Is there such a thing as Net neutrality?

I knew we were in trouble when the FCC chairman claimed that the vote on net neutrality was not a plan to control the Internet. It made my hair stand on end.

The DC law firms and lobbyists have charged big bucks arguing one side or the other on the issue of Net neutrality. On the face of the name, it seems like who could be against it. A neutral net implies a certain fairness for the consumer in a world of big Internet companies. Yet despite its innocuous tag, the neutrality issue spawned genuine substantive disagreements among major Internet companies. 

Most of us do not understand how the Net really works. We imagine a bunch of computers located somewhere in the country or world that with fairness in mind passes our search requests and electronic communications from one place to another. However, there is no free lunch and these actions are not performed altruistically. Someone charges and someone gets paid. 

As I have said before, follow the cash to find the intellectual stash. However, in the Internet world this is much more difficult than it seems. To make matters more complicated, when the World Wide Web started, it was intended to be a free service operated by universities.  You are directed to search on Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the WWW, to get the real story.

The real issue of Net neutrality was the deliberate insertion of the FCC into the bowels of the Internet system in the name of consumer protection. On February 26, 2015, the FCC voted in favor of net neutrality, enabling the FCC to enforce laws passed in 1934 by classifying the Internet as a telecommunications service. I am sure that in 1934, the Internet was not considered in the drafting of legislation. 

All plans begin with a single step. The FCC has taken its first step and there will be more. The FCC has been in the federal departmental power background for many years, but that has now changed. Once you let the fox in, it is too late to build the fence to keep it out.