Net neutrality. No, it’s not some horribly obtuse academic concept. It IS something that can and may well fundamentally alter the Internet as we currently know it. It’s taken me awhile to get my head around this concept, because, like a lot of people, I can be hella lazy when I set my mind to it. Sean-Paul Kelly has written extensively about this looming threat (and it can only be accurately described as a threat, though not a life-and-death one….), and it’s an issue that deserves much wider attention from the Mainstream Media than it’s currently getting - which is to say none.
What, you might reasonably ask, is net neutrality? The short, simple version is that the Internet as it exists today is beyond the control of any one corporation or government. Sure, institutions like corporations or governments can tinker around the edges, but “control” of the Internet as a whole is not currently the purview of any instution.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time rehashing what Sean-Paul has already written, since y’all are intelligent enough to check it out for yourself. You could also go here for a primer on some of the issues involved in the debate over net neutrality. You can also check out Rep. Ed Markey’s (D-MA) contribution to the debate.
Since its inception, the Internet has represented an unprecedented free market of ideas, where the quality of a thought or innovation is more closely correlated to success than the money one pays to advertise it. Sure, there are groups that have dropped millions of dollars into websites in an effort to buy their way onto our computer screens, but if the dot-com crash in the late 90’s taught us anything, it was that in the end it is the new ideas and daring innovations that drive success on the Internet, not the amount of money spent promoting flashy but vapid websites.
Sadly, some of the communications colossi and their allies in Congress are trying to change this, with an ill-conceived provision in a new telecommunications bill proposed by Representatives Joe Barton (R-TX) that threatens to erect a toll booth on the information superhighway, permanently changing the fundamental nature of the Internet for the worst.
We tend to take for granted that the Internet is and always will be free and readily availlable. If we’re not careful, and if we’re not attentive, this reality could well change. It’s not that the Internet is about to go away, but we may soon face the reality of Internet architecture as a profit center for companies like AT&T (located, ironically enough, in Sean-Paul’s hometown of San Antonio). I’m just now beginning to delve into this issue, and I gotta tell you, the more I learn the more concerned I become. In the end, it’s all about the Benjamins, eh??
Oh, and by the way…Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) really IS the Devil.
