Net Neutrality

I never really understood the implications of Net Nuetrality.  I Just usumed that the Net was still the "wild west" and always would be.  Today, for me a middle class white boy, there is a wide range of freedoms associated with the net, but that is all changing.

If it were all left up to the guys who created the internet there would be no censorship or controls placed upon the net.  Their motto as put by Jonathan L. Zittrain in his book "The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It "We reject: kings, presidents, and voting.  We believe in: rough consensus and running code."  This type of strategy is what has lead us to the net we know today and the concepts of Net Neutrality.  It is an open ended approach where in whatever information is fed into the system is reconfigured into and out of packaged bytes of text. (text in the sense of media)  Of course the whole thing is far more complicated than my rudimentary understanding could even attempt to portray within this far too short treatise, but that is the gist in layman's terms.  Where the whole trouble of Net Neutrality comes into play is when we begin to consider the network and its physicality.  Right now these typed symbols are being converted into electrical impulses that are being sent out amongst the net to a server somewhere in which this blog resides.  Who knows how many wires, patches, switches, and router thingy doodads these words travel as I post this highly insightful discourse.  Someone, or rather a group of someones own all of those wires, patches, switches and doodads.  All of this hardware exists and is maintained by large corporate conglomerates.  As we all know to well, corporate conglomerates only care about the bottom line- MONEY.

Given the realities of consumerism and the exponential growth of the net though wireless device demands, we can only attempt to fathom the net's future.  The crux of the situation within the sphere of Net Neutrality is that all bits are treated as equal regardless of the media application they are designed to run at the end of the networked chain.  This mode of operation is probably due for, and is assuredly under corporate planning schemes to undertake, a complete overhaul.  That is specifically; expect things to change.  These changes might not feel so warm and fuzzy while they are being developed into the public net usage.  Certainly tiers of net bandwidths could and will probably be sectioned off where in the consumers willing to pay for higher bandwidth service will receive adequate positioning amongst the information ques.  Wireless data plans are already beginning to slice up the access pie into pieces that only the upper middle class can afford and justify.  Having access anywhere and everywhere is awesome, but paying close to $100 a month for that privilege really sucks...especially when you are a student and your gross income for the year is way under what most middle class suburbanites consider reasonable or even tolerable.  Net Neutrality will only exist within the reaches of your pocket book.  It's a pay to play world out there, and despite the intentions of the original internet designers, your bits have got a price tag.