Net neutrality in action

Thursday, March 18, 2021

If you ever heard of "net neutrality", I hope you like it. If not, here is its definition: "the principle that internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites". Basically, it is like "every car can use a freeway, regardless of its origin or brand".

The US killed nation-wide net neutrality in 2018. But some states still set their own net neutrality law. The CA law came into effect last month and this show from AT&T may show you why you want to care about it.

Basically, net neutrality stops this shit: HBO Max, a AT&T owned service, can be streamed WITHOUT counting towards the data cap while other streaming services count unless they pay AT&T. AT&T then said that net neutrality killed "free-data" because now they have to stop the action above and streaming HBO Max will count towards data cap. However, they CAN do this: allow all streaming services not to count towards the data cap. But of course, they would not choose this fairer way, or more neutral way. Net neutrality prevents these anti-competitive schemes and probably be the first thing why you wanna care about it.