Are you still unsure about net neutrality? Do you have mixed views about it?
This article will cover all the details, and provide you with quick insight.
Let’s get started.
First Things First, What is Net Neutrality?
Let’s try to understand the whole scenario with a simple example. Say you didn’t have lunch today and are feeling too hungry. You decided to have a cheeseburger.
Thankfully, there is an array of food outlets near your locality. And so, you get into your car and are all ready to hit the road. Now you are confused as to which road should you choose to drive on?
Each road takes you to an individual business. McDonald’s pays a huge toll, and so they have a perfect highway with all the nice infrastructure. On the other hand, Frank’s Burger does not, and so the road leading you to this outlet has various potholes.
You like the burgers prepared by Frank, but getting there is nothing less than a herculean task. This is perhaps why you have not had its burgers for months now.
This is nothing but an analogy which perfectly depicts what net neutrality is.
Net neutrality, as the name indicates, is the principle which makes it necessary for the internet service providers to provide access to all websites, applications, and content at the same speed without blocking or preferring any of them.
Irrespective of what you access, whether it is Netflix, or a gaming portal, or a social media website or your friend’s blog, your ISP will treat all the incoming traffic same.
But as they say, there are two sides of a coin. Net neutrality is no different. Let’s weigh each side of this concept in detail.
Pros of Net Neutrality
Unregulated access
Net neutrality ensures that no company can prioritize themselves. Google cannot pay your ISP to ensure faster access to their websites. Thus, theoretically, even a small mom and pop store on the internet should be as speedy and glitch-free as Amazon.
This way, net neutrality rules out any potential of assigning internet fast lanes to certain companies and services. Additionally, it also ensures that users are not charged an extra fee to access important services like email, online banking and so on.
Promotes and protects innovation
Every big company today once started small. Net neutrality takes care of this aspect and ensures that innovation is protected at all times, and is not squashed by big companies. It provides an equal playing field to all the companies, whether big or small.
This means your ISP cannot block your access to a particular website, or alter the flow of data just because there is something that is not in line with their preferences, likings and so on.
Illegal activities are still monitored
Net neutrality doesn’t mean that illegal activities and inappropriate content will go unnoticed. Governments and appropriate authorities can take proper action to ban the content, or geoblock certain websites. Now you might have understood as to why certain content and websites are banned and geoblocked in your region.
However, if you want to circumvent this geoblocking and internet censorship, you can do so with the help of a VPN. There are a lot of reputed VPNs which maintain your utmost privacy while also helping you in unblocking the content.
You can go through PIA review and other VPNs’ reviews to make a well-informed decision and analyze if a certain VPN meets your requirements.
Cons of Net Neutrality
Objectionable content thrives on the internet
A lot of opponents of net neutrality argue that it has made it possible for the users to access legal but age-sensitive content on the go. Although there is an array of security software which restricts the kids from accessing offensive content on the family computer, there are a lot more devices on which this content can be easily accessed without adult supervision.
If an ISP is allowed to block these services, this issue could be solved easily.
Less network innovation
A lot of internet service providers argue that the presence of bandwidth-heavy web services like Netflix and others have made it tough for them to upgrade their network.
If they could charge tech giants like Google and Microsoft for carrying their heavy web services, they would be able to innovate and upgrade their networks further.
Free internet access could be possible
A lot of people argue that if internet service providers are allowed to charge companies like Netflix more for using their infrastructure, they would be in a better position to offer free access to sites like Facebook and Wikipedia even to people who do not have internet contract.
The Final Words
The bottom line here is that net neutrality has its own pros and cons. We hope this article would have helped you in understanding the entire concept fairly well.