An Internet Apocalypse was forecasted when the FCC under the Trump administration announced it was rolling back the “Net Neutrality” rules put in place under the Obama administration in 2015.
This abandonment of government regulation of the Internet was supposed to kill the Internet as we knew it. But as we take a closer look a year after the regulations were abolished , what has actually happened? Has the Internet died? Have big companies raised their rates? Has competition been killed? Has there been no change? Or have things actually improved?
Prior to 2015 the Internet was a robust incubator of ideas for services and products. Entrepreneurs of all stripes created products and services for the public to use. The quality of life that we enjoy today is directly attributable to the successful ones. The ease with which we communicate with someone down the street or around the world in some place like Hong Kong came from an Internet that was not hampered by government regulation.
If the Net Neutrality rules had been in place in the early 1990’s when the Internet was blossoming like new flowers in the spring, most of the Internet as we know it today would probably not exist. Many of us would probably still be using dial up connections. The tremendous innovation that has taken place in the last 20+ years would not have happened. In fact, the only reason the Internet became such an integral part of our lives was that it was left virtually untouched by government regulatory forces.
However, some Net Neutrality’s advocates, both before net neutrality came into being and at its subsequent repeal, were honestly convinced that without government intervention, all the online services we enjoyed would cease to exist. GQ magazine said:
What is amazing is that so many people accepted these examples as true. It shows the power of the MSM to get people to accept completely false info as valid. Every one of these examples existed before net neutrality was put into place.
What was Net Neutrality? Net neutrality defined the Internet as a public utility. This allowed the government to regulate many aspects of it. This included connection speeds and pricing. It was a not-too-subtle attempt by the Obama administration to take over the Internet. Censorship would not have been far behind.
In many other countries around the world the government controls what gets out onto the Internet. Think of China as one example. This is the type of control that President Obama wanted to institute here. It would have been a step-wise process with the government using different “emergencies” to institute tighter controls.
What was the effect of Net Neutrality? Immediately capital investment in Internet infrastructure declined. 2015 was the 1styear since the Internet was born where less money was invested than the year before. Companies recognized that having the government looking over their shoulders on everything they did was going to result in significantly higher costs and therefore, such investments were more risky.
This had happened before in this country. As FEE notes:
This was the future that we were looking at if Net Neutrality had remained in effect.However, according to its advocates, by now a year after the rules were abolished, rates should be soaring through the roof and connection speeds should be slowing down as the greedy telecom giants attempted to squeeze every last dollar out of the proverbial turnip due to a lack of government oversight.
Has this happened? The short answer is “No.” In fact, according to Recode, things have gotten significantly better during the last year. Average download speeds have increased by nearly 40% while upload speeds have increased by over 20%. Freed from government regulations, service providers have expanded their fiber optic networks, allowing for greater speed. In addition, significant rate reductions have occurred in many locales as companies compete for customers.
So chalk up another win for the Trump administration in their battle on behalf of the common people. And remember this the next time the government tells you that regulation is good for you.