A free and open Internet is essential both for many forms of communication and for conducting business. This is another example of Democrats supporting the free market against efforts of some Republicans who, despite their misleading rhetoric and false claims, have been pursing an agenda of destroying the free market in the United States to establish a plutocracy.
I have seen many more scholarly articles on the importance of net neutrality. For those who do not understand the repercussions, this explanation from Chad Dickerson, CEO of Etsy, might put matters in perspective. Following is an excerpt, but I suggest reading his full article:
“Free and open” was what made the Internet work then, and it’s a critical principle now. I didn’t have to ask permission to build my first websites. I had unfettered access to materials that helped me teach myself how to code. As I learned more, I quickly came to understand that the Internet was so much more than a network of cables and wires that connected computers around the world. It was a platform for the purest expression of freedom, openness and possibility that I had experienced in my life.
Those early experiences on the Internet inspired me to pursue a successful career in technology, and connected me with people and knowledge from all over the world. Mine is a common story and one we need to protect for future generations.
Etsy now hosts over 1.3 million sellers, 88% of whom are women, most of them sole proprietors working out of their homes. Individually they may be small, but together they sold over $1.35 billion worth of goods in 2013. That’s the power of the Internet. But it only works if net neutrality — the idea that all traffic on the Internet should be treated equally — is protected…
Without strong rules, Etsy and the people who depend on our platform would suffer. We charge just 20 cents to list an item and take only 3.5% of every transaction. If broadband companies can charge websites for priority access to consumers, we’d likely have to choose between increasing our fees or leaving Etsy sellers in the slow lane.
Make no mistake, speed impacts the bottom line. Research from Google and others demonstrates that delays of milliseconds have long-term negative impacts on revenue. If people click on an Etsy seller’s shop and perceive images loading slowly, they will click away, and that seller will lose the sale. This isn’t just about a high-bandwidth service such as video. It’s about any business that depends on the Internet to reach consumers, including the entrepreneurs on Etsy.
That’s why I, along with many others in the startup and public-interest communities, started encouraging the FCC to establish new rules protecting real net neutrality under the strongest legal authority available to them — Title II of the Communications Act — allowing them to ban paid prioritization, throttling and blocking. The previous rules were overturned by the courts because the FCC used the wrong legal authority to justify them. This time, we want them to get it right.
