telecommunication companies the power to regulate the internet, gives them the power to filter public opinion.

When the public gets used to something faster and speedy they would never want to go back to something which is slower and time consuming. In this context, if you are used to a fast internet experience, you would never want to have a slow connection. A study was carried out by S.S Krishnan & Ramesh Sitaraman of adaptation of speed among online video users. The result showed that those used to higher internet speeds had very low tolerance and abandoned their videos faster than what an average speed or a slow speed internet user would do. This would mean video-streaming companies such as Youtube, Netflix, Vimeo will be severly harmed as their number of users would go down.

Giving telecommunication companies the power to regulate our internet experience can have drastic effects. If certain governments decide to become authoritarian and hamper the public opinion, they would simply be able to do so by ordering the telecommunication companies to carry out the restrictions.
Without Net Neutrality the internet will undergo a certain transformation which from a platform which allows innovation to a platform which favours the market and deal making. The internet shall transform into a platform similar to cable TV, where handful of monopolistic companies control the distribution distribution of content, even though multiple providers are present. These companies can then control what is seen and how much it should cost.

JoeBakal, Shutterstock
https://www.shutterstock.com/g/joebakal

The majority of the successful startups in the internet realm started with handful of capital but a great idea. They were able to build their network and gather following because of Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality permitted these great innovators to further develop their ideas. Without Net Neutrality, the network owners may be able to block such competition. Mark Zuckerberg would still be in his dorm at Harvard with no freedom to spread the idea of Facebook!
The internet must follow an end to end principle, that is, all content should be treated as equal and move at the same speed. This end to end aspect would allow the internet to act an efficient social and economic good.

In the US, on 14th December 2017 the FCC (The Federal Communications Commission) voted to repel Net Neutrality. If you are an US resident then you should know that the Congress has to power to reverse the FCC's vote. Websites such as https://www.battleforthenet.com/ and https://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-what-you-need-know-now will provide you with much better information.
To know more, check out 'Last Week Tonight' John Oliver explain Net Neutrality.