Net Neutrality

I am not a lawyer, I am a computer scientist.  Therefore, I'm going to cut straight through all the BS regarding Net Neutrality. Unless you own a large amount of stock or are an executive in AT&T, Verizon, Cox, Charter, Comcast or other large Internet provider, then you benefit greatly from Net Neutrality.

On one side of the argument are large telecoms (such as Cox, Verizon, AT&T, Charter, etc) and on the other are content providers (Netflix, Google, HBO, CBS, Fox etc) and the public.

What the large telecoms are attempting to do is the equivalent of this:

The power company sends you a letter announcing that even though you are paying full price for electricity, some brands of appliance will be favored over others. So, if you use a GE or Whirlpool microwave you can have any power you want up to 1500 watts.  All other brands of microwave will be limited to 500 watts.

This is exactly what the telecoms are doing.  You are paying for the bandwidth, but they want to establish a bureaucracy that will require content providers to negotiate with the telecoms over how much access you will have to their content.  Youtube, Netflix, HBO, CBS, FOX and many more giant content providers will be forced to make deals with each telecom separately in order for their customers to be able to get full access to their content.  Small providers, without an army of lawyers already on the payroll will be left out and you won't have access to their content or have access at speeds equivalent to dial up.

Remember, that the telecom customers are paying for the bandwidth but the telecoms are deciding how it is used.

Now, there is a ton of legalize out there explaining why this is a good idea. Terms like "encouraging innovation" and "free market" are tossed about.  This is just nonsense.  There is no way that allowing giant corporations to decide what content people have access to is going to encourage anything except for the profits of giant corporations.

Also, I've heard that Net Neutrality must be bad because it will create a huge "government bureaucracy." This is nonsense.  The FCC already exists and the rules for Net Neutrality are simple: you are not allowed to favor one content provider with more bandwidth than any other. On the other hand, what the telecoms are proposing creates a large, confusing corporate bureaucracy. Each content provider would have to negotiate a maze of deals with every Internet provider in order to reach customers. This could be overcome by Netflix and other large providers, but what about a small startup with a killer idea? They would just be trying to reach out and create a customer base and would have no chance to get started.