House rejects Net neutrality rules

The U.S. House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept of Net neutrality on Thursday, dealing a bitter blow to Internet companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google that had engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign to support it.

 

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This is a sad sad day. Although I don’t find it a surprise that the Republicans would side with corporate interests as opposed to the interests of the private citizen, bottom line is that without net neutrality, the internet will change, and it will, in my opinion, change for the worse. Imagine a time when you’re charged a “long distance” type charge if  you visit a site off of Verizon’s pipeline, or you want to subscribe to a website that is in a bitter dispute with AT&T, and thus not carried by them over their pipes.

It won’t be like the internet, it will be like cable TV. Sure, the big sites will be available on all of the service providers, but forget about start ups…they won’t be able to afford the costs associated with being on the pipelines anymore.

This is not a good thing, and if it’s not stopped sooner or later, I have a fear that the internet, at least in America, is going to go in a direction that will hurt us for years to come. Without a free internet companies like Google, e-bay, ad Amazon would have never had the chance to grow to where they have today.

-Steve