Well, it happened.
Just a few weeks ago the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission took a vote on net neutrality repeal, and they won.
This removes all of the laws put in place in 2015 to make the internet an world full of equal opportunity in terms of bandwidth, downloads, and streaming speeds.
Many people aren’t exactly sure of what this might mean for their everyday lives.
However, when almost everything we do for work or entertainment revolved around the high-speed web, this repeal could be substantially damaging.
This is going to have some fairly serious ramifications to a lot of different businesses and their consumers. We’ve done the research for you and come completed a guide on what the reversal of net neutrality might do to you.
Let’s start with what net neutrality is:
1. Before Understanding The Net Neutrality Repeal … What Is Net Neutrality?
Net neutrality is the idea that all internet content and the means and speeds by which you stream it are treated the same.
This means that things like Hulu, Wikipedia, and Netflix, and most importantly you, will all have the exact same bandwidth and governing factors of that bandwidth.
It also means that ISP’s won’t be able to pick and choose which content they want to censors as it is delivered to all of the users on the world wide web.
This is a good thing for the common internet user.
You won’t have to go up against huge companies who can afford to buy massive amounts of bandwidths so their content streams the best.
Net neutrality eliminated the ability for a big company like Comcast to slow down your Netflix streaming so it can get you to head over to its own streaming services.
Furthermore, these bigger companies or ISPs can now legally charge companies like Netflix or Hulu more money to stream their content at a decent speed.
This might end up costing you more, too.
The Little Guys Won’t Break Through
The net neutrality repeal will especially damage emerging content businesses. Think of Netflix and Hulu. Sure they are big now, but they weren’t always a booming corporation.
They started small and drew in large crowds because net neutrality offered them great streaming services in high-speeds with good bandwidth because it was an equal market. To grow, they needed the access that everything else on the internet had.
If something like Netflix suffers now from losing it’s streaming abilities, that doesn’t mean some new emerging young bud will blossom. In fact, it will be harder for the young guns to break through because they won’t have the same internet services that the big companies did when they were starting out.
The new companies will have to fork out some substantial dough to get what was once was a granted streaming speed.
The Price Is Not Right
While there is a lot of controversy and argument as to whether the net neutrality repeal will make the cost of our internet services skyrocket, the odds are unfortunately not in our favor.
ISPs will have an incredible amount of control and will be able to set whatever price they want for certain things.
However, ISPs will be raking in the dough from a lot of content providers now as they have to pay for a substantial amount of new bandwidth, so perhaps they’ll be generous and let us (consumers) keep the rates currently have.
Honestly, this card can fall in a variety of ways. Unfortunately, it does appear that businessmen aren’t the always the most generous when it comes to power and money, and the little guys might suffer from this.
If certain companies have to pay the ISPs for a place at the royal internet dinner table, these costs and expenses will certainly eventually reach our pockets.
This will certainly apply to all internet services we use on a daily basis that require bandwidth. In general, web services are going to be more expensive than what we are used to.
And for most of us, that just flat out sucks. The monthly internet bill is already a substantial addition to most of our bills. If this inflates, we’re going to be out, even more, money while people with a lot of money, just make more money.
The Need for Speed in the Net Neutrality Repeal
Another major issue of the net neutrality repeal is that if ISPs have total dominion over the bandwidth each content provider gets, then they can choose to slow down or speed up based on who is paying them what.
Basically, they can act as an internet mafia when it comes to who gets what speed.
This is especially relevant in 2018 because search engine rankings consider speed when putting sites on their top results pages.
If a site can pay for a quick speed rate, then their rankings will probably get better too. Google has been very outspoken about the net neutrality repeal and ideally, they’ll come up with a way to avoid this insanity.
But if not, the trust of search engine rankings can be thrown out the window.
What’s Your Damage
The net neutrality repeal benefits one group: the ISPs. Some are claiming the collateral damage might be minimal to consumers, but damage is still damage. Unfortunately, the ISPs are winning the battles.
In truth, we are all going to have to wait and see how this nasty internet ball game plays out. Will this affect the daily life of a consumer?
Yes.
To what degree exactly? Who can be sure?
It’s possible that this entire situation has been incredibly hyped and that nothing will ever come of it.
However, if we’ve learned anything from the past couple years in our country it’s that truly, anything can happen. With enough prowess, power, and money people can make substantial moves and changes in our nation.
Keep monitoring your statements, bills, and your streaming speeds. Stay on top of the developments when it comes to the net neutrality repeal and annotate the ways that it starts to affect you.
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