The Myths Of Net Nuetrality And Changes In The Pipeline

Net neutrality was a novel concept, create an open internet where all users are treated alike, from the Big cows to the little chickens. Unfortunately when the internet is more and more being molded by giant monopolies. what really drives this equality or inequality is where the buck stops and not based on any "fair" or "equality" methodology.

The FCC has for the most part failed miserable in its attempts to enforce "Net Neutrality" concepts, and really has done more harm than good to this noble concept... Creating an Internet where All Users Are Created Equal.

Although there is much to do about President Trump's appointment of Mr. Ajit Varadaraj as the new FCC head, and equally much panic over how Mr. Pai is going to take the internet back to the dark ages, in reality there are different factors that currently control and affect the internet world.
Frankly, for the most part, the internet went from being an open society, when it was in its infancy, to a content ad-based network that is almost 99% influenced, controlled and dominated by 1 or 2 corporate internet giants. With 1 holding 95% of the cards on anything related to search, ad revenue, marketing and general internet content, while the other dominating its social aspect.

Therefore if we want to discuss or proclaim our rights to have an open internet, by placing all of our hope that the FCC or any other government agencies would wave their magic wands and create free and equal access for all, we would have more of an opportunity to tap our heals together and end up in Kansas, Dorthy.

The internet "openness" is dominated by a single defining factor, revenue. The internet model is based upon distributing content that attracts users, who then click on advertisements and thereby generate cash flow. In order for there to truly exist an open and neutral internet, then, the economic influences would have to be completely removed from the picture.

If there existed free non ad-supported content, that is actually useful and not the sorts of the current trend of fake or very exaggerated news articles, and nonsensical ideas distributed as meaningful "blogs", could only then there exist a truly independent and neutral web.

This boils down to the age-old concept of whose going to flip the bill?

The existence or no existence of Net-Neutrality concepts, or if the current administration completely reverses the last administration's internet laws, in the end this will really have no meaningful impact over the actual state of net-neutrality, neither by its ISP's nor its end users.

The internet itself, would have to under go, yet another revolution, where it returns to its initial purpose of being a free, world-wide network for the sharing of content without borders. As long as the revenue ad-based model continues to dominate the internet universe, then no net-neutrality, no net openness and no free information highway could ever exist. The current model simply couldn't support such neutrality.

By Brandt Hott