Future of the Net

This post is about net neutering, er neutrality.

There's a big push to split the internet. The high road (those with money) and the low road (those without).

What do I mean?

Congress is considering a bill that would allow ISPs to effectively split the internet into chunks. They would initially do this by offering two different bandwidth modes; the high bandwidth mode would server up company's sites who have paid the ISP premium fee for being in that mode. The low bandwidth mode carries everyone else.

Ponder that one for a minute.


Why do I care?

If I were building the next killer app, lets say an app that would help people manage their lives, then I would need the funding to essentially payoff every major ISP in the country so that my app would appear to be snappy and fast. If I don't have the funds to do so, then my app looks like its running on a circa 1989 14.4 modem. Er, non geek, it would be slow. Very slow. Maybe not show up on your desktop at all, kind of slow.

So what you say?

Well, don't you think that might quash some (even though very small part) of the country's entrepreneurship? What will happen to the garage started companies?

My theory: they will cease to exist.

That's right, the Apples, the Napster, the Microsofts of America would no longer have a place to incubate. They would not longer be welcomed into the American, or global, landscape, without having extreme funding available to them.

Why do I care, I don't run a company?

Because I like innovation. I like to see someone pushing the boundaries. Take Pandora for examplehttp://www.pandora.com. The company streams music over the web. For free. I can't copy it to a CD. I can't save it on my portable. But I can listen at work. And you know what is different about them? They create "channels" that you listen to. You create a station, and add artist or songs you like,and they stream to you songs from artist that match what you asked for. It's unlike anything on the web, or the earth for that matter.

Could they exist in a split web? Probably not. They could not get the funding to, essentially, buy off all of the major, and minor, ISPs so that their service is crisp and clear all the time. That would kill their service model.

What can you do?

Contact your representative and explain to him what I've explained here. It's a bad idea. It's an idea that comes from the greed and love of money and not from the love of innovation and advancement of the human race.