President Barack Obama weighed in Monday in a fight between some of the giants in online communication. He took the right side. While most Americans own neither cable companies nor firms like Netflix, all do have an interest in keeping the Internet open and unrestricted.
The basic idea behind what is called net neutrality is that everyone with an Internet connection should have the same access to all legal online content. In this view, the information superhighway would function much like a regular highway, where anyone with a car can travel at the same speed.
The alternative is called “paid prioritization” by its supporters and “Internet fast lanes” by foes. In that situation, cable companies and other Internet providers could grant fast access to users of some websites, but make others slower.
The reason could be commercial. Imagine a situation in which Amazon buys a cable company and all of a sudden, Barnes & Noble’s website takes forever to load. (Amazon is actually a supporter of net neutrality.) Or it could be political. Maybe if Michael Bloomberg owned an Internet provider, its subscribers would have a tough time getting to the National Rifle Association’s website. Or, substitute the Koch brothers and Obama.
What net neutrality is not matters as well. It is not an federal overreach, and it is not an attempt to impose new or costly regulations.
Net neutrality was largely recognized as an organizing principle as the Internet developed. And in 2010, the Federal Communications Commission adopted it as a rule. In January, however, a federal court struck down those guidelines saying the FCC had no such authority. What Obama is specifically asking for is an FCC determination that broadband Internet is a utility, which would the allow the commission to reinstate its open Internet rules.
Net neutrality is also not the only issue involved. For most Americans, the more basic concern is Internet access in itself. The United States lags behind many developed nations in the availability of high-speed Internet access and in how we define high speed. Net neutrality does nothing to address that.
Nor does net neutrality speak to the ever-changing way we use the online world. While the ways Internet providers could abuse the ability to “fast lane” favored sites or business partners concerns users, the cable companies’ immediate issues are with video services such as Netflix or Hulu. Those not only pose a challenge as bandwidth hogs, they directly compete with cable companies’ basic product.
Netflix has 37 million U.S. subscribers. And the idea that it, and sites like it, could effectively crowd out other services is a legitimate question.
But the problems posed by Netflix and the like will not be solved by scrapping net neutrality. What that will need is some technological advance or rewiring America. If the slogan in the 1930s was “a chicken in every pot,” in the coming years, it could be “fiber optics to every room.”
However that works out, none of the issues surrounding Internet access constitute a reason to allow cable companies or other providers the power to manipulate what the public can see or use online. Internet access has become, if not exactly a right, certainly a staple of modern life. Net neutrality helps to ensure that Americans are free to make their own choices online.
