Network Neutrality Can't Fix the Internet

[Commentary] It makes sense to construe broadband and wireless providers as common carriers, like telephone companies and utilities. And a majority of Americans, no matter their affiliation, support regulating internet providers in this manner. But advocates must also acknowledge that the internet is hardly a healthy environment for competition, consumer protection, and equity of use even with net-neutrality guidelines in place. Net-neutrality telecommunications policy might benefit the public by providing impartial access to online services. But even so, Big Tech’s stranglehold on those services puts the lie to the underlying freedom and openness those services ultimately offer. 

Network neutrality would probably only aid in remedying the tech sector’s ills. It could clear the way for new companies with different commitments to security, privacy, advertising, and social responsibility, for example. But even if that’s the case, the turning of the tides in tech reveals how imbalanced power online has become, even after several years of legitimate common-carriage protection. During that time, tech’s worst habits have only worsened, and its oligopolistic power has only increased. All those hypothetical “next Netflixes” only hope to be acquired by Netflix, or Google, or Facebook anyway.

[Ian Bogost is a contributing editor at The Atlantic. He is the Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in media studies and a professor of interactive computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. ]