“Net Neutrality” a.k.a “Network Neutrality” You’re reading this on the internet, so this directly affects you. ____________________________________ The term “Net Neutrality” may seem new to many of you. I was very confused by it and thought it didn’t have anything to do with me so I didn’t give it much thought. I kept hearing about it occasionally and finally I had to look into it a bit. There’s a lot I don’t know or understand but I feel it is vital for everyone to be aware. Internet providers want to charge more money for efficiency. What the term “Net Neutrality” means is that everyone should get the same service. People who can afford to pay more shouldn’t be forced to in order to get special treatment. On the other side of the coin, others are forced to pay more to keep what they already have. The companies looking to profit from this are making these choices based purely on greed. If you know what extortion is, it’s like this… Let’s compare this situation to a Mafia protection racket for a moment. Picture this… You work at home. You finally have your own business. Then a representative of your internet provider guy knocks on your door. He says… ”Nice business you’ve got going here. It sure would be a shame if anything unfortunate were to happen to it. Maybe you should give us some incentive to make sure things stay going smoothly. Let’s say we double your monthly bill and we won’t cut your connection speed in half. We would hate to see your new business fail because you can’t work fast enough.” It’s definitely a protection racket… except it’s globally… on everyone… You could even apply the same scenario to college students needing connections or big businesses that think they’re untouchable. Here’s a prime example. Raise your hand if you know of Netflix. Now put it down if you don’t use it. Now everyone not using Comcast, Verizon or Time Warner put your hand down. If your hand is still up then this is affecting you and you probably don’t even realize it. Netflix has taken the internet by storm. It may seem too big to be messed with. After all, they did just reach 50,000,000 subscribers. That’s pretty much the equivalent to the population of South Korea… You might even ask yourself… ‘What kind of power would it take to threaten Netflix?’. Well, here’s something you can quote me on. “Never underestimate the power of media conglomerates.” If you thought corporations are bad… Conglomerates are made of corporations so try to wrap your head around that big picture. Just to put things into perspective… Comcast made over $62,500,000,000 in 2013. Over $6,000,000,000 of that was profit. I don’t like to say it as billions because the numbers are massive. They should be seen for what they are… not clipped down to be digestible. It’s available in 40 states. I’ll admit, it’s the company my family uses and compared to other cable providers I like their “OnDemand” features better than its competitors by far… Okay, this is where I get to my point. In 2013, Comcast decided they could bribe Netflix to give them money or the connections they provide will get slower and slower. Basically, Netflix didn’t agree to the service fees and Comcast acted on their threats. Netflix took a stance of… If “internet providers” are already charging their customers $40 to $60 a month, then “content providers” shouldn’t be tolled on top of that… Internet providers are now collecting on both ends of the line. It makes me think of water for some reason. I think of the company that made the pipes charging not only the customer for transportation but also the water company. Between September and January of 2013, the download speed of Netflix customers using Comcast dropped, on average, seemingly about 25%... This must have had an impact on their customer satisfaction ratings because Netflix coughed up the cash. Within two months Netflix was roughly 25% faster than it was when the year started... What is even more messed up is that I can’t even find the amount of money they settled on. So it must have been some heinous amount. I can find tons of other info on Netflix or Comcast concerning deals and money… If anyone can find this amount they paid I’m very interested and will add the info here, as well as write a thank you note for figuring it out. This isn’t the only other company that did this to Netflix too. It seems every provider now wants a piece of the action. It’s virtually as if they’re all “trick-or-treating” Netflix… quite literally. Verizon and At&T are still holding their bandwiths for ransom as far as I know. Cablevision, COX and a couple of others got their piece of the action already. Time Warner Cable lined up for a slice of the pie but in the midst of talks… Comcast decided it should buy TWC. At this juncture I’d like to pull the politics rabbit out of the hat. You might wonder ‘How are these companies getting away with what appears to be grand extortion?’ Currently, companies are allowed to do this because the laws consider Net Neutrality as internal. The laws affect content already within the gates of the Internet Providers… What Netflix is paying for is considered to be taking place before the content enters the gates. It’s like making a fast-pass lane at a highway toll-both and then saying… “These people with Fast-Passes are faster because they weren’t slowed down before reaching the tolls. It’s not our fault if you’re stuck in traffic because everyone can go the same speed once they pass through our toll.” Let’s try to keep in mind that even though extortion is nothing new, the internet is still relatively young. A lot of the challenges we’re facing haven’t been foreseen until recently. The justice system isn’t handling the adjustments well in my opinion. Then there’s the question of “vested” interests. While not every politician is sponsored by big corporations, many still are and are expected to do favors in return. Nobody hands over millions without expecting something in return. Lobbyists and special interest groups in DC have made sure they have control over regulations and policies. I’m pretty sure Obama spent at least a billion dollars on his last campaign… Where did that money come from? That’s enough information for a whole other writing all together that I probably won’t bother trying to tackle. I’m not pointing at him specifically for this Net Neutrality issue but he did appoint Tom Wheeler as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. I very rarely will ever directly quote sources… This goes doubly for wikipedia.org… but they listed Tom Wheelers prior positions better than I can. “venture capitalist and lobbyist for the cable and wireless industry, with positions including President of the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) and CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA).” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wheeler_%28FCC%29 I’ll move on from politics after this last point… Just like how Monsanto has a revolving door with the fda and epa… (Visit my Genetically Modified Organisms writing for an explanation of the comparison.)… It seems the FCC is “in bed” with media companies. Screw it I’m going to use one last quote. “Meredith Attwell Baker, an FCC Commissioner who left her job right after voting in favor of the Comcast merger with NBC. Her next career move? She became a high-level lobbyist for Comcast, the company she had just blessed. Earlier this week, she announced her next gig, as president of CTIA, the primary wireless industry trade group.” This is the source… I have nothing to do with it other than I liked it so I’m sharing it. It’s highly informative and I suggest you read it. It gives multiple prime examples of how the FCC is being run and puppeted by media companies. vice/en_ca/read/former-comcast-and-verizon-attorneys-now-manage-the-fcc-and-are-about-to-kill-the-internet Net Neutrality doesn’t stop at the large scale companies. I haven’t seen other examples besides Netflix but I’m sure it must be happening. If a big company like Netflix can be pushed around then smaller ones must be getting crushed without the media batting an eye. After all, the news companies are owned by the conglomerates doing the crushing. Then, once they get done draining the vitality of every company they’re able to… They will come after the consumers. Us. Internet providers want to create a “Tiered” internet where customers will pay more for better services. Be warned, this is coming and will affect you. What this tier system means to me is that they’re already holding back the full potential of the internets speed now so they’ll have something to market later. In other words they aren’t giving all they can but they’re taking all they can. There’s even a proposal that service providers will be charging for the amount of data you’re using. It may already be happening, I don’t know for certain. What I do know is if there’s a way for large corporations to make money without having to see the faces of the people they’re taking it from… Then they’ll likely to do their best to suck every penny they can out of whoever they can. Neutral usually means that something doesn’t choose a side. In order for something to be neutral, that means there must be two opposing sides. Without them then it’s just indifferent. I bring this up this issue of “Net Neutrality” because it seems to be another step towards oppression in a one-sided class war. What happens when only the rich can afford to be heard? Will the poor be swept under the rug? Is it possible that one of the angles that this is being used for is to limit communication between the masses and keep us unorganized so we can’t speak up about the wrongs together? I think it’s a yes to all of these questions but that’s only speculative. ___________________________________ For more writings... including more politically charged pieces… as well as topics like… original works, miscellaneous reviews, experiences and perspectives… Check here periodically… READERS GUIDE https://facebook/engine.lord/posts/277464219113023 __________________________ #Politics #political #system #systems #thesystem #gov #government #opinion #opinions #awareness #activism #activist #net #internet #netneutrality #networkneutrality #neutrality #worldwideweb #issues #aware #beware #important #affectingyou #affectsyou #thisaffectsyou #netflix #Media #corporation #corporations ____________________________________ [[[I’d like to clearly state that the purpose of this post is recreational. The information in this piece of writing is subject to change as I learn more on the subject. My intentions are not to incriminate any mentioned parties. I am willing to correct anything included that I may have mistaken as facts. (So don’t sue me ‘cause I quite literally don’t have any money anyway. This page does not currently generate any funds.)… Also, I’m okay with debates, discussions, sharing information and constructive criticism… Trolling, spamming, arguing and bashing will not be tolerated because it annoys me... Last point… I don’t have anything to do with the links other than sharing them]]] Sorry, I get nervous and don’t want my page to run into any trouble so I’m trying to be cautious. After all, I’m the only person invested or involved in these projects.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 21:39:48 +0000
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