I posted a doomsday picture of what the end of net neutrality would look like several months ago. Here’s that image:

This image caused some panic in a recent D&D thread. I have felt somewhat guilty about posting such a sensationalist photoshop since it has no real basis in reality, and so I felt obliged to clarify why the image is so troubling. That particular model is unmarketable, not because the basic concept is unmarketable, but because we are already so used to having those basic services (YouTube, Blogger, MySpace, etc) that the consuming public wouldn’t stand for their sudden removal from the web. Those services would necessarily be turned into the internet equivalent of ‘basic cable’, like the weather channel or CSPAN.

While that particular depiction is unlikely, the basic concept is extremely marketable. It is already how TV (and telephone services) operate, and consumers are used to paying for tiered services. That’s why the image is so uncanny and disturbing, because it is already so familiar.

But there is a HUGE difference between a tiered internet offering a YouTubeHD premium package, and a cable service offering tiered TV packages. With TV, content is produced by a network or a consolidated media company, so you get high quality productions that cost a lot of money. To offset those costs, the companies strike deals with cable TV providers to offer their content at certain prices. In other words, the TV providers work in conjunction with the content providers, and this necessarily homogenizes and narrows the scope of media offered.

On the internet, on the other hand, there are no centralized sources of content production. There are no networks or media companies that have control of the market. Existing media companies have to compete with small start-up companies, and the existing media empires often do poorly in this competition, despite their higher production values. YouTube was created by nobodies, and succeeded based on its merits (for better or worse). It did not need to go through any official channels or focus groups to become a recognizable brand name and gain a dominant market share. The same goes for all the big internet companies (Amazon, eBay, Google, etc). These companies succeeded for the sole reason that their access to the public was not mediated by existing corporate interests.

In other words, the Internet success stories were only possible because the production of content was entirely disengaged with the system of distribution. And this is how the internet is supposed to work: no centralized control, all the work, content, and innovation happens that the edges. Creating a tiered internet is an attempt by old media to reintegrate the production of content with the system of distribution. That won’t make existing sites disappear, but it will mean that any new websites have to play along with existing media outlets in order to access their customers, which raises the bar higher than anyone previously had to meet. YouTube HD premium service would only happen if YouTube struck a deal with the carriers. If the internet had started out this way, we never would have had eBay, Google, YouTube, Amazon, etc, because as start ups they didn’t have the capital or leverage to stike that kind of deal. If we let it happen now, who knows what kinds of innovations would be stifled?

Net neutrality is a free speech issue, not a free market issue. The above argument simply shows that a free market rests on free speech and free access to speech. End users must have unfettered access to other end users, to produce any content or run any application they see fit. Anything less is a disruption of their freedom of speech. If the internet carriers want to reconfigure the internal structure of their network to better accommodate the traffic requirements, that is totally their prerogative. However, this traffic shaping must be done in a content-neutral way, that does not involve the carrier’s involvement in the production of content, or to control the distribution of that content. Unlike Cable Service Providers, Internet Service Providers should not be in the content business whatsoever; it is a clear conflict of interest that comes at the expense of all internet users.

When telecommunications companies argue against net neutrality, they are in effect arguing that they have the right to control the content that flows over ‘their pipes’; that they have the right to have a say the production of content. This is exactly why the net neutrality issue requires government intervention: not to tell the companies what they must do with their pipes, but to tell them what they can’t do with my speech.

This doesn’t require government regulation. What this requires is an Internet User Bill of Rights, that prohibits ISPs from meddling with the content of traffic, and maintains a strict dichotomy between service and content. Old media and the telecommunications companies are working as hard as they can to dissolve that distinction, and it must be fought for tooth and nail. For proof that this is exactly what is at stake, consider the following:

MPAA head wants deeper relationship (read: content filtering) with ISPs

It’s no secret that US content owners want the “middlemen” of the Internet economy to better police their networks and services for material that infringes copyright. The problem, from a legal perspective, is that ISPs like AT&T and Comcast and content hosts like YouTube have the explicit legal go-ahead not to do this; they operate in a tranquil Caribbean “safe harbor” that exempts them from the crushing responsibility to filter and analyze every bit of content passing through their control.

But some companies have expressed interest in doing such filtering voluntarily, and MPAA boss Dan Glickman praised them for it at a conference in Washington yesterday. “Their revenue bases depend on legitimate operations of their networks and more and more they’re finding their networks crowded with infringed material, bandwidth space being crowded out,” Glickman said.”Many of them are actually getting into the content business directly or indirectly. This is not an us-versus-them issue.”

He went on to say that the movie business wants to “deepen our relationship” with ISPs.