Using home electricity as an analogy, “electric neutrality” means that I pay for how much electricity I use, regardless of what I use it for. My electric company can’t come in and charge me one rate for the electricity my washer and dryer use, and another for what my TV and computer use. They can’t make a deal with LG to give a “discount” to anyone with an LG refrigerator on the electricity used by it (that everyone else would absorb the cost of). They can’t “throttle” my car charger if they decide I’ve been using it “too much”. Having that allows me much greater freedom of choice, not only in the brands I choose, but in the overall way I live my life at home.
Net neutrality is the same thing. I don’t want to be constrained on what search engine isn’t blocked, or which streaming service isn’t throttled, or what service made a deal to get priority over something else I might want to use. If I have 500 mbps speed, I want 500 mbps, regardless whether I’m using it for Meta, Youtube, or farmersonly. If I have a data cap, I get to decide what to use it for.
So, what is the downside of (e.g.) of Samsung being able to subsidize the part of your power bill that pays for a Samsung refrigerator? (Obvs realistically that is harder to meter than data, but give me some rope here.)
> Having that allows me much greater freedom of choice, not only in the brands I choose, but in the overall way I live my life at home.
It would be one more way for already large and powerful companies to monopolize things and squeeze out competition. Having neutral electricity means that no company, industry, or type of product is able to constrain or manipulate my freedom of choice through the universal and ubiquitous electrical service. it isn't a situation where I feel I would be blocked from using electricity for certain thing, like running a home server. It is that I understand all too well that I am not immune to that manipulation, and over time, I would be steered and constrained and I would be worse off.
Regulating the energy efficiency of devices sold has actually saved me, and everyone money. And it does it with the goal of helping consumers, not in giving one company another lever to increase it’s profits. That is what I want, regulation that maximized consumer choice, while improving the products and services they receive.
Net neutrality is the same thing. I don’t want to be constrained on what search engine isn’t blocked, or which streaming service isn’t throttled, or what service made a deal to get priority over something else I might want to use. If I have 500 mbps speed, I want 500 mbps, regardless whether I’m using it for Meta, Youtube, or farmersonly. If I have a data cap, I get to decide what to use it for.