Here’s a perfect explanation of why Net Neutrality matters, why it should be enforced by the FCC, and how it’s been done in the past. I wish I could link directly to the comment, but Wired offered no way to do that. A comment on Why Google Became A Carrier-Humping, Net Neutrality Surrender Monkey:
posted by: kibbles | 08/10/10 | 5:35 pm |
@bill_the_kat ? let me paste you a little story on the net neutrality ?scheme?.
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Think about Netflix. It has unlimited streaming movies now. Comcast has streaming movies too, at $4 per movie. What if Comcast tells Netflix ?unless you pay us the equivalent of $20/user per month we are going to put you in the slow lane and your users won?t be able to stream.? NetFlix?s streaming business will be crushed. Comcast, Verizon and AT&T want Congress to allow them to do exactly that, and this is why net neutrality legislation is so important.
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This isn?t a result of a fertile imagination. This actually happened 100 years ago. Imagine the year is 1900. I run a steel company and you run a railroad. I sell steel for $50 per ton and you ship it for $3 per ton. I have two major competitors. I come to you and offer you $10 per ton for shipping if you agree not to carry steel for the other two. That number will give you far more profit for far less effort so you say yes. You?re happy. My two competitors cannot move steel from Pittsburgh to Kansas any other way (what, by horse and wagon?) so they go out of business, or a least their business is limited to local purchasers.
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Then I raise my steel price from $50 per ton to $75. The steel buyers have to pay because they have no other choice. The competition is gone. I make huge profits. I?m happy. You make huge profits. You?re happy. The consumers and my competitors aren?t happy, but who gives a flying f*** about them?
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This is the history of the railroad business in the late 1800s. This scenario played out again in the 1920s in trucking. Both times Congress mandated that any shipping company must charge identical amounts for all customers, based only on size, weight, and transit time.
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We have 100 years of success with ?net neutrality.? It?s working pretty well.
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?make sense? now explain why thats a bad thing.