FCC repeals US net neutrality rules

"But a range of other companies such as Netflix, Google and Amazon, say the FCC's proposals will make it easier for the telecoms companies to give priority to their own streaming video services or impede messaging tools such as Skype or WhatsApp."

Basically, if there's an internet service that you tend to favor, such as Hulu vs. Netflix, telecom companies can make it a burden to use their competitors, herding consumers to use their products exclusively.

It doesn't really have to do with overall internet speed. It has to do with access to specific pieces of information, or throttling sources. Imagine in a perfect world, you always get the speed you pay for. If you pay for 10 Mb/s, then regardless of what site you visit, you should get that speed.

Without net neutrality, ISPs can throttle your speeds to certain sources or even outright deny you access unless you pay more.

Think about it this way: imagine if Whirlpool (appliances) also provided electrical service to your house and if you tried to use a Maytag microwave, you had to pay more for that electricity or you could only use it on low power unless you paid them more money.

That already happens to an extent. Like I said, I pay the extra for the highest speed internet, so if there are any examples of something like having to pay extra to get both Hulu and Netflix, I haven't seen it because I'm already paying more than the standard entry level internet. I also don't begrudge something like YouTube charging people money to not put ads in their videos (although I think they could make millions more than they do by dropping the ad-free fee to 99 cents per month -- they'd get just about every single internet user in the country to pay if they did that).

Now, I do have a philosophical problem with denying people access to something they want, and so I agree ISPs should not be in the content-filtering business any more than what they may have agreed to with their customers (viruses, adult content, etc). In that respect, I wouldn't mind having a government regulator overseeing compliance, but I think the scope needs to extend beyond just the ISPs. If providing free and equal access to content is really the priority, then we need to include the major content providers as well -- Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, etc -- any site that purports to be a gatekeeper of information. Denial of access is bad, regardless of whether the reason for doing it is extortion (pay us more!) or political bias and censorship.