Why You Need to Care About Net Neutrality

I am going to guess you've gotten an email from a website asking you to support "net neutrality". I am also going to guess you deleted it. Here is why you need to care and read those emails.

I won't get into the long drawn out explanation of net neutrality, but I will give you a quickie "tour." Basically, broadband providers (cable companies, etc.) want to create lanes in broadband. So, some websites will be in the fast lane and some will be in the slow lane.

Nexflix is the perfect example. if you are a user of this site, you probably noticed it becoming very slow a few months ago. That was because it's "lane" was slowed on purpose. You were probably cursing your computer, when, in fact, the speed was being manipulated.

The idea behind net neutrality is simple: the same treatment for all websites. Otherwise the ones that don't pay up (like Netflix did to get in the fast lane) will end up in the slow lane. That's right, websites will have to pay to be in the fast lane.

The result? Smaller websites would go away and only large ones would remain. So if you wanted to start up, you wouldn't be able to because we all know everyone hates waiting and waiting for a site to load.

This is why you need to care. The FCC has been flooded with a record amount of comments from the public to petition for net neutrality. I won't tell you to do that, but I will tell you to research the subject and make your own choice. Just act on your choice.

The FCC comment period will end soon.