Cablization

If you rely on a cable company or satellite provider for your television programming, you start by paying for a basic package that includes the most popular, and innocuous, programming. If you want to add sports coverage, that’s extra. Movies, extra. And so on, to a very large bill if you want everything. And everything isn’t everything. With a full package, you still don’t have any alternative news sources. There is nothing comparable to this blog, or any other blog for that matter. There are no outlets for individual voices, because there is no money to be made from that, so the content providers believe. Even small record labels and distributors have no way to get word to you on cable or satellite about their artists.

Fortunately, for the moment, we have net neutrality. The term is intimidating, but what it means in plain terms is that all of the missing elements I mentioned above can be found on the internet. Unlike cable and satellite providers, internet providers are currently required to provide the entire internet, even the nooks and crannies that could never be profit centers for them. And that is really what the current struggle to save net neutrality is about. Donald Trump and his friends can talk all they want about the best way to promote innovation on the internet, but the truth is that they want to do away with net neutrality in order to allow large companies to monetize our online lives more effectively. That means having access only to websites they believe the can sell to large numbers of people. It means your preferred social network might become part of a premium package. It means you might lose access to Facebook for several months while they fight through a contract dispute with your provider. And it means that many independent musicians would lose their careers. That last one may be more important to me than to some of my readers, but it is part of a larger suppression of independent voices that would result from the loss of net neutrality. Many truly independent political websites would be lost, or at least lost to most people. Russian propaganda sites would not be lost, however, because they are well financed. They could meet the prices internet providers would ask to carry their services.

So far, I have only mentioned the natural consequences of the loss of net neutrality. By that, I mean the effects that accrue from the new financial model that would follow from a closed internet. This stifling of independent voices would happen for purely financial reasons, without any intent from internet service providers. But surely, there would also be intent. My current internet provider is Verizon, and they could decide that they will not allow access to any website whose politics they don’t like. There would be no way to stop them from doing this. Initially, there might arise new internet providers who fill the gaps by allowing access to these niche sites, but the financial aspects of doing so would make it hard to stay in business, while the Verizons of the world would be busy lobbying Congress to eliminate these competitors.

I hope my readers already know that I am writing this post now because Trump’s head of the FCC, Ajit Pai, has proposed eliminating net neutrality, and ushering in a new era of a fully monetized internet. The FCC has to allow public comments until December 14, and they will then make a final decision. During that time, we need to flood the FCC with our comments. We also need to pressure our Senators and Congressmen to go on record in opposition to Pai’s plan. We do not have to listen to any politician who wants to tell us what the new, monetized internet would look like. We already know. Almost all of us have cable or satellite television, so we’ve seen this show already. Fortunately, there are many links like this one that make it easy to send comments to the FCC. Please do so, and remember that adding your own comments counts for extra on the receiving end; it shows the FCC that you cared enough to personalize your response, and that it did not come from a bot.

My musical selection this week has to come from an independent band. Red Molly have self produced and released all of their albums. They have made a good career for themselves, using the strength of their performances, the occasional video like this one, their website, and online vendors for their CDs. One such vendor is CD Baby, and that is a site that would be hurt by the loss of net neutrality. So I would like to believe that artists like this would continue to be able to share their art with us even if we lose this fight, but surely their careers would suffer.