this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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This should have happened a long time ago. The internet is clearly a utility. I don't know how you could argue that it isn't. At this point, it's as necessary as electricity. You can't apply for a job without an email address. You can't pay certain bills without an app or website. There are almost no print newspapers anymore because people get their news online. It's as much a utility as any other necessary service.
It's a utility; and it's also a utility whose chief deliverable is speech. This puts any utility monopolist in the position of controlling the public's access to speech and ability to speak.
No it doesn't. It stops them from doing things like throttling access to certain sites and providing special pathways to others. It has nothing to do with speech.
Sorry, what is "it" in that sentence? In mine, "it" is "Internet access".
"It" is net neutrality. You know, the thing this post is about. Net neutrality does not police speech.
Sure. My point was that Internet monopolists have the technical ability to decide "I don't like the stuff they say on that Lemmy site, Imma block it." Which is another good reason to not have Internet services be monopolized, or to not let monopolists exercise that sort of technical ability discretionally.
Net neutrality is the opposite of that. I'm very confused here.
Um, I wasn't disagreeing with you up top ...
Replace “this” with “which” and I’m pretty sure that also gets the point across that the other commenter is trying to make.
Just like healthcare is a human right. But middlemen have inserted themselves into the both the legislative and the business pipeline to make sure people suffer for their profit.
Are they making the internet a utility?
Oh my god. That's what Net Neutrality does. Do you not even know what it is?
That's not at all what it does.
A Utility is a government sanctioned monopoly. Think electricity, landline phone, natural gas, trash collection. To classify ISPs as Utilities, would open up a whole new level of regulatory oversight. They would be required to provide the same level of service to every residence in the given area. They would have to ask the local government for permission to raise rates, some places that even goes to a public vote. Imagine, being able to vote on your internet rate!
No. net neutrality rules are not even close to reclassifying ISPs as a utility.
I think it's easier to understand net neutrality as something ISP's can't do rather than something they must do, since we've never seen them really act on it before. It just means they can't speed up or slow down your internet based on what websites you're visiting. Under net neutrality, there can never be a deal with Google to give people faster speeds using Google searches than Bing or DuckDuckGo searches.