Why should I care about net neutrality?

22.01.2018 2,258 11

Martin Pramatarov

Net neutrality is a super trendy topic right now. It doesn’t matter if you are living in The USA or another country, it can affect your access to information and if can seriously affect your pocket. But to truly understand why, let’s get right to its meaning.

What is net neutrality?

Net neutrality is a principle, a right that every user should have, to receive equal internet service. No artificial limits, put by the internet providers, that throttle your speed when you want to get a specific type of content, you want to open a particular website, or you want to use an application.

Who has an interest in removing it?

All the internet service providers (ISP) and big communication companies. By removing it, they can see extra money from the big brands to show their content with preference. It could be higher speed, better resolution or a higher limit on its the bandwidth cap. Big companies will be interested in it because they want to dominate the market, and this will force them to pay for these benefits.

How does the removing of the net neutrality affect the customers?

We already mentioned the big problems, but let’s focus on few examples:

• Limited information. Imagine you buy an internet package, but it includes just few news providers like Fox and Yahoo. You can’t access other websites so you can’t really see the whole picture from different sources, especially independent news providers with very low budgets.
• Slow speed. While the big brands will pay to the ISPs to show their content with faster speed, other websites, which doesn’t focus yet on your current market will get slowed down. If you live in the United States, you won’t be able to enjoy European or other international content with the same speed and quality as the one that paid for the traffic.
• It can make the choice of internet plans a nightmare. Do you prefer a “Communication package” with many GBs for Skype and Facebook or you want “Video streaming” with Netflix and YouTube? You might need to buy two or even more to satisfy your needs.

Don’t be ignorant and don’t bury your head under the ground. Living or not in the US, be conscious about the importance of the net neutrality. Removing It will severely limit your right to get free information from whatever source you prefer.