The end of net neutrality doesn’t mark the demise of the internet, but it does mean it never grew up.
A friend of mine recently sent me an article talking about how the battle over net neutrality not only requires defensive action but offensive action as well.
It discusses ideas that, honestly, I hadn’t even thought of. Putting pressure on internet service providers would provide an alternate path for protests against net neutrality. Also, If the internet is indeed headed towards privatization, we should start telling it as it is.
Our nation has comically slow internet. Well, for the potential powerhouse we could be, it’s pretty slow compared to the rest of the developed world.
While this speed has been increasing within the last year, our private sector of internet providers surely lags behind those in other countries.
Furthermore, much of our country lacks internet connection in rural locations.
That is unacceptable. And here’s why.
Imagine something that just about everybody takes for granted in the United States: toilets. I remember reading in an article by Slate that 60 percent of people “don’t have access to flush toilets or adequate water-related sanitation.”
Other than those who are homeless, I have never met anybody who does not have access to a toilet. I realize that there are those who do not have access to this sanitation pleasure, but I would be confident in asserting that having a toilet is completely common for the person reading this article.
Why talk about toilets in this manner? Because the internet needs you to.
Think about this.
47 percent of the world’s population now uses the Internet. This means that the accessibility of toilets in our world is right around the same percentage as internet users.
Whenever I think of a public works system in the United States, I always think of the sewer system. What if people charged inflated prices depending on how people pooped or how much they used their toilets. Yes, we pay money for this system, but it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.
The way I see it, this is because rich people poop too. Since wealthy and poor alike both require and respond the same to the very basic human right of sanitation, nobody talks about privatizing the toilet industry or “toilet neutrality.”
People need to go to the bathroom. They also need access to the internet.
This, from The Freemium Fellow.
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