Republicans’ “Internet Freedom Act” would wipe out net neutrality

Civility is a valuable but sadly rare thing on the Internet.

Distrust of government is an important sentiment to hold, as it is easier to grant power than it is to take it away.

The problem is that businesses don't have moral obligations, there owners might but the bigger the business the more disconnected ownership can be from this element. At their base level they only have financial obligations.

Government on the other hand has an obligation to do what it's citizens desire (at least a truly democratic one does because the will of citizens as reflected in their votes is the currency people in government rely on). Because the motivating factor is votes and not money, government can act in situations where doing what's right is different from doing what's profitable.

As a side note this is why money has such a dangerous influence on politics. It tips the scale from moral obligations toward financial ones.

In this particular situation net neutrality would prevent immoral yet profitable behavior, ie forcing specific types of information to pay more to be seen on the web. That is something I feel is dangerous enough I would rather they act quickly than try and get it exactly right. Title 2 may not be perfect, but it is an existing method for dealing with slightly similar situations that allows them to act now. It is possible that something like consumer protection could do it better, and maybe that can be visited later on, but what's important now is that these practices are curtailed quickly so that they don't balloon into something that is harder to stop.

There's also the hope that the more the government and national media looks at these service providers the closer we'll get to a situation where there local monopolies get dismantled. More competition on a local level will lead to drastic increases in speed coupled with reductions in cost, and that could be a boon to entire country's productivity and capabilities, as they relate to the internet.

/r/technology Thread Link - arstechnica.com