Net Neutrality

The first thing that is obvious is that Republicans hands are in the pot here. Cable companies pay them like mad and so they get served whereas Internet companies (Microsoft included) don't pay as much and so don't get the same level of service from their 'Congressmen'.

The question then becomes what does it all mean. Is this a real Internet freedom issue or is it just companies playing their little games. Obviously the Internet Service Provider's want to be able to make companies pay them to have better service, meaning Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft will have to compete (pay) so that users of the ISP's networks have faster access to their sites.

It should be obvious that content companies would oppose this under the guise of freedome of the Internet. Of course they don't want to have to pay for that kind of service. The other question is what will the difference be in an age of ever expanding Internet speeds. Will it even be noticeable to the average user? I suppose it might for movies, and yes in that case companies like YouTube would probably not be able to pay for preferential services. In that case it could affect us all, but do we care who serves our videos? Probably not.

It is very doubtful that this would mean that someday we would end up paying more directly to the ISP's. That is why the issue is a bit murky. It doesn't seem to be about the consumer, rather about companies. Now as a blog service provider it is troubling to think that my service might load more slowly than say blogger therefore driving customers away from my site. This seems very unfair, like delaying trucks on the highway because the small companies can't pay as much as the big ones so their trucks arrive a day later. At some point the question needs to be defined of whether the the Internet is a public utility.