An Argument Against Net Neutrality

Are you ready to pay through the nose for internet services you already have? Do you think modeling the internet after cable television’s tiered payment model would be awesome? Do you hanker to pay extra for websites you now get free like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook? No? Well, you’re not alone. Proponents of net neutrality legislation are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore.

Or, at least, they’re not going to take it when internet service providers hypothetically put tiered web access into play. At some point. In the murky, near-to-quasi-distant future.

So what is network neutrality exactly? Wikipedia provides a highly detailed background on the subject. See here.

In simple terms, net neutrality is the principal that all intercommunicational aspects of the web remain unfettered by service restrictions. The fear is that, left to their own devices, the communications industry will band together to create monopolies which allow them to charge extra for services that are currently free. It would be done under a tiered structure such as what is used by the cable networks. You’d get a basic set-up for web access, but then popular sites such as Youtube could come at a premium.

Telecommunications conglomerates would be ill-adivesed to put such a plan into action. That is, unless the CEOs of such companies are keen to torches and pitchforks.

But should we really pass laws that prohibit companies from doing so? Could unintended consequences arise in preemptively reigning down the IT industry?

A good many of my friends have weighed in on this. Vocal friends who are mad-as-hell proponents of net neutrality legislation. I affectionately call them “net neuts” which, truthfully, they’re not to fond of. “Neut” sounds like “newt”, which has all kinds of bad connotations.

At any rate, one of my net neut friends pointed out that, unless network neutrality laws pass, “We’ll all have to start paying for porn again!”

While obviously intended for a laugh, I think his statement strikes fairly close to the heart of proponents’ passion for this fight. Not preserving free adult entertainment specifically, but rather keeping most web content virtually free. Or, at least, as super cheap as it is now.

Of course, they deny this sort of opportunistic motive while professing more altruistic ones, such as wanting the global economy to blossom through unencumbered cyber interaction. Who wouldn’t want that? Everyone’s lives, no doubt, have been enriched by online business relations with Nigeria. I know mine has.

Still, for the better part of this decade, the internet has been a veritable candyland of free content delights. It’s logical enough to want those delights to remain flowing.

But where, exactly, does all this free content come from?

In a recent conversation I had on net neutrality, the discussion shifted to the decline of print journalism. One of my friends unblinkingly claimed that the demise of newspapers and magazines was inevitable because they simply couldn’t compete with the internet which “provides free and instantaneous news.”

Say what? The internet doesn’t provide news. It delivers news (free and instantaneously), but it remains the print and broadcast media who provide it. My friend’s statement is akin to saying ATMs provide free and instantaneous money. No, the money comes from somewhere, namely your bank account.

The content that the internet really does provide free and instantaneously is opinion about the news in the form of blogs. But the news itself comes from professional reporters who go to work every day at the New York Times, at CNN, at Reuters etc. These people are paid by companies to investigate newsworthy happenings, interview relevant parties and then compress the information into written (or videoed) and edited content. And it costs a lot of money to produce.

Some branches of the media — primarily broadcast and cable news — have handled the emergence of the internet well enough. Profit margins for them remain reasonable. Print media, on the other hand, has been dealt a seemingly irreparable blow by the free distribution of its content. Subscription rates have plummeted and advertisers have tightened their wallets. Staffs on some major newspapers have been cut by as much as 75% in the last decade. Foreign bureaus have closed in astonishing numbers. Twenty and thirty-year veterans of the industry have been forced out of journalism altogether. And the bloodletting shows no signs of ending.

So what? Right? For the greater good there will be sacrifices. If print journalism isn’t adaptable enough to handle the transition to the internet age, then perhaps we’re better off with out it. After all MSNBC, Fox News and the Daily Show are more than happy to pick up the slack. They will keep the public informed. And make a buck on the internet while at it.

The problem is you’re kidding yourself if you think broadcast and cable news comes anywhere near the quality of print journalism. Despite looping info 24 hours, filmed news merely gives us the highlights and sound bites of the day. Try as they might, cameras simply cannot probe as deeply into the heart of any given news story the way an acute mind and a keyboard can. There are no Woodwards and Bernsteins in the broadcast realm.

The deterioration of the world’s highest form of journalism is at stake when we let the newspaper industry fall by the wayside. Without a means to control the distribution of its own content on the web, newspapers will continue to crumble. As is, the revenue newspaper companies produce online isn’t nearly enough to pay all those highly-trained and dedicated reporters and editors. Never mind turning a profit for the company at large.

So here’s how net neutrality legislation plays into all of this. While geared toward stemming the ability of IT companies to form monopolies and implement tiered payment plans, such laws would also seem to stem the ability of media companies (both news and entertainment) to innovate ways of controlling the distribution of their own content on the web. Innovations which print journalism and Hollywood both desperately need.

Is the public’s unrestricted capacity to watch some idiot weep under his bed sheets over the media’s treatment of Britney Spears worth the closure of news bureaus in Moscow or Seoul or Baghdad?

One solution, say the net neuts, could be to allow exemptions for media innovation while still sticking it to the telecommunications industry. But is that fair? To favor one industry over another? If laws to sink IT monopolies are worthwhile (and maybe they are) then, in the name of fairness, shouldn’t hamstringing the media’s ability to innovate content distribution be a necessary form of collateral damage?

The entertainment industry has turned out to be more adaptable than newspapers to turning a profit on the internet, but distributive control is still a problem. Artists can be pretty resilient in hard times and, in some cases, the internet has helped a few filmmakers get discovered. But professional, polished film content needs gigantic amounts of money merely to keep running.

While expensive shows and movies are still getting made, have you wondered why everything out of Hollywood recently seems like a sequel or is based on a comic book or is a live action embodiment of some 1980s toy line? Are these the only sorts of projects studio executives like? Not at all. But franchises like Batman, Transformers and even the upstart A-Team movie all have built-in marketing which goes a long way in safeguarding a studio’s bottom line. Hollywood’s profit margin has been hugely cut due to file sharing, thereby increasing risk with each film or show that is greenlit. So the studios are drawn to “safe bets” even though the consumers have shown that familiar rehashes are not necessarily what they want.

And that’s the irony.

We live in a post-Napster world where internet savvy consumers believe that content ought to be — if not free — then, at least, very very cheap. There are literally thousands of great ideas and hundreds of great writers floating around Hollywood. But few of their ideas are given a chance by the money people because unproven content is too often viewed as risky. This was not the prevailing attitude before the rise of the internet.

A great example of how distributive control effects the quality coming out of Hollywood is HBO. This is a premium channel. People pay extra for it. HBO completely controls its distribution. Because of subscribers, there is no consideration of ratings from show to show. Increased subscriptions are all that matter. So HBO is willing to focus on originality and quality since everything the company produces falls within a profit safety zone. While there is no such thing as an HBO “blockbuster”, there is also no such thing as an HBO “bomb”. Production decisions are made with the comfort of having “failure” stricken from the company language. Consequently HBO creates the best programming on the planet.

Now, every studio isn’t suddenly going to transform into a premium cable channel. Few would even want to. But they do need to figure out how to control the distribution of their content via the web or the downward spiral continues. The more consumers demand free online programming, the less money there is to grease the wheels of quality. There will be less content produced and what is produced will become less and less original. That’s fine if you want more Transformers, more A-Team and an unending supply of Saw sequels. For those who want things a little different, internet distribution has to change.

No doubt the internet — from purely a technological point of view — is the best delivery system for both news and entertainment yet devised. There’s a certain magic to conjuring through your computer nearly every old song or TV clip or movie scene that haunts the nostalgic recesses of one’s memory. Or, to not merely watch world news events live as they happen, but to control the replay of those events and search up written commentary about them within scant minutes of its composition. And all of it free to the consumer.

A free and instantaneous internet is truly a remarkable thing. But when the free exchange of files bites large chunks out of the content providers’ profit margins, the old adage applies — you get what you pay for.