Dar, the feds don't give two poops what you do in your trailer park with supplies you ordered off of NewEgg.
We're asking them to ensure fairness from the big telcos, people who own billions of dollars of infrastructure, and are in a position to play favorites, engage in extortion, and all kinds of dirty, underhanded stuff that runs contrary to free enterprise and a free society- stuff which they have already started doing.
If you think regulating huge enterprises that we all depend on every day is a bad idea, you must LOVE what deregulation has done for our financial industry.
Wikipedia also pays to have their site hosted on the internet. As long as it's legal, it's not the infrastructure people's business what we use the infrastructure for. We pay for its upkeep, you mind your own business.
AT&T charging Wikipedia a premium rate would be like you getting stopped at a tollbooth, asked why you were traveling, and having the government decide whether you get to use the road, and how much you have to pay to use it. Insert AT&T for the government in that situation, and voila, you have the non-neutral net.
Dar, your arguments are so specious I really can't be bothered to give them the obvious rebuttals they all individually deserve. Bottom line, Net Neutrality doesn't decrease anyone's freedom, except the freedom of large corporations to hose the small customers they prey on, if they are allowed.
That's bunk, Dar. We ARE standing up for what we bought by demanding net neutrality rules (and we literally DID buy it- US taxpayers footed the bill for the creation of the internet).
It costs time and money to enforce these terms- time and money the average private citizen, say an Aunt in her trailer park, doesn't have. So we outsource it by combining our resources as taxpayers and creating a body that DOES have the time, resources, and negotiating leverage to prevent the abuses we have already seen beginning to happen.
When will you libertarian types realize that citizens choosing to cooperate for the common good through the government we created for that purpose IS self-reliance, IS initiative, IS personal responsibility?
There has been plenty of evidence of that. Comcast has been a particularly egregious violator, at one point blocking Craigslist so it wouldn't compete with their in-house classified ad site, and blocking BitTorrent. AT&T has blocked 4Chan.
We pay for our internet access. Providers pay on the other end. What we are paying for is free and open access to use the infrastructure as we see fit. How would you feel if the government stopped you before you got on the freeway, asked why you needed to use it, and decided whether or not you'd get permission? Without strong & enforced Net Neutrality rules, get ready for corporations to do that to the internet.
Freedom of speech & expression. Freedom of association. Freedom to contract as we please. Our fundamental freedoms in just about every arena of life can be impacted by allowing corporate gatekeepers to decide what we can & can't see, how we can & can't participate.
It's crucially important to all of us that the internet remain open. Don't be fooled by Trojan Horse arguments like "Gamers vs. VOIP emergency calls" and the like.
Report Abuse
TTY: 1-888-TELL FCC (1-888-835-5322)
Close