Net Neutrality and Big Cable Companies

Ever since I can remember the internet was a form of communication to access information from the World Wide Web.  You couldn't send an email, chat with your friends through Instant Message, surf the web or even post comments on peoples ridiculous content online without being connected to the internet.  Sure a lot has changed since the founding of the internet, but so has technology for Gas, Electric, Phone and Television Companies.  However, the Cable companies are crying wolf because they want the Internet to be treated like Cable Channels.   They want you to pay for "channels/categories" of internet content on top of paying for connecting to the internet.  The reason behind this - Video Steaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc..

Now why would they want to categorize the internet?  The Cable companies are losing money from subscribers of HBO, Showtime, SyFy and any other premium channel content providers because the same providers are also distributing their content through the Video Streaming services of Hulu and such.  This is causing the Cable companies to loose their paid subscribers that wanted this content since it was only offered by the Cable Company.  The customers are getting it for free or through much cheaper means because they have access from the internet now.  The overall catch of this is the cable companies are the same companies offering access to the internet.  So instead of fighting or paying more money to have premium content being distributed through Cable only, they are spending more money on Lobbying to have the rules changed in their favor.  Seems like a payoff.  Comcast is the highest paying Lobbyist at 18+ MILLION dollars.  Again they are spending over $18,000,000 already to have the rules changed in their favor.

How does this affect you as a paid customer?  Rates go up and up and up no matter how much the company is profiting and at the same time they go up because they are not profiting as much.  What can you do about it?  Try to stop it.  The FCC is offering up a 120 day period for the public to comment about this situation.  What if they still vote in favor of the Cable companies?  STOP paying for the internet through that company.  If even 1/4 of the customers leave to go somewhere else, that should cause a huge red flag and action should be taken by the company.  We are so use to giving in to or agreeing these price increases are ok, but in reality they are not.  Eventually, if the Cable companies win, you will be paying to access the content of YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and similar business models separately as you do HBO, Showtime and Starz for example.  Granted the majority of the customers do not care, because they can afford it.  This is not an option for a family that is only making $70K a year (not take home either) to pay over $100 a month just for internet.  At the same time the same family should not be spending the same amount on the internet compared to the average customer that doesn't care and should probably go with a slower/less categorized plan.

Anyways to get to what I originally started this blog for, John Oliver (host of the Last Week Tonight show on HBO) summarized Net Neutrality all while making it funny.  Here is the clip:

Tweet