It doesn’t take much to set geeks off about Net Neutrality these days. Most of us can see what’s at stake in the fight, but very few of us actually have voices loud enough to get the difference makers to pay attention. None of us are Steve Wozniak, but it’s looking like we don’t have to be. The Woz has decided to take up the challenge of pleading with law makers to ‘Think Different’ when it comes to net neutrality.
Steve Wozniak has written a lengthy, humor-filled, open letter to the FCC where he waxes philosophical about the early days of Apple, and how current proposed legislation would have thwarted the personal computing explosion of the early 80s before it even started. Simply put, according to Woz, Apple never would have existed if these types of laws were around back then.
Woz pleads:
Please, I beg you, open your senses to the will of the people to keep the Internet as free as possible. Local ISP’s should provide connection to the Internet but then it should be treated as though you own those wires and can choose what to do with them when and how you want to, as long as you don’t destruct them.
I don’t want to feel that whichever content supplier had the best government connections or paid the most money determined what I can watch and for how much. This is the monopolistic approach and not representative of a truly free market in the case of today’s Internet.
Woz sums up the fight nicely. I don’t know many people who think that the open internet is going to be around much longer. Lawmakers have their hands so deep in lobbyists’ pockets that it’s hard to see this fight turning out in any other way. Yet, we fight the good fight, hoping that somewhere along the way a politician might grow
a spine and think about this for a second. All it takes is a second worth of thought and a brief reading of the history of ‘Ma Bell.’
Woz puts the neutrality argument in the best analogy possible for these gas guzzling, sports car driving politicians:
What if we paid for our roads per mile that we drove? It would be fair and understandable to charge more for someone who drives more. But one of the most wonderful things in our current life is getting in the car and driving anywhere we feel like at this moment, and with no accounting for cost. You just get in your car and go.
Hopefully Woz’s letter doesn’t fall on deaf ears. You can read the full letter on the Atlantic’s website.
Article Via The Atlantic
