April 23rd, 2018 is the effective date of the end of internet freedom. Or so some would have you believe. December 14, 2017 was the day the FCC actually repealed “network neutrality” and ever since, the future of the internet has been extremely controversial. “Network Neutrality,” by definition is, “The principle that internet service providers(ISPs) should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites.” In order to ensure a future with and open internet and maintain choice and competition online, net neutrality, or at least its ideals, must survive.
The repeal of net neutrality has the potential to be catastrophic for competition in the United States.
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This bundling of apps together has already occured in Europe where there are no net neutrality laws. Tech reporter Michael Coren of Quartz.com points to Spain and Portugal where, “Telecommunications firm MEO has been rolling out mobile packages that provide users with add-on-data plans limited to specific apps.” Bundles such as “social,” “video,” and “music” are examples things that could each have a separate charge. Not only is this bad for the consumers checkbook, but once again can be destructive to competition since naturally only the most popular apps in their respective genres will be included in the packages. There are some who would argue however that the repeal is good for competition. Ajit Pai of the FCC has argued in a speech at the Newseum in reference to the repeal that, “The more heavily you regulate something, the less of it you’re likely to get.” It is true that regulation is not always the best idea for businesses to thrive. However, regulations are there for a reason and in this case the reason is to give consumers the most options and the most open internet possible. In the debate of net neutrality, the argument that regulation of the internet is bad for consumer choice falls apart because the very thing that is being regulated is companies and ISPs ability to