There could quite realistically be a day that your blog or website is not allowed to be fast. Not because you didn’t do proper performance testing and optimization, but because a corporatocracy won’t allow it.
And your website is small potatoes that they don’t care about. You simply don’t have enough money for them to bother enabling you to deliver your website at high speeds to potential readers.
Net neutrality is a horribly boring term to describe the seriousness of the issue at hand. Thankfully, comedian John Oliver explains net neutrality in a way that makes it significantly more entertaining and easy to understand:
As Oliver notes, and the website Battle for the Net describes, this is incredibly important but also quite difficult to understand. The issue primarily affects the US but by default will impact the entire web and therefore the world around us. The democratization of the web (a core priority for WordPress itself) is at risk.
This is why WordPress, Netflix, and a whole slew of other websites are taking part in a protest today. I complained this morning that I didn’t think poor UX (via popups and distractions on websites) were the best way to educate, but rather a day to write blog posts about the issue would be better. So here I am. This issue is important to me, my career, and you too — whether you know it or not.
The web is an amazing place with a level of publishing accessibility — no matter how little money a publisher (you’re a publisher) has — that has never before existed in the world.
Don’t let your internet plan become this:
This issue is much more up in the air than you may think; lawmakers (amazingly) can still be swayed. So do your duty and contact your lawmaker today. Let them know that you value an open internet and you support net neutrality. Sign the petition on the Battle for the Net website.
Even more importantly, educate your friends and family about the importance of an open internet — an internet where the barrier to entry is low and citizen journalists, bloggers, and anyone that has a message can share that message and potentially impact the entire world.
Support net neutrality. It makes the internet and our world just a little bit better.
Excellent writing. It’s often hard to address net neutrality simply and concisely but you did it.
This is what amazes me about (USA) net neutrality supporters. You claim you want an open internet, free of regulation. Your proposed solution to keeping the internet open and free of regulation is for the government to step in and regulate the internet. Are you kidding me? Opening up companies to regulation and treating them as public utilities won’t keep the ‘net free, it will simply subject it to a different kind of control. Thanks but no thanks.
@John Gardner Exactly. Government is the problem. Not the solution.
Without the FCC, there wouldn’t be a bunch of crappy providers that only exist because they have government-granted pseudo-monopolies. I could choose what ISP I do business with. And it wouldn’t be one that throttles my connection speed when I want to access certain websites.
Thank you for an informative piece about an important topic! As a small-time blogger it’s important to me on one level, but as an internet user it takes on another level of meaning. Mahalo!
I don’t see why it would be a big deal if “average joe” websites load slower than instantaneously. If they offer a service that’s better than giant corporation brands, people will use it, even if they have to blink twice before a page loads. HeII, people will use it specifically *because* it’s “indie” instead of “corporate”.
Really like the text, i´m from Brazil and will engage the battle for the internet!