YouTube - Jon Stewart on Net Neutrality All joking aside, it's kinda sad knowing that Ted Stevens, chairman of the Commerce Committee (the committee that the net neutrality bill goes through) has very little understanding of how the internet works. I'm sure you all can guess my stance on net neutrality, but the problem is we have telecoms and other ISPs wanting to prioritize data to ~~Paying Buisnesses~~ 'preferred members'. The problem with this, is that the internet is a web of networks. Once someone gets on the internet, you're just a part of the big network. Customers pay the ISP's to have access to the internet, period. They pay to access the 'big network'. A customer can pay more to have a quicker access to the network: the whole network.

When I pay for my 2mbps, that's what I get. Technologically, it doesn't matter where those 2mbps come from, be it YouTube, google, slashdot, this blog, whatever. Because of the structure of the internet, your ISP really gets all that traffic from someone else: the backbones. These are HUGE fiber-optic structures that are rediculously fast: think of your current 'broadband' connection as a snail. These backbones are forumla 1 cars. The ISPs pay the backbones to access THEIR network, which consists of simply the other backbones and other ISPs that connect to the backbones, and the customers that connect to the ISPs.

So you have a set of BIG tubes (backbones), connected to smaller tubes (ISPs), connected to various-sized straws (you). What the ISP wants to do is hold up the pipe, letting their preferred friend's water flow free, which means they hold up the other water from coming in to you, the paying customer. Of course, if you want to drink the other water, you get nothing, or the weak bottom-of-the-cup flow. That's not what you payed for! You payed for the whole pipe. By nature of availability, the only water that you can get is the 'special water'. Therefore, the whole purpose of the internet is dead. You can't get the water you want, only the water the ISP wants you to have. Perhaps the backbones should do the same things :)