Net Neutrality Should Be Repealed

Recently, the FCC voted for net neutrality to be repealed, and I support this decision wholeheartedly. My reasons for this are as follows: 1. The repeal of net neutrality eliminates regulations on ISPs, helping that sector of the economy grow. 2. A lot of the worries advocates of net neutrality have are rather unrealistic or void of any economic sense. REASON NUMBER ONE: Getting rid of net neutrality will get rid of a slew of harmful regulations on ISPs and help the free market take care of the internet, as it should. To see the effects this will have, we must examine what regulations occur under title II (AKA net neutrality). Under net neutrality, ISPs must submit any ideas for a "new technology or business model" to the FCC. This regulation greatly hampers any upcoming innovation, harming the internet economy. This isn't even the least of it though. The FCC also has the power to "partially regulate the capital investment of existing companies" and decide what companies can enter the ISP market. Yes, the FCC can decide what companies can become ISPs, which means that this "monopoly" problem constantly brought up by opponents of the repeal is more likely to happen under net neutrality, considering that business-stifling regulation blocks potential new ISPs from entering the market. The American Action Forum states that this puts a trillion dollars of GDP and 2.5 million jobs under a "regulatory regime". Repealing net neutrality will get rid of these harmful restrictions and bring freedom back into the free market. This will take away barriers against innovation, barriers against investment, barriers against entry into the ISP market (which limits consumer choice), and to top it all off, by getting rid of excessive government regulation, we will be triggering authoritarians in the process. That is a win-win-win-win, and to reference Donald Trump, I am starting to get tired of all the winning. Other regulations that will be destroyed under this repeal include the prohibition of paid priority. Paid priority is when ISPs "pay to have certain bits sent to computer screens at a faster rate than others" (Daily Wire). Smaller ISPs used to use this, giving them an advantage considering they had less materials but could pay money for better speeds. Net neutrality comes into play, preventing paid priority from happening, and keeping smaller ISPs (who ironically enough, are who net neutrality advocates claim to help) from having that fighting chance in the marketplace. Because of this, consumers are placed in a lose-lose situation, in which they must choose between higher costs, or slower internet. Getting rid of net neutrality will bring paid priority back into play, giving smaller ISPs the advantage they once had. Considering that title II means the internet is a public telecommunications utility, the FCC also has power to levy taxes against ISPs. A 2014 study made the estimation that net neutrality regulations could result in as much as $45.4 billion lost in new ISP investments over the next 5 years. Tunku Varadarajan interviewed Ajit Pai, commissioner of the FCC, and gathered this: "Among our nation"s 12 largest internet service providers," he told the audience, "domestic broadband capital expenditures decreased by 5.6%, or $3.6 billion, between 2014 and 2016." I ask him to elaborate. "As I"ve seen it and heard it," he says, "Title II regulations have stood in the way of investment. Just last week, for instance, we heard from 19 municipal broadband providers. These are small, government-owned ISPs who told us that "even though we lack a profit motive, Title II has affected the way we do business." " By keeping net neutrality in place, we aren"t sticking it to the man. We aren"t attacking those greedy corporations. We are hurting the small ISPs by levying taxes against them and taking away their special advantages and no amount of Jimmy Kimmel tyrades can change that. Repealing net neutrality can bring the good changes these smaller ISPs need. REASON NUMBER TWO: The worries of advocates for net neutrality are rather unrealistic. There are two main causes of concerns: ISPs will make you pay for certain websites, and ISPs will block access to certain websites or throttle speeds to certain websites. A tweet from "Banksy" states the typical worries: Twitter: $14.99 per month Snapchat: $9.99 per month Youtube: $19.99 per month Netflix: $9.99 per movie Google: $1.99 per search "If you don't want to pay extra for your favorite sites you need to be supporting #netneutrality". However, these claims are all false. Now if it wasn"t for the fact that there is a 99.99% chance those numbers are made up, that might just be a convincing argument. The only problem is that it is completely lacking of any economic sense. If an ISP actually made people pay two dollars for every google search, then people would be leaving that ISP in droves in favor of a ISP with better prices. This is due to the principle of competition, a great factor in capitalist economies when it comes to keeping prices low without government intervention. Of course, there is the argument that some people only have access to one ISP, meaning they have a monopoly and can do whatever they want. This is also false. If an ISP charged prices for access to certain sites, another ISP could go into the area offering better prices, meaning a great profit for them, and horrible losses for the other ISP. The first ISP then lowers their prices to compete, resulting in a win-win for consumers, who not only have multiple choices, but lower prices. People also like to cite Portugal as an example for what the U.S. could be like without net neutrality, as they have you pay for certain packages like the social media package, the games package, or the music package. But what advocates of net neutrality don't know is that using Portugal as an argument for net neutrality is actually a pretty harmful idea, almost on the same tier as shooting yourself in the foot. Snopes put it best when stating: "The European Union"s Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) established net neutrality guidelines in 2015. Portugal is a member of the European Union, so its internet providers must comply." In other words, this apocalyptic, prepackaged, pay-to-play world we are told we are about to live in apparently happens under a country with net neutrality regulations. Besides having to pay to access certain websites, another main worry of Net Neutrality advocates is that ISPs will "throttle" speeds to certain websites or block access to others. The only issue with this distressed vision is that these worries have no factual or historical backing. Ian Tuttle from the National Review makes notice of the fact that when the FCC first considered net neutrality in 2010, they could only name four instances of anticompetitive behavior, all of those being relatively minor. Not only that, but cell phone networks are not subject to net neutrality-esque regulations of any kind, and they don"t engage in such anticompetitive behavior. About a decade ago, Comcast attempted to "throttle" speeds (slowing down access) to certain data packets but were "pilloried in the court of public opinion" and quickly relented. There goes that concern! To finish my arguments, I shall make an allusion to the past. In February 2015, Net Neutrality was enacted. I do not remember having to pay for certain websites and I do not remember hearing any stories about ISPs raising the prices of entry to certain websites. I have no worries about the future of the U.S. under a net neutrality-free market economy and because of that I can see of no reason but to vote in affirmation to this resolution. SOURCES: https://www.snopes.com... https://www.dailywire.com... http://www.nationalreview.com...