A Note about Net Neutrality and Why We Support It

[ddavison]

We were on the fence about whether or not we'd actively participate in the July 12th fight for Net Neutrality by having our site pop up messages and show a call to action. In the end, we decided not to annoy our users into action by showing them what life would be like without Net Neutrality. This doesn't mean that we don't support it and that we don't want our community members to know why it is so important or worth fighting for. We believe very strongly in Net Neutrality.

As a company, there are things that we support -- net neutrality, equal opportunity in gaming, save the children, climate research, pro-business legislation, etc. Some of our users may support some of these things, none of these things or all of them. You may or may not share the same level of passion as we do or you may have way more passion in any of these areas as we do. It's not our place to tell anyone how to think or act. We don't want our views to ever feel forced or coerced onto our community.

If you would like to read up on Net Neturality and join the protest to save it from powerful corporate control, please follow this link and decide for yourself. While July 12th was a big day for the effort, you can submit comments up through July 17th. In fact, doing so between now and then may show even greater support than a single day.
https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/

[dulux-oz]

Hear hear!

Personally, I support both Smite Works in their stance on the topics listed above and on their stance to not force it down the Community's throat. Net Neutrality is potentially the most import topic for freedom (of information, of the press, of the people, of just about everything) that you or I will see this decade, if not longer.

[LordEntrails]

If you would like to write the FCC, here is an article from Ars Technica with advice of how to do so; How to write a meaningful FCC comment supporting net neutrality

Writing such a comment can be done using this information from the FCC (from here)

The Commission is considering proposed rules to protect an Open Internet. The proposed rules ask questions about how best to ensure the Internet remains an open platform for innovation and expression.


Chairman Wheeler is encouraging the public to share their views now. He intends to have rules of the road in place before the end of the year to protect consumers and entrepreneurs. He will be listening, and your comments will help inform the final rules.


Please send your thoughts to [email protected].


Note: You will be filing a document into an official FCC proceeding. All information submitted, including names and addresses, will be publicly available via the web.

[lordjeb]

I applaud you guys for being active and aware, and for not shoving your views down anyone's throat. There is an alternate viewpoint, of course, in that when the government regulates something to make it "free," it almost never actually stays free. I'm sure the posters have looked at both sides and come to a conclusion, but I would encourage everyone to examine both sides of the argument before making your own conclusions.

[Marswipp]

While the impending loss of net neutrality is worrying, I can respect the decision to not push the message to act given reasonably safe assumption that many of us got the message at least once or twice.

[rob2e]

Net Neutrality = YES!

[Zhern]

Echoing rob2e - Net Neutrality = YES!

[Ken L]

Anyone who's worked in software development knows Net Neutrality is the backbone of the internet's current status quo. There has been a big disinformation campaign by ISPs against it as they stand to profit over it by opening a revenue stream.

Remove the carrier neutrality provision and companies can now pay providers to have their service get priority over others. Own a Mom and Pop shop? Then you're not as big a player as Super-X-Mega-Corp, your traffic will be slower than those who can play the big bucks to get priority access. Getting 5th rung speed tier during prime market times will reduce the effectiveness of small business to complete with larger ones. This actually directly impacts FG and GM to player connection speeds.

[Andraax]

The problem is that many local governments have mandated monopolies in their areas (only one cable company, only one DSL company) - remove the government mandated monopolies and market forces would eliminate the need to regulate "net neutrality". If your ISP pisses you off by slowing down something you want, you can just switch to a different ISP. There are many places in the US where the government has said "you must buy your service from company X or company Y" and you're screwed if both of those companies want to slow down the same traffic. That's a government problem, not an ISP problem.

[darrenan]

As Ken says above, the incentive of getting a big payday from a company that wants preferential treatment will typically override the incentive of a few disgruntled customers switching to a competitor. Also, nothing prevents said company from cutting deals with all the ISPs in an area. I suppose if someone had proof of that there might be a case for collusion, but that's pretty tough to prove. I'm not saying there shouldn't be healthy competition in all markets, but assuming that market competition will fix all the issues is a little optimistic.