Why net neutrality is important in this day and age of the internet!

Net neutrality is first of all a very misleading name for starters. The name suggests that its about keeping the internet neutral, meaning that the internet is equal for all. But, in reality its about giving the cable companies that provide internet for every household the power to dissect the internet highway into a fast lane and slow lane. There is really two sides to this eco system, the supplier the .com, .net, .org etc and the consumer, us. The cable companies are more like the facilitator that facilitates a platform for us and the internet companies to meet and do what ever we do on the internet, right from buying grocery to displaying our daily updates on social media. The cable companies have had us as their customers as long as they have been in existence. In the interest of its stock holders and stock holders only, the cable companies have come up with the great idea that they can also make the supplier , the Google, Bing, Netflix of the world as their customers as well. Like anything, to sell something you have to create a pricing structure and categorize your products into tiers that is loaded with features to be able to attract a wide range of audience. The cable companies will be able to slice and dice the internet highway so they can sell the fast lane to the highers payer.

Netflix, Hule, Amazon movies, are all bandwidth hogging services that stream videos that takes a huge chunk of the internet bandwidth. The cable companies want to charge more for those bandwidth hogging services who pay nothing more then someone who is maintaining a personal blog. The cable companies do have a valid point in their internet to charge more for someone like Netflix, because thy use more of the resources then that personal blogger. However, the slippery slope this opens up to is what the critics and a majority of the public is concerned. The reason Google was able to compete with Yahoo in its infant stages of development was because their was no tiered system like that the cable companies want to implement now with this Net Neutrality. The playing field was level and the then Google was able to put out a superior search results and the genera public gave it a voice and it became what it is today. For instance, say another start up company with competing ideas to Google gets started today. Under the proposed Net Neutrality laws Google would have the buying power to reach the general public faster then some start up company that wants to compete with Google and that would kill the aspiring company before it would have a chance. Speed is of essence in today’s world of internet, a second is what separates a visitor to move one from one website to its competing website. Wealthier websites have the purchasing power to buy bandwidth and not to wealthier ones will die before it would have a chance.

Wall street already has this kind of discrimination of the rich and the poor. The Wealthier investors get the first dibs in any hot IPO, then after what is left is sold to individual or lower denominator buyers. If net neutrality gets passed, it will be no different .