There is currently a motion in
Washington that could affect our generation the hardest. It is not on
healthcare or student loans or on issues in Syria: It is Internet access.
Company providers like Verizon and AT&T are trying to get around the Net
Neutrality Act that was based, an act that was supposed to have unrestricted
information sharing and services. You might be thinking “what’s the big deal?”
and the big deal is that these Internet providers could scrap services like
Netflix and Youtube if they wanted.
“Sohn said that if Verizon has its way, it and
other providers like Comcast or AT&T could “play favorites,” by blocking or
degrading services such as YouTube or Netflix to promote their own offerings or
that of their partners.”
This is a
huge deal with a huge debate. These companies could choke the services that we
value so much and replace them with their own, costlier versions. Of course,
the lawyers from these companies claim that they would create bundle packages
like the ones that exist for sports channels. The lawyers are also up in arms
about the fact the FCC does not have the legal authority to impede on them this
way. Congress approved the Open Internet bill, but that makes the providers
beholden to Congress alone, not the FCC. On top of that, they claim that the
price of broadband will be reduced, not increased, because the consumers will
not be buying the full subsidized cost of larger Internet services like Google
and YouTube.
I think
those lawyers are full on nonsense and that we would in fact see a greatly
reduced and discriminated against Internet through these providers and if not
for these providers, how will we get Internet?
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