If you have not heard about net neutrality, it is the concept that telecommunications companies treat all internet content and services the same. The reason for net neutrality is to prevent telecommunications providers from providing better service to preferred content providers and providing lower quality service or even blocking content for non-preferred providers.
When I first heard about net neutrality, I quickly signed a petition for net neutrality. Now I have second thoughts. I may have signed up for net neutrality, but I was also signing up for net neutrality legislation. In some ways, I feel like I have been fooled by net neutrality advocates in that they did not make it clear there were other alternatives than legislation such as free market forces. Net neutrality is not an Urban Legend, but it may be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
On the surface legislating net neutrality looks like a good idea. No one wants a telecommunications provider such as Verizon to prevent them from accessing CNN.com from the internet.
The problem is there are two forces at work here. The two forces are the telecommunications companies and the content / service providers such as Google and Microsoft. Telecommunications providers do not desire more legislation as this could drive up costs. Content service providers as well as consumers do not want to be held hostage by telecommunications providers.
There is more than one path to maintain net neutrality. One is to continue trusting in the free market to maintain net neutrality. The other is to try to legislate net neutrality. When put in this context, I would prefer to let the market govern net neutrality for now. It has done fairly well to date. Today, telecommunications providers are inhibited to limit content in that consumers can fairly easily swap to another carrier. See Technology Liberation Front’s posting: Net Neutrality: Urban Legend # 5 for more details on net neutrality.
