Goodbye Net Neutrality

Here’s an inventive way to screw over the Internet.  Take a service you put an arbitrary cap on, say cell phone data plans, and then offer companies an opportunity to bypass that cap by paying a nominal fee.  As if I needed another reason to hate AT$T.

I have to admit, it’s a wickedly inventive way to wedge your way into disbanding net neutrality.  Cell phone companies have long charged more for more use for minutes and texts and data plans, but now they’re offering customers the chance to use certain web sites that won’t count as going over their cap.  It’s a win-win situation for AT$T.  Customers get to use unlimited data for certain sites and AT$T gets more money from the companies that can afford to bribe them the extra costs.

AT$T gets away with that for a few years and then Comca$t can come in and complain that AT$T has a market advantage by being able to charge more for allowing companies unlimited access to their networks.  Soon, all of net neutrality is completely thrown away causing a massive shrinkage in the amount of commercially viable websites on the Internet.