Re: an issue we'll all be dealing with soon,
here's an industry insider talking about the price we'll soon be paying for the gutting of Net Neutrality:
ARTICLE from JAN '18: "The FCC is preparing to weaken the definition of broadband - "Under this new proposal, any area able to obtain wireless speeds of at least 10 Mbps down, 1 Mbps would be deemed good enough for American consumers."Most people are missing the bigger picture here, and it's not about slowing speeds across the board.
The real goal here is to get all data under one umbrella, then impose data caps (extremely low ones), then use the repeal of Net Neutrality to push cable-like packages for things like Netflix and Twitch to have those sites avoid counting against the cap.
The push to get all mobile and otherwise non-broadband data classified as broadband is to assure that any data you use on any device counts against a cap.
The slow and imminent death of cable is the cause of this. The reason ISPs didn't start down this path earlier was because cord cutting wasn't nearly as prevalent five years ago, and companies still didn't have a clear cut path to monetizing the internet...
The rest:
https://np.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/7o41rf/the_fcc_is_preparing_to_weaken_the_definition_of/ds6w3aw/Edit: Step 3 is happening way sooner than expected. Check out the video in another reddit thread and let me know if you notice anything interesting about the language used at the end.
So as I understand it, because of the GOP majority and insufficient public outcry a little while back, the FCC's repeal of NN will lead to pretty much everyone's internet in the USA becoming poorer in quality and costlier in nature.
The obvious & initial goal will be to make up for the loss of cable revenue, but if I understand correctly, this also opens the door for extra charges (or data caps) to be applied to a whole bunch of other stuff we've been enjoying for free just by buying internet service. Youtube, for example.
I would guess gamers might be hit by this kind of thing as well, which (maybe possibly?) might help mobilize some portion of a younger crowd who otherwise don't like to pay attention to politics, etc.
Like the Trump / GOP campaign against natural parks / wildlife / conservation / clean water, this is yet another example of "conservatives" making quality of life and quality of services worse, ostensibly to cut immediate costs (while creating bigger costs down the road) and perhaps also to help weaken American democracy so they can come along and impose a more authoritarian model. (as has been talked about here recently)