Imagine if, when you called up your local pizza place to order your favorite pizza, you suddenly got this message: "We're sorry, but as a tier 1 user of the phone company, you will have to wait several minutes before connecting to your local pizza delivery service. However, if you wish to order from Pizza Hut, press 1 now and we will connect you immediately."
Such a scenario coming along after so many years of having an open phone line where you can call any pizza place without discrimination would be intolerable, but it is very similar to the scenario that net neutrality legislation is trying to prevent. The reason why companies like Google are for net neutrality and on the same side as small web companies and individuals who do not want access to the web restricted is because they would have to pay extra money to the ISPs in order to allow users faster access to their site. It's not that they couldn't afford it, but having risen from a small idea to one of the most massive online enterprises as a result of the open internet, they realize that forcing producers of content to pay more money for faster content delivery to users will destroy the ability for start-ups to use the internet to grow.
The thing that I find really disturbing about what the ISPs want to do is that they are the middlemen of the internet. Creating a tiered internet will cost both the content producers and the content consumers money, while lining the pockets of the people who control access to that content. And I feel that since there are many more producers and consumers of Internet content than there are ISPs, the government needs to be working for us as individuals rather than helping big businesses line their pockets with more of our money. Because, in the end, we do not want an internet that looks like this:
(Image courtesy of a Something Awful photoshopper, linked to from Boing Boing )
3 comments:
Excellent points, I really enjoy your analogy and wholeheartedly agree about the fact that the government needs to work to protect the public interest from the greedy desires of ISPs.
Nice analogy! And more people would support netneutrality no doubt if it were explained in terms of pizza.
Yeah, I think this a great analogy for the issue and brings up a great point. Nobody would stand for having to wait a lot longer to connect on the phone just so they could order Dominos instead of Pizza Hut. That's why all the telephone companies are under the 'telecommunications' regulations--the same regulations as some ISPs. This helps keep it all neutral and equal access. If more ISPs are just classified as 'information services' or are allowed to stop being as neutral, we could have a similar problem as everyone having to eat Pizza Hut.
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