The Internet is on its last legs.
In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission passed the Open Internet Order, which enacted strong, sustainable rules to protect the idea of open internet, or net neutrality, where information across the World Wide Web is equally free and available without variables that depend on the financial motives of Internet Service Providers. A proposal was made on Nov. 21, 2017 by F.C.C. chairman Ajit Pai, a proposal that would gut the rules put in place in 2015 that protect net neutrality. Without net neutrality, the Internet would transform from the Wild West, free-for-all environment that gave us Netflix to something more closely related to cable TV where corporate giants rule.
Under an “open Internet,” the full resources of the Internet and means to operate on it should be easily accessible to all individuals, companies and organizations. This includes, but is not limited to: net neutrality, open standards, transparency, lack of censorship, and low barriers to entry. This is what differentiates the Internet from things like cable television, and this is often why content creators turn to the Internet. Policies like equal treatment of data and open web standards allow those using the Internet to easily communicate and conduct business without interference from a third party. Chairman Pai claims to want to pull the federal government out of Internet interactions, but it would be replacing them with corporations. Without net neutrality and open Internet, Internet service providers would be able to control speed on certain sites when accessing certain content, blocking the free exchange of information between people.
I apologize for sounding like an alarmist, but so much of the technological industry today is at risk of being consumed and taken over by corporate giants. So much of the internet is already controlled by the five most valuable companies in the United States: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft. Together with the broadband giants (AT&T, Comcast, Charter and Verizon), these companies all control access to the Internet and the content you are seeing. This is not the way the Internet was intended to be used. The Internet was founded in the idea that the “little guy” should be able to have just as many opportunities to get themselves out there and not be blocked by corporate giants. The Internet’s singular power is (was) its flexibility. As corporations gained more and more control over the Internet, they started exercising more power over what content could be accessed, until the introduction of net neutrality in 2005. The new F.C.C. order would completely undo this idea, and companies would be allowed to block and control traffic as they like.
The idea of preserving net neutrality is a recurring theme. While the prognosis is grim, we’ve come back from things like this before. Despite the constant struggle, the Internet has kept going. Vibrant networks don’t die all at once, it takes neglect and being forgotten for something like the Internet to die out. But we must remain vigilant. The Internet will only become a corporate playground if we let it.