Yesterday on Last Week Tonight, John Oliver gave an excellent explanation of why you shouldnât trust Comcast, no matter what they say. He also realized that the solution to the problem resides in the comments sections of every website on the internet.
If you arenât familiar with the issue, net neutrality is the idea that once you pay for your internet connection, youâll be accessing any websites at the same speed, not affected by any deals those sites may have with your provider. Right now, the FCC is hearing arguments that companies like Comcast should be allowed to charge a company like Netflix more money to have the same connection speeds to their customers that they do now. Any company who doesnât pay would be limited to slower speeds.
If that seems unreal, keep in mind that itâs already happening. At around 4:22 in the video above, there is a chart showing Netflixâs connection speeds on various service providers, with a massive drop during negotiations with Comcast:
If Netflix has to pay more for its customers to get the same speed they get now, eventually theyâll have to pay more to get Netflix. Even more importantly, the next thing thatâs better than Netflix might not be able to get off the ground because they wonât be able to pay for the speed they need.
So all this brings us to Johnâs proposed solution. The FCC is taking comments on the issue here, so make one less comment on a cat video today and go let them know that you donât want to pay more for the same internet youâre already getting. You can also send them an email at [email protected]
Oh, and remember, this isnât new. There are still plenty of places where your internet speed gets reduced after you use a certain amount of data. The latest push from cable companies just hides the cost to consumers by shifting it to websites themselves. Redditor quink made this this image 4 years ago to show what your internet might look like if cable companies get their way:
Net Neutrality [Last Week Tonight]
