{"id":9180,"date":"2015-02-28T08:52:49","date_gmt":"2015-02-28T13:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=9180"},"modified":"2015-02-28T08:52:49","modified_gmt":"2015-02-28T13:52:49","slug":"welcome-to-the-fastlane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/welcome-to-the-fastlane\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to the Fastlane"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the Fastlane<\/h1>\n

Yesterday we featured an article in our Premium newsletter praising the FCC for voting in favor of keeping the Internet \u00a0equally accessible to everyone with an Internet connection. Needless to say we were surprised when we received quite a few emails dissing us for supporting Net Neutrality.<\/p>\n

However, from the anti-net-neutrality emails we received, we got the impression that many don’t understand that Net Neutrality doesn’t mean that everyone pays the same price for Internet access or that everyone gets the same Internet connection speed – prices for Internet access and speeds vary – genarlly the more you pay the faster your Internet connection is. That has nothing to do with Net Neutrality.<\/p>\n

Net Neutrality guarantees that everyone has equal access to the Internet; that certain sites and content providers won’t be able to pay to be on Fast Lanes while those who can’t afford to pay will be relegated to slow lanes where even those with high-speed Internet will find those sites and content providers on slow lanes to be annoyingly slow to load. Net Neutrality also prevents ISPs from throttling users’ access to certain sites and content providers – generally the ones who don’t want to ante up to be on the fast lanes.<\/p>\n

The idea is that then Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, AT&T would not only be able to offer you Internet access but also bundle content, much like cable TV providers already do – for instance \u00a0for $59.95 a month you may get 100 channels; for $79.95 you might bet 150 channels, and for $119.95 a month you get 200 channels plus so-called premium channels like Showtime, HBO, etc.<\/p>\n

Finally, we already have Net Neutrality. It’s not like Thursday vote will change anything. \u00a0We’ve all enjoyed equal access to the Internet for as long as the Internet as been around. And that’s why Thundercloud.net pages load as fast as Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe, Fox News, CNN, and others – who could surely afford to ante up to be on the fast lane if Net Neutrality were not preserved. But Thundercloud.net and all our Cloudeight Web pages would be annoyingly slow or even inaccessible – simply because we can’t pay to be included on the top tier of sites – the fast lane. And not only Cloudeight but thousands and thousands of other smaller but useful sites would find themselves in very difficult situations if Net Neutrality were not preserved.<\/p>\n

Anyone who starts a retail store on Main Street joins all the other stores on Main Street, and everyone who shops on Main Street has equal access to all stores on Main Street. That’s what we have now on the Internet. Everyone has equal access to every legal thing on the Internet. Net Neutrality simple preserves what we already have.<\/p>\n

Then we have the anti-government argument. We kind of had to laugh. Most of the people who wrote about “government bungling” and “big government” are recipients of Social Security and enjoy the benefits of Medicare. It’s funny how people are against government regulation unless those policies and regulations benefit them. I wonder how many of those who wrote chewing us out for our support of Net Neutrality would give up their Social Security or Medicare?<\/p>\n

Everything is relative. We don’t want this to be a political debate. We just want everyone to know the truth. Net Neutrality is not a done deal – you can be sure Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and others will be pouring millions of dollars into getting rid of it. Why? Because those millions of dollars they’ll be spending will turn into billions of dollars if they’re successful in getting rid of Net Neutrality – and they’ll prevaricate, obfuscate, orchestrate, and spin until they convince consumers that these huge corporations only want a “fair ” Internet. If you actually believe that we’re better off living in a plutocracy, then heaven help us. It’s really hard to believe that Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and others have our backs when it comes to Net Neutrality.<\/p>\n

Anyway, if you think Net Neutrality is a bad thing because you generalize that any government meddling is a bad thing, then give up Medicare, Social Security, and join Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and the other big Internet providers in their crusade to convince you that they have your best interests at heart as they spend millions trying do away with Net Neutrality.<\/p>\n

And now here’s a glimpse of what you’d see if Net Neutrality no longer protected equal access to the Internet.<\/p>\n

\"fastlane-all\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Welcome to the Fastlane Yesterday we featured an article in our Premium newsletter praising the FCC for voting in favor of keeping the Internet \u00a0equally accessible to everyone with an Internet connection. Needless to say we were surprised when we received quite a few emails dissing us for supporting Net Neutrality. However, from the anti-net-neutrality emails we received,\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1433,1,1674],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9180"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9182,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9180\/revisions\/9182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}