Americans
have a wholly different opinion of the Internet and its uses than the remainder
of the world. To the vast majority of account holders, the "internet"
synonymous with that expensive hand-held device that constantly needs to be
updated and recharged. It displays static and moving pictures and makes
addictive sounds to keep their attention on the glowing screen even to the
exclusion of their imminent collision with motor vehicles and fixed objects in
their walking path. So highly integrated is the services available on a
wireless device that few account holders can identity what part is
Telecommunications (phone), which is message-push and what part is the actual
Internet. To them they pay a monthly subscription fee and the content is
magically there for the consumption.
For this
demographic of Internet users the Information Pipe is mostly one-way to them. Content
providers pump Intellectual Property into the pipe and it comes out the other
end and the subscriber is happy. While they play their addictive games, a small
bit of data is sucked back to the provider through a smaller pipe and the
provider learns incrementally more about who likes their IP and what else they
might like.
Gaming is
huge. Video is huge. Both are highly competitive and lucrative. Photo-sharing
is also huge as evidenced by recent platform acquisitions where one company buy
the other for several billons of dollars. But all this technical and financial
stuff is of zero concern to the subscriber who only wants his Pokemon GO app to
not freeze.
Americans
are slowly adopting internet-based services such as banking, finding a bar or a
parking spot in the city, paying for parking in the city, hailing an UBER or
Lyft or reserving a city bike. None of these services are controversial enough
for an ISP to internally regulate customer access. Few transactions would even
raise the virtual eyebrows of the NSA or DHS.
In other
parts of the world, internet users are highly connected in massive numbers and
they are more of a business customer rather than a player.
The internet
is many thing to many people. Even in their most outrageous email message only
a percentage or so of users have ever sent content that the NSA would even be remotely
interested in. Few have visited controversial websites and fewer still have
ever created one. Yet there are internet users who have expressions to make
which are beneficial to the world at large. Clean water causes, climate
protections, anti-fascist and social justice for everyone are just some of the
causes for which people post to the Internet and others search it.
Yes there
are those people who have nefarious purposes and with equal ease spread their
negative messages. They seek to use the Internet to spread their brand of free speech.
It is not
the place of the owners of the physical communications lines to decide who can
say what, when and at what price. That is the purview of society itself and law
enforcement agencies when the free speech turns into violence.
In the
present struggle between the Net-neutrality versus monopoly telecomm industry
there are factions which have great stakes in the outcome. The telecomm
industry peddles great monetary influence to obtain direct results from the
decision makers and the ancillary levels of support which can hand them the
ultimate control over the public channels of communication.
On the
consumer side of the issue, millions of Americans have no opinion either way
since they are the Internet-toy players who will play at whatever price and
with whichever toy manufacturer makes the toys.
Then there
remains the socially conscious and controversial users who will be the ones who
are stifled and subjugated to the will of the ISPs which will have their hands
on the valves of the pipes. We have already seen the impacts of the
consolidation of power wrought by the corporate media powerhouses. Allowing
even the hint of bias in the flow of information is a detriment to America as a
democracy and an extension of monetized control of everything.
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