Internet providers want control over your internet content

2009
My unlimited world-wide access to the internet arrives via wireless radio waves – theses are the same electromagnetic waves that bring my radio and TV.

So why are there just 300 TV stations and 55 radio stations --- yet with radio signals from my internet provider, there are billions of ‘instant access’ sites available right now.

I can go see the ‘funniest world videos’ and don’t have to wait a full week and sit through a half hour of goo-gah to see four 10 second film clips. And if one site doesn’t have the clip, I can select from a 10,000,000 other sources. This is what people want. Nobody can monopolize on the internet (until 2020), and if one site fails to deliver, then another site will take its place. This is true innovation.

The same endless selection should be available through radio and TV but somehow the innovation stopped. London news is not available on my TV. Programming from Moscow is not available on my radio. How did the free market stop innovation with my radio and TV?

The answer is --- the government let the service-providers control the content – the service providers decide what will be put over the airwaves. You don’t decide – the service providers decide.

Why has there been absolutely no innovation with radio and TV for 30 years in a free market economy?  Thirty years without one innovation - and every radio and TV provider has exactly the same offering. It’s because radio and TV are monopolistic enterprises run by big money.

And now the providers of the internet want control over your internet content. The internet providers and telecoms companies want to stop people from having access to billions of options, and instead of letting people freely choose, they want to funnel everybody down through a few high-paying options.

Instead of shopping and getting news from any source you prefer, your choices will be reduced to the ‘preferred’ sites sponsored by your internet provider.

This is what net neutrality is all about. We need net neutrality or the internet will eventually look as bland and boring as radio and TV.

However the service providers and telecoms are pushing around big-dollar checkers and telling folks that proponents of net neutrality are stifling innovation. The only innovation that the telecoms offer are the innovation of monopolizing the internet and making it look like your radio and TV.


Gene Haynes