Technology

Here's a contrarian hot take. The net neutrality fight is one of those uniquely American issues that simply should not matter, like school shooter drills, complicated tax filings, and tipping. The Wikipedia page on net neutrality in the United States is about as long as War and Peace, yet in most other countries "net neutrality" is not even enshrined as a distinct legal concept and they do just fine.

In the US, net neutrality has not been a general requirement for ISPs since the issue first surfaced over a decade ago, and efforts to enshrine net neutrality into federal law have failed. The dystopia of a balkanized Internet floated by net neutrality campaigners (e.g. ISPs charging people extra to access Netflix) has not come to pass. Yet it's a live issue because (i) Americans are paranoid about corporations screwing them over, (ii) American corporations have a long history of screwing them over, and (iii) Americans of all camps love waging long and complicated legal battles against each other.

What's really needed is not net neutrality, but a more competitive ISP market. What the net neutrality fears are really about is ISPs having power over consumers. If only one ISP serves your area, they can screw you over by forcing you to shell out more money to access Netflix or whatever. But government efforts are ultimately better spent increasing market competitiveness, such as setting up "shared fiber" requirements. If there are a bunch of ISPs all competing against each other, "net neutrality" will fall naturally into place simply because none of them want to piss off their customers.