Oh there goes gravity, back to Net Neutrality!
Oh joyous day today all my Net Neutrality Normalizers! Hopefully your day has gone as supercalifragilistic as mine just turned…I cannot think of a better subject to cover today than of an FCC ruling that was taken away by former FCC chairman Agit Pai <insert Agit Pai meme here, you know the one!> and which will restore the tables of power to a more even playfield on the internet….oh huzzah, huzzah…what a happy day!
As always, let’s start with a quick history of Net Neutrality!
Way way back when Doc Holligray was a young gunslinger… He discovered the Interwebs.
<dun dun dun dun>
Doc Holligray was lucky enough to have used the purest form of Internet…the one before it was released to the public. This utopian version of the Internet was truly amazing. People actually cared about the veracity of what they wrote. God forbid something was incorrect, you were corrected by everyone, and you had the humility to fix your post. One could trust all of the data that was posted.
I honestly had hope for the future… Suddenly data was democratized. It was no longer protected behind ivory towers. I foolishly dreamed of a future where the Internet would be used for good. That everyone could get educated regardless of economic status. That this would be the tool that would bring in a new age of prosperity and enlightenment to all of humanity.
Hahahahhahahahahahajajjajajajajajajjaalololololololz!
Oh man, I almost coughed up a lung on that one.
If I was ever wrong on anything, it was definitely that. I would’ve bet everything that I had and would have lost it all because when the internet's flood gates were opened to everyone, the tool that I had infinite hopes of making the world better… Well, it was turned into a tool that made everything so, so, so much worse. Today we see lies propagated and a corporatized internet where the rich control many aspects of what Tim Berners Lee created for us.
Back then, the rules for the Internet were not necessarily codified. There were many unspoken rules. Unbreakable rules. Rules based off of honor and truth. The rule I described above was one of them… Make sure your data was correct. Make sure your data was truth. Another one of those unspoken rules was something called Net Neutrality.
Net neutrality was a simple concept, all traffic would be treated equal. According to the oxford dictionary, the definition is:
The principle that internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites.
Net neutrality was an equalizing force. Net neutrality meant that a small rising upstart company would have access to the same amount of customers as a very large established Company. Traffic from large companies would not be prioritized over traffic from smaller companies. This Particular unspoken rule of the Internet lead to many advancements that would never have been able to see the light of day given the previous paradigm.
<Cue the heroic lighting and intro song>
A young Skype was the tool that tested the first challenge of net neutrality. AT&T and Verizon (as well as many other carriers) famously hated Skype because it attacked their business model directly. Back then voice carriers could charge whatever it is that they wanted… And God forbid you actually traveled internationally. Somehow you were paying five to $10 per minute of talk time, when the same technology that Skype was using… So we’re all the carriers.
The carriers shamelessly wanted to benefit from the advancements of the Internet and all of the global networking that was happening… But they did not want to pass on the savings to the customer. After all of their other attacks failed against Skype, they attacked a rule that had not been codified yet, Net Neutrality!
<dun dun dun>
Luckily, for us net neutrality was upheld! Yay non-politicized FCC! This allows the proliferation of all of the voice communication technologies we benefit from today(amongst other things). While Skypes popularity died, many many many others stepped in to take its place. The fact that you’re able to use WhatsApp, teams, zoom, whatever uses voice over the Internet is due to the brave judiciary that had not been poisoned by politics yet. Fighting for net neutrality 100% helped us as consumers create a whole new landscape of Communications based on the Internet.
The world was looking up… Obama had even made a ruling through the FCC to keep net neutrality in place. Oh huzzah and happy day x2. Not only had one of the bulwarks of what made Internet great been defended, now we have it codified and made into a rule that one hoped would never be usurped.
Doc Holligray Drank two sarsaparillas that day! He was so drunk with Joy that he completely missed the storm clouds that were brewing.
Fast-forward 8 years, somehow net neutrality had become political! We Had sleepwalked into a new age… an age where fighting for a cause was not the only thing people fought for. it had become more fashionable to fight against your enemies cause! Gone were the days of win-win…In were the days were one could only feel they won if the other person lost.
Long story short, because Obama protected the unwritten rule that created the Internet… The new cowboy in town made it a goal to destroy it!
<insert cacophony of boos here>
Enter the black hat, Ajit Pai. The new chairman of the FCC took was given new orders from the new sheriff in town: To destroy net neutrality. Having worked for Verizon, he did the one thing that Verizon failed to do many years ago… Destroyed net neutrality.
He repealed the protection that Obama had put into place to protect net neutrality… I am not saying that this act was done in bad faith, but I am saying that this act would be worth billions to large corporations.
The dark clouds over the Internet were here… and it seems like they were here to stay.
Fast forward to April 25, 2024. Doc Holligray wakes up to a sound of the internet he had not heard for ages…the chirping of a bird after a torrential rainfall. The sound of happiness and rainbows...the FCC under the NEW NEW sheriff in town returned to US consumers Net neutrality!
No longer could companies slow down the internet for some and have preferred network paths for the rich. The new new sheriff in town had overturned the previous evil ruling and we now finally have our fair and balanced internet, just like it was created and just like Tim Berners Lee had wished it to be!
While I am sure that the evil black hat will try and overturn this just ruling, I am happy that today and for the near future that we will have a powerful tool working for us...Net Neutrality for all, Net neutrality forever!