The Importance of Net Neutrality

Recently, the FCC announced its intent to repeal net neutrality rules next month. That change would allow internet service providers (ISPs) to charge different rates for different internet services a la carte. While in principle this allows individuals to pay for only the parts of the internet they want to use and potentially save money, it also would allow ISPs to control the packaging and pricing of different portions of the internet, restricting access to those parts of it that it wants to discourage people from seeing.

The purpose of popular government is to enact and enforce such rules as tend to promote the sort of society we want to be. Without social rules that are taken seriously individuals that are physically stronger or more wealthy or better connected or luckier will inevitably, intentionally or unintentionally - but usually intentionally - use the advantages they have been given to tyrannize over their fellows.

I don't intend that to be a damming moral judgment on humanity. With the acknowledgment that all power must by definition be wielded by individuals comes an understanding that the difference between power and tyranny is disconcertingly unclear. Ultimately, I do not believe that those terms are really distinct.

That abstract discussion was meant to illuminate the real reason why net neutrality is such a big deal. It may well be that net neutrality would be repealed and not a great deal would change in the short term. It may be that the rise of politically active markets in recent years would police the activity of ISPs and restrict the unethical exercise of the ability to promote parts of the internet at the expense of others.

But we need to remember that in the economic sphere no less than in the political the granting of power is a guarantee that it will, at some point, be misused. It is a sad characteristic of our time, as it has been of others, that we are far too credulous in giving power to governments or corporations in return for something we want right now. We are, myself included, currently giving information about every salient aspect of our lives to technology companies in return for ease and comfort. We have given vast powers of surveillance to national governments in the hope of avoiding large scale terrorist attacks. We have lived for 16 years in a state of perpetual warfare for the same reason.

I feel very strongly that the repeal of net neutrality is an error of similar magnitude. Allowing ISPs to favor the content they want us to see is to renounce the democratization of information that is the internet's greatest achievement. It would amount to a direct swap of power for convenience.

What such swaps guarantee is that ultimately that power will be used to benefit those to whom we have given it, at our expense. When ISPs are permitted to favor content by charging for its competition, they are in effect manipulating us into picking the products they want as the price of receiving an essential product from them. If the electric company were to upcharge me for not using a Kenmore refrigerator, I would rightfully be outraged. Which refrigerator I use, and why, is none of the electric company's business.

In the same vein, which video streaming service I use is not the ISPs problem. Which news sources I wish to view is likewise not my provider's concern. Humanity itself built the knowledge base and infrastructure that made the internet possible. There is no individual or group of individuals that has the right to influence which parts of it we can feasibly see and use.