November 23, 2017

What the end of net neutrality will mean to you

Life Hacker

Without net neutrality, internet providers will have the freedom to carve up the internet into slow and fast lanes—and charge companies for access to higher speeds. For smaller startups that can’t afford to pay extra, this could be a death sentence. Even bigger tech giants like Netflix and Amazon may not be willing to pay extra, resulting in slower streaming speeds for some of your favorite shows.

Comcast and Verizon also have media properties of their own (Comcast owns NBC while Verizon owns Yahoo and AOL, to name a few). Without net neutrality, service providers could easily prioritize their own content over competitors. They could even block access to other sites that are critical of them or pose a competitive threat.

If a company like Netflix does agree to pay extra fees, it’s likely those prices will passed on to you, the consumer. That goes for pretty much every streaming service, along with cloud storage or any other service you pay for online.

The end of net neutrality could even raise the price of video games, especially for those played online. Service providers like Comcast and Verizon may decide to charge extra for the ability to connect to a game server, and that price could be tacked on to future games. You might even end up paying an extra fee for every hour of online gaming. Cable-Style Internet Bundles

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