On Net Neutrality
Published on Sep聽17, 2014 (updated Jun聽8, 2021), filed under politics. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)
I didn鈥檛 build a strong case here (I鈥檓 not content, looking back at it years later), but I remain a strong proponent of net neutrality.
We need net neutrality, and we need to insist on net neutrality. Everywhere, not just in the United States.
Throttling Internet access, or charging select content providers extra, much appears like a brazen combination of profiteering, extortion, and, effectively, censorship.
As consumers, we鈥檝e already paid for access. For full unfettered access. Charging content providers for speedy delivery is almost like running a supermarket and blackmailing suppliers to pay a premium for their own goods to be handed over鈥攔ight after billing the customers.
That there even is a debate about net neutrality, then, is embarrassing bordering on scandalous, for violating net neutrality much resembles a criminal act. (Carriers, though, run enormously successful lobbyism and propaganda efforts.) Courts and parliaments should clamp down on carriers to reprimand and, if necessary, fine them. They should furthermore look closely at carriers for competitiveness, for there are indications that carriers cooperate, in indeed anti-competitive fashion.
We need net neutrality. Nothing else is acceptable.
A word on a specific provider, Comcast. In my time in the United States I was happy with Comcast once I used them through Google, i.e. Comcast鈥檚 business program (they were, for reasons unknown to me, often unusably slow before). Later, however, Comcast has on multiple occasions evaded my questions around net neutrality. At the moment, Comcast customers appear to lose on all fronts: At first they get charged, then their access throttled for then content providers to be charged. Until this improves and until Comcast shows a public, tangible commitment to transparency and an open Internet I will not use Comcast again, and I recommend others, you, to also reconsider.
About Me
I鈥檓 Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I鈥檓 an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I鈥檝e worked as a technical lead and engineering manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I鈥檓 an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O鈥橰eilly, Frontend Dogma).
I love trying things鈥攊n web development and engineering management, but also in politics and philosophy, where I hold to one idea in particular: that we can only be well if we take good care of everyone. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my perspectives and experiences. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, keep it friendly, but do be critical.)