Monday, January 20, 2014

Net neutrality and why it could be here to stay, for now

There's been some talk about net neutrality going away recently with talks of the FCC not recognizing net neutrality as an actual law, but more of an unspoken rule on the web. For anyone that doesn't know net neutrality means that all websites are given the same rights on the internet. If net neutrality goes away that means hypothetically a website like Twitter could pay shitty Time Warner Cable to throttle anyone on their ISP trying to access Facebook or any competing website. You see the problem here. Its big corporations controlling the internet just like on television. They could also throttle or outright block a site that is against what is good for the company providing your internet. Block a streaming service run by a competitor. They could even censor this blog post because I called Time Warner shitty.  News sites, political blog, torrenting sites whatever they don't like. That also includes streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. Capping data usage for these sites and services, while offering unlimited data for lets say a TWC streaming service or On Demand shows. It could be bad news for the internet, but there is one saving grace that could save the internet. And its Google Fiber. Google Fiber is a new service being rolled out across the country giving users up to 100xs faster download speeds than TWC and ATT. But one would hope that a company that was formed and is largely based on internet services would look to keep net neutrality in check on their service. Not only does this Google Fiber service promise faster speeds but more important will most likely keep net neutrality up and running on their service and scare others into doing the same. If other companies don't abide by net neutrality, Google could be branded as company of the people, fighting for neutrality and quality service for all compared to Time Warner or ATT regardless of the amount of cash they keep under their mattresses. In all honesty even if net neutrality isn't part of any government law I think net neutrality is here to stay, at least for a while longer. Which is good because the way the entertainment industry is going, streaming movies and downloading games are becoming more and more popular. Plus I'm not ready to give up on the unlimited amount of porn available to stream. And lets be honest, its really the only thing that matters, is the porn.

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