Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Net Neutrality is in Danger!

Over the last few months, there has been a lot of buzz about Net Neutrality and the telecom companies trying to get rid of it. I am not going to go into my views and such, mainly due to it would become a full on rant and would not help the situation. Instead, here's a post that Chris Oatley has done that explains it plain and simple way better than I could even do: Our Creative Future is At Risk.

What I am going to say is the possible BIG issues that will come out of losing Net Neutrality for the USA. I am not an expert on business and such. However, I understand how "systems" works from businesses to agriculture to history and many more through what I often research for stories and my own curiosity. This is my opnion, but you could say it's what I have a feeling is USA's worse cast scenrio with how things are right now. It is up for you to decide if you agree with me or not, but I think we all can agree losing Net Neutrality is a very bad thing for the whole world. I know this will effect the rest of the world, but I don't have enough information of what is going on fully with every countries' business models, economic freedom, internet status, and so on and I also want to keep this post short. Hence this mainly focuses on the USA, but with what I give, people in other countries can probably get an idea of what implications they will feel from it like mass immigration and such since this could be the trigger than sends the world back into economic depression, not just the USA as I know for sure we will need to change the Great Depression in later history to the "1st Great Depression" with how the USA is going to begin without this whole mess through personal and research views.

Right now, many job fields are shifting how they do work for the internet we have now which allows even small players to make a living. However, telecom companies have noticed this and want a piece of the pie. Hence wanting to make it possible to do a toll which it forced Netflixs to do hencehow this whole mess got started. They will repeat slowing the internet down for everyone who chooses not to pay the toll and allow people the same current access for those who do now. Television companies do the same thing now for a lot of content and this is why a lot of people are forgot not just cable, but satellite television as well with deciding to either buy the stuff they love in physical form or pay for the streaming or digital versions. Anime and such fans already go for this route with how hard it is to even see our stuff on television here in the US. However, this is where the internet providers and such will end up doing one big mistake.

The main street economic models are and have changed out of what the internet providers still think it is. Instead of focusing on growth like big companies, many small and medium companies are realizing you can't have a healthy system(not just economy) to live in with just growth. Hence they are focusing on sustainably with focusing on great service, staying within their niches, and helping out others in and out of their niches which provides a better, over all ecosystem of business than what's going on in big business. This will survive without the internet since many small towns and more "sustainable focused" mind places all over the world has began setting this up. These guys will be the ones who will probably get us out of this economic mess once the full storm is gone if this happens, but I am not crossing my fingers with my knowledge of history on hand.

The BIG problem comes with losing the internet playing field. This is what is allowing this new economic model to spread across the globe and allowing international collaboration in entrepreneurship and innovation the world currently needs for a whole mess of issues on all levels have made. For artists level, any fans are able to reach to their favorite artists and other content creators through the internet and this allowed fans to also support them where as before this was impossible and often big business and agents took most of the money that would never reach the content creators. With this new system, Patreon.com would probably not as well if the telecom companies slow it down to where it can't be used and this is one of the areas where they really want to slow the internet down for: make it so small, but powerful players unable to compete.

However, this is where it will come back and bit them in the bottom. Many people who are becoming content creators and entrepreneur are those who have lost jobs or are not even being able to get into even the part-time job field due to the "Jobless Recovery" in not just the USA. Other countries has seen this, too, hence the term "NEET" for Not in Education, Employment, or Training. Though some don't share it or try to hide it like the USA does. Many of the still "young" generation are in a high unemployment of 15% in the government reported numbers. Shadowstats.com and Explistats.com show that overall unemployment for all ages is a lot higher than reported and my generation is feeling the bit worse along with the generation below mine. Hence why a lot of us have given up on the traditional route of getting a part-time job or entry level job. We are, instead, focusing on working hard building up our creative career from the ground up with no support or little support compared to past artists who were able to work part-time or get a smaller job to help them keep paying the bills while getting better. Hence, we are launching right into personal projects and other such things like opening our own businesses. We have to MAKE our own jobs and learn the hard ways in doing so instead of just getting the chance to learn from our elders by getting into studios and such where it is easier to make mistake and get back up again. In order to do this, we moved to small towns and states or even back to our home towns where the cost of living is much lower or to get to states where opening a business is possible. This means also internet providers in such areas aren't that good to begin with to open up shop and create a job. Places like California and some Northern states as an example are way too high in cost in living just live as a rich person, let allow artist in my opinion. I seriously don't get an apartment smaller than a normal house going for 1 million in dollars for just rent in some of these cities, and the view for them some of those aren't worth it either.

The instant that internet freedom is taken away, the price of the internet will go up pretty quickly on both tiers. Not just the high speed tier as I know all to well from studying history what monopolies will do. Without that advantage to run businesses, many of us will be hit being forced to pay a lot for bad internet or pay a lot for our current internet(there is now high speed lane in my opinion as it depends on your cables and bandwidth mostly when you are in the country side). The places with the best internet will likely be cities and such which even now are too high for artists to just vacation in, let alone live in. This will force the one thing the USA managed to avoid that the European Union has been seeing quite badly: Brain Drain.

Brain Drain is what the European Union calls that many college educated(both young and old) people are leaving their country for places with more economic freedom and better cost of living. The only reason the USA hasn't seen it as badly is due to its internet freedom and it's widely vast economic system across the country allowed people to keep in the country, yet still move to better locations where they can live. Yet, once the internet is gone, only those areas that have established good areas for business and allow even wealth poor entrepreneurs a means to work will be able to keep thriving and the amount of areas where conditions are too bad for even rich to live will rise across the board. It's not my own theory. This is a cycle that his been repeated time and time again throughout history all over the world even before the internet was born. However, this time around, the USA is not prepared to be able to keep all the young ones close to home like in the past. Many other countries have realized the USA's past advantages and have made their countries more suited for entrepreneurs along with trying to improve their internet at the cost of losing a bit of their control over it to do so(though censorship is still a big issue in other countries). Hence why the USA has been dropping in the economic freedom ratings while some areas like Hong Kong have gone up.

The younger generations will move to there from the USA if possible. If not, find where they will best be able to survive in the USA and work with it as we always do in such a situation. Mainly because there is no entry level jobs left in the USA unless you know someone to help you get in. Even studios have began wanting more of artists than just having great drawing skills, though it's easier to get into those studios than some job fields. Many younger people have to make their own jobs to just get into entry level jobs and hence once the internet is no longer an even playing field, they will have to move where that field is better for them to play in. With that, even the telecom companies won't be able to keep up their toll road model as no one but the rich will be able to pay for it and even they would probably not want it with how bad the service is with how some of these companies are like. Innovation will be pushed to offshore or underground(some business are already going underground in the USA due to over-legislation making it impossible to do business legally) and it will take a lot of fixing the economy to bring it back later on. The world, not just the USA, would go into another Depression as it would hit everyone, though those areas already ahead business freedom wise would come out of it better even with feeling the pain. We, in the USA, are still suffering the recession that our government has say is gone. I don't think the world would be very happy for us to bring them down with us with one big Depression which we are already heading for just USA and European Union wise.

So, support Net Neutrality by emailing Tom Wheeler and telling him how you feel about this issue of getting rid of Net Neutrality. Also, sorry if I scare you with this post, but this is actually something actually happening now in the USA as many areas have already collapsed economic wise and people are trying to just survive with stagnate wages and job created and prices ever increasing in this country. I seen it with my own eyes and moved due to the Recession taking out my parent's jobs right when I was about to go to college. We lived a poorly for a time as my dad worked union jobs through the union he stayed with till retirement last year and my mother took a year or two to finally get a job again while my sister and work hard to try and keep our tuition bills low through scholarships and marching and concert band. We had to take out loans starting our junior year in college as our hard work soon became barely able to keep up with rising tuition costs. I know other countries like the European Union and the rest of the world are already paying higher prices compared to the USA. I am not being a whiner about the USA's prices going up as I know quite well others have it worse around the world and it is coming be it we like it or not. I am prepared for that reality.  That is because the USA are becoming like everyone else in the world, both in rights and economy, so it's better to ensure Net Neutrality for when that comes so that we can keep on top of things and keep most of our freedoms we have yet to give away. Because, it might be what also ensures the rights of those elsewhere in the world to the Internet and help them with their own struggles for their rights or ensure we and the rest of the world lose that right all together.