Every time Free Press or their SaveTheInternet group talks Net Neutrality, we have to put up with the same old lie that ISPs will block sites without Net Neutrality.  Misty Perez of Free Press did it again by claiming that Comcast blocked file sharing and that certain ISPs blocked VoIP, but Perez contradicts Free Press’ own admission that ISPs don’t have the market power to block websites.

The examples that Perez uses have no connection to reality.  Comcast never blocked file sharing and they stopped the controversial practice of limiting the number of concurrent BitTorrent seeds before the FCC ordered them to stop.  Madison River Communications tried to block VoIP provider Vonage but was “encouraged” by the FCC to “voluntarily” contribute $15,000 to the US treasury and stop blocking Vonage.  All this was done without any need for Net Neutrality legislation or regulation or even having Broadband transmission classified under Title II as a common carrier.  Despite the hysteria over the recent ruling against the FCC in the Comcast ruling, there are no ISPs looking to start a legal battle or encourage congress to pass new ISP regulation laws.

Content is king, but Free Press wants you to think otherwise

Free Press wants us to think that without Net Neutrality regulation, ISPs will start blocking websites unless those site owners capitulate to ISP extortion.  This is a gross misrepresentation of reality because just the opposite is true and it is ironic that they use the graphic above.  In fact, ESPN has been threatening ISP since at least 2006.  ESPN will try to embarrass the ISP and tell their customers that the ISP doesn’t “carry” ESPN360 until the ISP pays a per-subscriber fee to ESPN.  That means broadband subscribers who don’t care for ESPN are forced to pay for access to ESPN360.

Free Press even admitted that ISPs don’t have the market power over content sites in their comments to the FCC over Net Neutrality.  They acknowledged that “pay-for-play” where the content site pays the ISP is “unlikely” due to the fact that content sites can use ESPN’s tactics of shaking down the ISPs.  Yet despite knowing this, Free Press continues to mislead the public that Net Neutrality is needed to stop ISPs from demanding pay-for-play.

“Pay-for-Play” — This model would have ISPs refusing to carry certain traffic unless the content originator pays additional fees above normal transit costs. We find that ISPs are unlikely to pursue this model due to the high likelihood that premium content providers would then emulate the Cable TV model, and refuse to let the ISP carry the content unless the ISP pays the content provider for the privilege of offering this content to its customers.

A fantasy based Internet

Free Press has always tried to misrepresent how the Internet has or should work.  Their SaveTheInternet group has managed to convey is this notion that the Internet is a place where every person or company big or small has equal capability on the Internet.  They’ve managed to convince media, regulators, and politicians that the small mom & pop website has the same delivery capability as a major media outlet or major content distributor.  For example, Megan Tady of Save The Internet wrote:

“Net Neutrality” is the basic principle that keeps the Internet free from corporate control. It means that companies like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T cannot block or control content on the Web, and that all Web sites and applications download and upload at the same speeds. In other words, any blog, video or Web site that I create will travel at the same speed as something produced by the mammoth media conglomerates.”

This type of rhetoric has a nice ring to it and it’s easy to see why it’s so appealing and convincing to so many people.  A cyber utopia where everyone is equal in capability and not just opportunity is an idea that many people want to be true even if it is a complete fantasy.  The problem is that when we try to “preserve” this utopian vision of the Internet by forcing it through regulation, it leads to some drastic changes to the real Internet that we really don’t want once we understand what those changes entail.

Free Press’ real goal is to regulate the Internet

Despite their stated reasons, Free Press’ real goal is to regulate and change the Internet.  Misty Perez stated:

Net neutrality prevents Internet service providers from prioritizing their websites, media and content over alternative and independent media. Without it, Internet service providers could charge more to content providers to speed up their sites, which could prevent alternative media and citizen journalists from competing on a level playing field. This would put even more media power in the hands of a few corporate media outlets.

The current Internet not only allows services that speed up websites that pay more money, but it’s the only economic model that works.  Would anyone expect a $50/month website hosting service to perform the same as a $1 million per month hosting service?  Yet Free Press wants people to believe the fantasy that all websites run at the same speed.  Then they’ll claim that independent voices and alternative media will be shut down if faster content delivery costs more.  This is an effective scare tactic, but it’s far from the truth.

For the first time in history, the cost of publishing content and “broadcasting” video over the Internet is effectively free. If you need to publish content, WordPress.com or blogspot.com will host your text/image content for free.  If you want your own domain site, $50/month lets you deliver 20 million 50 KB pages per month.  If you want to host video content, Vimeo or DailyMotion or YouTube will host your content for free.  YouTube will even pay you if you host popular content on their site and you allow them to run video overlay ads on your content.  The reality is that search and advertising are a much bigger barrier to Internet visibility than network services will ever be.

Furthermore, Net Neutrality would raise the price of content delivery because it would eliminate ISPs from competing against Content Delivery Network (CDN) providers.  In fact, it would force websites to pay 3 times more for inferior bandwidth if enhanced ISP services for content providers are outlawed by the FCC’s proposed Net Neutrality regulations.  That would make companies like Google very happy because it would harm Google’s competitors, and Google wouldn’t care about these regulations because they already built their own private Internet and they have the power to negotiate free peering.  These are the types of unintended consequences we risk if we try to change the Internet based on a fantasy of how the Internet is supposed to work.  The Internet has thrived because it has largely been unregulated and we should keep it that way.