[Software] I was wrong about Net Neutrality (RIP) and that's probably good news

[Dexter.]

 

Eight years ago, I predicted the worst. Net Neutrality, which had only become a thing a few short years before, was struck down by the original Trump Administration in 2017. At the time, I pronounced it dead and laid out all the bad things that would happen as a result.

 

Now, after a Federal Appeals court ruled against the Biden Administration's long-stalled efforts to reinstate Net Neutrality, I have to admit that I was wrong. Net Neutrality was never the Internet freedom fighter we thought it was in part because it was also a product of its era, and the online and broadband world has shifted under our feet.

 

Before we walk back through my apocalyptic vision, it's worth examining what Net Neutrality is and was supposed to do.Net Neutrality is, in the broadest sense, about making sure that the pipes or the infrastructure and systems that deliver your internet to you (websites, streaming platforms, services) see all those bits and bytes as the same. So, an ISP (Internet or broadband Service Provider) like Comcast in the US doesn't view one kind of data differently than another. It never prioritizes information coming from one of its owned services (NBC) over that of another (ABC, owned by Disney).

https://www.techradar.com/computing/websites-apps/i-was-wrong-about-net-neutrality-rip-and-thats-probably-good-news