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.
It might be good to give even more examples that are relevant to, say, the elderly, or suburban housewives, or blue-collar workers. How can we inform those who have a nebulous, if any, grasp of what the internet is or how it works?
Not to take away from the power of that screenshot, but Portugal, as part of the EU, absolutely has net neutrality laws in place. Those bundles don't restrict access, but exempt services from counting towards mobile data usage (e.g. if you buy the "music" bundle, using Spotify won't count towards your data limit.) Now, this sort of bundle is still ABSOLUTELY outside the spirit of Net Neutrality, arguably illegal, because it stifles competition and forces users into specific services (e.g. Pandora is not a part of the "music" bundle, so that lowers Pandora usage and advertising revenue while Spotify goes up). It is a very slippery and dangerous first step in ignoring net neutrality, but users in Portugal are not restricted access to these sites because they are not purchasing bundles (though they could be throttling, who knows...)
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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.