The idea of a corporation having control over your internet experience sets people’s teeth on edge, which is why the recent ruling against net neutrality has caused such a hullabaloo.
Net neutrality is basically a principle that service providers should treat all data on the internet equally, not discriminating or charging differently by user/usage, location or platform. It’s pretty much the backbone of what makes the internet great: you can get whatever you want, whenever you want it. And it’s in serious danger.
What happened on Jan. 14 wasn’t so much of a strike down of net neutrality as a ruling that the Federal Communications Commission doesn’t have the authority to uphold the 2010 Open Internet Order that attempted to block internet service providers from charging more for faster access. However, it sets the precedent for cable giants like Verizon to fight against neutrality regulations.
The inherent neutrality of the internet took the power from all the big gatekeepers: publishing houses, record companies, media institutions, and gave it back to the people. You no longer needed validation from these institutions to succeed; you just needed a hook and a following.
Ending net neutrality could take away that Wild West frontier full of possibilities and give power back to The Man. Comcast could slow your Netflix streaming to the point you give up on the service and purchase movies from its On Demand program. If you write a blog post slamming Verizon who’s to say Verizon won’t slow your site to the point no one can read it?
Co-inventor of the Internet Protocol Vinton Cerf may have said it best in his testimony before Congress in 2006:
“Allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success.”
I love net neutrality. But, as digital marketers we’re all too familiar with the entire paradigm shifting on us constantly. So our gut reaction is the same regardless of whether we agree or disagree with the policy changes: “What’s the threat here and what’s the opportunity?”
The threat to marketers is the possibility of having to pay not only for the ad space, but taxes or fees on the broadband that’s used to deliver it to consumers. Essentially every ad we buy comes with a shipping and handling fee. This drives up content production costs at a time when brands are already struggling to produce the level of content people find engaging.
This puts marketers in a profit-squeezing bind between search engines like Google demanding high-quality, fresh, sharable content to give a good page rank and cable companies charging premiums on delivering this content.
On the other hand, Silicon Valley dive bars are littered with sad sacks who didn’t see changes in the digital space as opportunities. One option for advertisers is to go back to the original set up for television: it was free to anyone with an antenna and companies sponsored the shows. Burton Snowboards presents live streaming of the XGames (no additional data rates apply!).
But I think the real opportunity lies in the workaround. Instead of raging against Corporate America or a toothless government agency, invent the next thing that renders the conversation mute. Google and Microsoft are already looking into “white spaces” which are unused wireless spectrum bands that fall between those currently used. Find a way of compressing high-speed video into packets so it uses the same amount of broadband as a simple WordPress site.
That’s the beauty of the Internet: we’re still making up the rules as we go. Of course large corporations are going to try to control it and milk it for more capital. But as long as we keep pushing ourselves to adapt and stay ahead of the curve, we’re still in the game.