Net Neutrality: What's so hard about it?

Net neutrality is something that matters to me an awful lot. I use the internet for nearly everything: file storage, communication, entertainment, and also for schoolwork and even at my job on campus. That said, it’s obvious why I would be a proponent of net neutrality. Much of my life revolves around my ability to access the internet universally, and without biased repercussions. Certainly my love for the game Star Wars The Old Republic, a massively multiplayer online role playing game, would be difficult to enjoy if I were to have to limit my data upload and download speeds and totals, as the game requires a large amount of data transfer in order to run. A limit on my transfer speeds would also serve to limit my ability to email files to and from colleagues and professors, and in my sharing of files with other people through popular programs such as Dropbox. Knowing that many other students at RPI have similar levels of connection to the internet as I do, it isn’t hard for me to classify net neutrality as something very important to not only me, but most of this school as well.

With all of this said, it should come as no surprise that I believe that a loss of net neutrality will destroy the internet as we know it. The Federal Communications Commission enacted rules that safeguarded non-mobile internet connections, but as Campbell, Martin and Fabos have mentioned, many people, myself included, do not feel that it was enough. I happen to own a smartphone, a tremendously useful, and simultaneously distracting, device. Where it should be a device that allows me to access anything I need at any time, so long as I can connect to the internet, instead I am forced to live in fear of overage charges for using more data than the data plan I was forced to buy would allow. Were this my only connection to the internet, I would feel almost shackled by the data plan, and would not be able to experience many of the wonders of the internet.

I feel that a similar plan for the entire internet would limit creativity, and kill innovation on the web. Innovation is a large part of how the internet has grown throughout its lifetime, with huge advancements made by individuals with many gifts and talents, more so than companies who can build infrastructure. It is because of this, that I feel that ne neutrality is such an important thing, and that if we want the internet to continue to be the open forum, the grand knowledge database, and the facilitator of business and entertainment that it is now, we must push for a continuation of the net neutrality that currently exists, and fight for a more strict enforcement of it.