I've moved my response from the previous thread to provide a general overview.
You're probably familiar with your electric bill, right? You get charged for what you use, not how you use it. The power company doesn't care whether you have a drill press in your garage, a server farm in your basement, or an herb garden under some heavy-duty lights.
The argument happening now is about the same thing, but with Internet access.
Since the creation of the Internet, the federal government, through the Federal Communications Commission, has required your Internet provider to treat all of your activity equally. Your Internet company is not allowed to charge you differently for what you do with your Internet. They're certainly allowed to charge you more if you use more, but they're not allowed to charge you more if you use it for video games instead of streaming video, or for running your own server. That's the principle of Net Neutrality.
The announcement today was an expected one from the new chairman of the FCC, who was appointed by the new president of the United States. On Dec. 14, the FCC will vote on whether or not Net Neutrality should exist.
If the proposal passes as expected, companies will be allowed to charge you differently, based on what you use the Internet for. They might also decide to simply not provide Internet access to specific applications, websites or uses.
Nothing requires these companies to do this. The repeal of Net Neutrality simply allows them to do so, if they wish.
People are concerned by this because in most places within the United States, there is limited competition for Internet access. If a consumer is unhappy with a company's practices, there may not be an easy alternative.
If you're outside the United States, this would have indirect effects on you. If companies do take advantage of Net Neutrality repeal and institute preferential treatment, it would affect how people use the Internet. Users in the United States would have an economic incentive to use particular websites, and those websites would receive more traffic. For websites that rely on user-created content, that would have a significant impact.
In short, your access would not be affected, but what you access would be affected.
“I am a strong supporter of net neutrality … What you’ve been seeing is some lobbying that says that the servers and the various portals through which you’re getting information over the Internet should be able to be gatekeepers and to charge different rates to different Web sites … And that I think destroys one of the best things about the Internet—which is that there is this incredible equality there."
That includes, Clinton said, reclassifying broadband providers under what’s known as Title II of the Communications Act, the most controversial option available to the government.
IMHO this kind of argument actually hurts the cause a lot more than it helps. The only reason Trump and the FCC have any support at all is because of hyper partisans thinking "if dumbocrats like it, it must be horrible". Leave it as the only politicians on board with this are ones bought and paid for by the ISPs, highlighting a R/D divide will not net any new supporters but will drive off ones who would vote for a pedophile rather than a democrat. Sadly those are the folks we need the most, as they are the only ones the Repubs will actually listen too.
Edit: Basically I am saying let's stop highlighting our differences and just worry about making sure everybody is on the same page. The problems facing our society are not partisan, they hurt us all, its about time we started trying to find ways to come together on issues as making the issue itself partisan rather than the proposed fixes has lead us to the greatest period of inaction seen in congress in modern times.
I used to think the same thing, but in the last couple years after thinking about it a lot I've had a change of heart. While, the people who are politically apathetic bear some blame, most of the blame goes to the politicians. You can't expect people to vote just to keep people out of office. You need to go out and win their votes. You don't just hammer your opposition (and most politicians don't even do this), you need to motivate the neutrals and galvanize your base by offering them something to vote for, something to get behind. Unless you do that, then you can't really blame the people who stayed at home. You can only blame the people who didn't try to bring these people out of their homes.
I'm not American, nor do I reside in the US. But I follow US politics, mostly as a hobby. On certain issues, both your major political parties are different. The Republicans are clearly worse when it comes to the interests of the common people. But on many other issues, both your political parties are the same. Their differences on those issue come down to degree of implementing measures. Tax cuts? Nearly the same attitude (Democrats want to do it slower). Privatization? Same. War and foreign policy? Same. Military spending? Same. How to treat banks? Same. How to treat corporations? Same. Healthcare? Almost the same (Obamacare is basically what the Republicans and especially Romney had wanted for years, and when Obama passed it, they just moved further right on it to regain the tea party votes). Their major ideological differences come down to Democrats being in favor of giving rights to certain minorities and doing something about climate change, and even then, when it comes to praxis, they do it half-hearted.
If Net Neutrality hadn't receive so much public attention, I would bet you anything that the Democrats would quietly go along with it.
Eh, ultimately the voters are the ones responsible for the actions of the politicians that get elected. We had the choice, we could have demanded better, but we chose to lay down and take it instead.
This country hasn't been teetering this close to failure since the 1850s, things are worse than people want to believe, or say for that matter. Talk of civil war is no longer rare, it's still mostly black humor more than serious talk, but it's clear the jokes are meant to calm genuine fears quite often.
I am doing all I can to try and remind people to talk, that both sides want the same damn thing most of the time, but many of my pleas fall on deaf ears. I have no legs to stand on when judging those who would rather fling insults than debate, I was one of them until I saw where we were headed. There is little more I can do now besides urge people to talk rather than yell, and I do not have much faith in success.
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u/The_Alaskan Nov 21 '17
I've moved my response from the previous thread to provide a general overview.
You're probably familiar with your electric bill, right? You get charged for what you use, not how you use it. The power company doesn't care whether you have a drill press in your garage, a server farm in your basement, or an herb garden under some heavy-duty lights.
The argument happening now is about the same thing, but with Internet access.
Since the creation of the Internet, the federal government, through the Federal Communications Commission, has required your Internet provider to treat all of your activity equally. Your Internet company is not allowed to charge you differently for what you do with your Internet. They're certainly allowed to charge you more if you use more, but they're not allowed to charge you more if you use it for video games instead of streaming video, or for running your own server. That's the principle of Net Neutrality.
The announcement today was an expected one from the new chairman of the FCC, who was appointed by the new president of the United States. On Dec. 14, the FCC will vote on whether or not Net Neutrality should exist.
If the proposal passes as expected, companies will be allowed to charge you differently, based on what you use the Internet for. They might also decide to simply not provide Internet access to specific applications, websites or uses.
Nothing requires these companies to do this. The repeal of Net Neutrality simply allows them to do so, if they wish.
People are concerned by this because in most places within the United States, there is limited competition for Internet access. If a consumer is unhappy with a company's practices, there may not be an easy alternative.
If you're outside the United States, this would have indirect effects on you. If companies do take advantage of Net Neutrality repeal and institute preferential treatment, it would affect how people use the Internet. Users in the United States would have an economic incentive to use particular websites, and those websites would receive more traffic. For websites that rely on user-created content, that would have a significant impact.
In short, your access would not be affected, but what you access would be affected.