Wozniak & Copps: Ending net neutrality will end the Internet as we know it

The FCC should not let a few giant gatekeepers speed up and slow down their preferred sites and services. It should move us all into the fast lane.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai (Photo: Eric Thayer, Getty Images)

Sometimes there’s a nugget of truth to the adage that Washington policymakers are disconnected from the people they purport to represent. This summer’s sustained grassroots defense of network neutrality, including a National Day of Action, is a good example. Millions of Americans have now contacted the Federal Communications Commission and Congress in opposition to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to wipe away the open internet.

It is a stirring example of democracy in action. With the Internet’s future as a platform for innovation and democratic discourse on the line, a coalition of grassroots and diverse groups joined with technology firms to insist that the FCC maintain its 2015 open internet (or “net neutrality”) rules.

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One of us is the inventor of the personal computer, and the other a former commissioner at the FCC. We come from different walks of life, but each of us recognizes that the FCC is considering action that could end the internet as we know it — a dynamic platform for entrepreneurship, jobs, education, and free expression. Will consumers and citizens control their online experiences, or will a few gigantic gatekeepers take this dynamic technology down the road of centralized control, toll booths and constantly rising prices for consumers? At stake is the nature of the internet and its capacity to transform our lives even more than it already has.

If Pai’s majority permits fast lanes for the biggest internet service providers (ISPs like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T), companies could speed up or slow down the sites and services they prefer. That’ll be great for their business affiliates and corporate friends, but woe to the startup that wants to build the next great web service — it could find itself in the slow lane, unable to compete with established firms. And pity the local blogger who criticizes her ISP’s crummy service — the broadband gatekeeper would be free to slow or silence her.

Like most issues of telecom arcana, net neutrality can be highly technical. But underneath the jargon is a simple principle: Broadband consumers should have access to lawful content without ISP interference. That means no censorship or fast lanes.

Fast lanes or “paid prioritization” create anticompetitive incentives for ISPs to favor their own services over those of their competitors. While Pai thinks paid prioritization would somehow benefit consumers, allowing ISPs to make such arrangements would stifle innovation online and make it harder for the next great streaming service or social network to reach the market. This is not an idle worry. In a filing with the FCC, AT&T called popular concern over fast lanes “baseless.”

Yet it’s clear that a fast lane for some is a slow lane for all others. Even more troubling than the threat to consumers is the impact this could have on democracy. Ending net neutrality would take freedom and choice from the less powerful.

This is a core issue for our civil society. Americans of every political persuasion depend on the internet to educate themselves on the issues of the day, speak their minds, and organize for change. Mass mobilizations on all sides of the climate, health care and immigration debates illustrate the point. Yet even as our political discourse reaches unprecedented levels of polarization, some 77% of Americans, including overwhelming majorities of both Republicans and Democrats, support maintaining net neutrality.

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The path forward is clear. The FCC must abandon its ill-conceived plan to end net neutrality. Instead of creating fast lanes for the few, it should be moving all of us to the fast lane by encouraging competition in local broadband connectivity and pushing companies to deliver higher speeds at more affordable prices. It’s the right thing for us as consumers and as citizens.

Steve Wozniak is a computer engineer who co-founded Apple Computer, Inc. with Steve Jobs. He created the Apple I and Apple II series computers in the mid-1970s, earned the National Medal of Technology in 1985, and has worked on a number of business and philanthropic ventures. Michael Copps, a member of the Federal Communications Commission from 2001 to 2011, is a special adviser for Common Cause. Follow them on Twitter: @stevewoz and @coppsm

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