There is very little about the internet that can be said to be neutral. Least of all net neutrality. But what does the term even mean?

According to Business Insider, net neutrality “prevent[ed] internet providers like Verizon and Comcast from dictating the kinds of content you’re able to access online” meaning access to internet sources was equal,“creat[ing] an even playing eld among content providers … and it’s great for consumers because they can access everything they want online for no extra charge.”

In recent months, the Federal Communications Commission repealed net neutrality, after companies like Verizon argued that net neutrality “chokes their revenue potential,” and wanted to decide “what people see online and charge content providers accordingly.” Similarly, Comcast supported the repeal, meeting with the FCC to discuss ways of preventing states from passing their own net neutrality laws.

Until Dec. 14, 2017, the date of the hearing to vote on the Restoring Inter- net Freedom Order, net neutrality was protected by the FCC.The vote was split

3-2; Democratic commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel voted to protect net neutrality, but FCC chair Ajit Pai and two Republicans, Michael O’Rielly and Brendan Carr, voted to repeal it.

Despite the results of the commission’s vote, there was overwhelming bipartisan support online to protect net neutrality. According to online source The Verge

the FCC received 22 million comments on the debate, nearly all of which were
in favor of protecting net neutrality.The FCC said that the comments were mixed, but according to a senior FCC official, 7.6 million of those comments were the same letter, submitted using 45,000 fake email addresses.After this came out, addressing the other 14.5 million comments, the FCC claimed to not consider them unless they were phrased in “unique legal terms” rather than opinion.

For the past nine years,Verizon, Com- cast and AT&T have together spent over half a million dollars lobbying the FCC to end net neutrality. Pai, who was appointed to the FCC in 2012 by President Barack Obama, was named chairman by current President Donald Trump shortly after taking office. Before working for the FCC, Pai worked for Verizon, a huge advocate for the repeal of net neutrality.With strong connections to pro-repeal special interests, Pai, de- spite being legally required to consider the voice of the public, was clear on his decision.

With net neutrality gone, the repeal could be both good and bad for
consumers. The repeal allows big internet service providers to charge content providers who want access to their consumers. This could be beneficial for consumers because in
theory, this additional revenue could mean consumers having free data plans. However, counting on cable companies’ charity and care for their customers could be false hope, according to everyone who has ever interacted with a cable company.

According to online source Bustle, another pro of repealing net neutrality is that it would drive innovation, allowing companies to test out different business models. In the current model, low-data users pay as much as heavy-data users, and some believe that companies like Netflix and Amazon, which use up a lot of the internet capacity for video streaming, take advantage of the broadband infrastructure.

However, net neutrality’s repeal could be disadvantageous for consumers and the decades-old precedent of equality and freedom online because the internet providers could “be the masters who dictate exactly what we’re able to view online,” said Business Insider. Now, rather than having equal access to information on the internet, Vox News says,“They’ll be able to charge you more to access sites you currently visit for free, cap how much data you’re allowed to use, redirect you from sites you are trying to use to sites they want you to use instead and block you from being able to access apps, products and information offered by their competitors or other companies they don’t like.”

And not only will it be possible for spe- ci c websites to be blocked, but depend- ing on how much one pays, their service provider could determine their internet speed.

In terms of which consumers will be are nearly universally in agreement that natural monopolies like cable companies must be regulated by the government that allows them to exist.

Net neutrality essentially gives these monopolies complete free reign to raise their prices on consumers, and worse, gives them another monopoly that didn’t exist before, and need not exist at all. Previously, cable companies held only the monopoly on consumers’ access to a free internet. Now, they also hold a monopoly on internet companies’ access to their consumers, and will charge accordingly, as monopolists whose only objective is maximizing profit.

The price for access to internet-goers could rise to the point that only a select few internet companies will be able to afford it.Thus, companies that already have the money to afford access will survive and even thrive with faster speeds, while smaller, poorer companies will be blocked or slowed down to the point that nobody uses them anymore, and they go out of business.

Most affected by this repeal — minorities, rural communities and internet developers —Vox news says,“Members of society who have historically been marginalized and silenced will be in danger of being further marginalized and silenced.”

Most people only have one option for internet: the cable company, which has a monopoly — the government has allowed only that company to provide internet through cables in the ground. In high school microeconomics, one learns that when left to their own devices, monopolies like these cable companies will raise prices far above the optimal level for society, until many consumers are incapable of paying for the product.

For this reason, many of the monopolies that were sti ing the rest of the econo- my with their overpricing tactics in the early twentieth century were broken up and forced into competition. Economists

The consolidation of internet traffic into a handful of enormous companies (Google, Facebook, Net ix, Amazon, etc.) will be amplified, and small startups with no money will never get off the ground.

Far from fueling innovation, the repeal of net neutrality turns the internet, which used to be a low-cost, level playing eld on which anyone could build a business from almost nothing, and where non-prof- its like Wikipedia could be supported by the community with very little cost, into an expensive, ever more rigid hierarchy of existing rich websites whose innovative competitors are wiped out.

Although it may seem like the decision is set in stone,Vox news points out,“It could be a long time before we start to see the full effects [of the repeal] … and there’s even a ghost of a chance that the repeal might be overturned by the US Court of Appeals.”