3 Crucial Things to Know About the End of Net Neutrality

[Miles Archer]

3 Crucial Things to Know About the End of Net Neutrality

Despite what FCC Chairman Ajit Pai would like you to believe, the Internet is no longer 'free and open'

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/what-is-net-neutrality-w521411



1. What does the end of net neutrality mean?

In 2015, the Obama administration passed regulation preventing Internet service providers from restricting access to certain content, slowing or accelerating connection speeds or creating "fast lanes" for both companies and Internet users who pay a premium fee while hamstringing the connectivity of those who don't.

These regulations are now officially lifted, and service providers have carte blanche to strike deals with powerful Internet companies. A company like Amazon, for instance, could pay service providers to make their content stream faster, thus making it more appealing to consumers than its competitors. Any company looking to game the system is now able to do so, and those whose pockets aren't so deep are now at a marked disadvantage.

Concern has also arisen that service providers could begin to offer Internet packages that mirror how cable providers offer bundles of channels. Consumers could be forced to pay a fee for a social media package, a fee for streaming packages, etc. Though this is an extreme and probably unlikely example of what the repeal of net neutrality has enabled, the extent to which corporate service providers – and in turn the Internet's corporate monoliths – are now able to act as gatekeepers to the Internet is concerning.

[Girard442]

1. Political sites like DU might end up in a Net backwater.

Lag, low bandwidth, unreliable. Like that park that the developers promised to provide free to the community that ended up full of broken playground equipment, weeds, and trash.

[Miles Archer]

4. Extremely possible.

You know that "Level 1" we go to when there are major elections or other events and the site traffic goes off the rails?

"Throttled Bandwidth" could make that the new normal for any site that doesn't step up and pay to play.

The most insidious aspect of this is found in the AT&T / DirecTV relationship. With AT&T as your ISP, the streaming version of DirecTV might look great and every other steaming service could be "throttled" or result in a higher monthly fee.

I don't have Amazon Prime Video streaming, so I can't verify the accuracy of this, but there was a buzz recently regarding their lowering the bitrate of the movies they stream. It results in a smaller file that consumes less bandwidth, and comes at the cost of lower quality. A LOT of people were complaining.

There is really no reasonable way to view Ajit Pai other than a Santa Clause for the major ISPs. That's it.

[sarcasmo]

2. Check the Netflix outage map right now.

https://outage.report/netflix/map

[Miles Archer]

5. Hulu, for me, is ALWAYS worse.

I have Chromecast and stream from my laptop.

I can do whatever I want on my laptop while Netflix is streaming. A couple of clicks anywhere while Hulu is on causes it to buffer like crazy. It will often do that if I don't even touch the laptop.

This WILL get ugly.

[whopis01]

3. They forgot the most important one

Now if your ISP doesn't want you to see certain content, all they have to do

[sarcasmo]

6. Indeed.