My question about ending net neutrality:

politicalprof:

What problem is ending net neutrality trying to solve?

What failure of the current internet is ending net neutrality supposed to help us overcome? We’ve gone from no internet WHEN I STARTED GRADUATE SCHOOL to BILLIONS of interconnected devices, sites and pathways to information – a network that has revolutionized whole industries and spread opportunities for learning and commerce around the world.

How is this a problem? How is the current system going to forestall the next generation of developments, thereby justifying the shift to “not net neutrality”?

Of course, I know the answer to my question. From Trump and the Republicans’ point of view, the problem with net neutrality is that net neutrality requires internet providers to forego a revenue stream by preventing them for using their power as internet service providers to compel both internet users and internet content providers to pay to prioritize their activities on the web. In other words, net neutrality prevents what economists call “rent-seeking” behavior in which powerful corporations or entities to use their power to extract more than their market-negotiated share of your money and mine. 

Ending net neutrality is, in other words, yet another way to transfer wealth UP the social ladder, allowing the wealthy and powerful to use their wealth and power to increase their wealth and power … at your expense. 

And that problem – how to extract  ever more of your wealth for their benefit – is, from Trump and the Republicans’ twisted point of view, a problem worth solving.