A slap in the Face

               

                If the net neutrality that we enjoy today is replaced with a Tier system by the internet providers, the essence of this information medium would be lost.  The internet became globally adopted and grew so rapidly because of the infinite variety of content.  It provides space for everything, from the smallest localized things, to the largest worldwide concepts, such as music.  The internet’s success can also be attributed to the convenience it provides.  For example, it outperforms libraries with its ability to make information available much faster.  Perhaps the most important thing is that the internet has become a standard tool and having access to it has gone from a commodity to a necessity.

                College students can’t live without the internet.  Not only do we use it for entertainment, to lay back after all the stress, but also to do our research and meet our obligations.  Some of us use it to access online classes or class material.  So far, this has been quiet convenient for a lot students who work and/or have children.  Therefore, any changes to the internet would affect us tremendously.

                An article from The New York Times mentions that some envision a public Internet and  a  “private one with faster lanes and expensive tolls.”  The first thing that comes to my mind, as a student who has taken an online class before, is how would that affect my classes?  I wonder whether online classes would become more expensive since UH would need to pay a fee to keep getting its content downloaded at a high speed.  I would still have the option to take a hybrid class instead. But what about those students whose only method of getting an education is via online classes?  We all know tuition is very expensive and a lot of students barely manage to cover the costs. 

                Tuition is a very sensitive issue for many students.  My guess is that it would eventually increase for everyone.  Universities provide internet services to their students, which are included in the tuition fees.  If their internet service becomes more expensive, they will pass those extra expenses to us.  

Money is not the only issue, nor the most important one.  To me the most important thing is the free flow of information.  We already have a filtered medium of information, the TV.  Even cable is filtered and has limited content and thus limited points of view.  The internet has no limits, and abandoning net neutrality would impose them for the first time.  As an article from PBS points out, if providers are going to start regulating content, not only would the speed be jeopardized, but its accessibility at all.

Changing the internet looks like a profitable idea for the Internet providers.  For the public, it looks like a slap in the face.  The internet as we have been enjoying it, would no longer be free, nor cheap, nor convenient, and perhaps not even as valuable.