Net Neutrality is officially over- Can it hurt the self Employment ability of the generation to come?
So Net Neutrality is officially finished today in US by FCC( Federal Communication Commissions) , at least for now- unless something dramatic repeals it. There has been universal advocacy by various leaders from different backgrounds on the enormous pitfalls of doing away with Net Neutrality than to very limited benefits it might offer.
Anyway, for the uninitiated, Net Neutrality in short means that every website will be treated equally by the ISPs or the Internet Service Provider ( mainly telecom infra companies). So in the absence of Net Neutrality, these telecom companies can favor some organizations of their choice (or based on certain business partnerships) and prevent others from reaching out to you. As an example, consider your telecom provider partners with Netflix and you get faster access to Netflix, but if you want to surf YouTube, then you have to wait endlessly because your service provider isn’t providing you with free access to YouTube.
You may never know about a new startup, new blogger or a podcast. This is a level 2 problem we should be more concerned about.
If it doesn’t intuitively strike you, basically the locus of control on what information or websites you can access will shift to large telecom companies rather than your own choice as a consumer. This is more like an immediate level 1 impact. However, a greater divide and struggle will occur for small companies who can’t afford big contracts with the large telecom companies and in effect will have very limited access to the end consumer. In some cases, you or I as an end user may not ever know about some new independent blog, a new podcast or a video blogger, just because the person or the startup organization was too small to be able to have a financially reasonable deal with those big telecom or infra companies. Now this level 2 impact to me is much more of a serious problem then its appearing on the surface.
The level 2 impact discussed above has a potential to have cascading long term implications on the innovation potential of geek in the next dorm or garage who started small but went on to create large impact organizations like Google and Facebook. Not only the pace of innovation will suffer, it will have impact on small scale website, apps, blog and other services creation around us, which in turn will have definite impacts on job creation as well. The impact will not be limited to just tech geeks, there are countless creative and small scale self employed artists of different kinds who would have a diminished audience base, and thus limited capacity to sustain their entrepreneurial aspirations. Now there can’t only be disadvantages, if America’s leaders are signing this into law, there must be at least some rationale or a high point that they used to justify. The justification is that the money made by these telecom/infra companies (in exchange of partnership deals with favored websites) will be used to invest back in expanding the infrastructure of the internet to remote areas. While this is laudable intent, and it’s just my opinion- but the gut feeling is that a large share of money made from such deals will go to few business leaders and investors at the top, rather than to the holy mission being highlighted in the background.
The ability to be self employed or have small business can be impacted as a level 3 long-term effect of compromising on Net Neutrality.
Above discussed points are more likely common in some of the genuine discussions happening around Net Neutrality across the world. However, I want to extend this and draw a parallel opinion that I first felt when I moved to US from India for my graduate studies. I observed that there’s just a marginal section of people who are self-employed or run any small business in US compared to what we have in India. The retail market is hogged by a handful or dozen of major retailers split across giants like Walmart, Target, Macy’s, Lowe’s, and few others, across different categories. Forget traditional retail, even haircut and beaut saloons are mainly driven by big franchise like SuperCuts or SportsCut. And almost everyone here ‘works’ for them rathe than have an ability to open a small shop by themselves. And let’s say even when they do, they can’t match-up to the digital ecosystem, targeting and marketing offers that big corporations are able to easily employ on a daily basis. So basically, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to start and manage one’s own business at a small scale in US. This if true, seems to me like a level 3 impact, and that too a serious one- further clipping the ability of individuals in society to sustain for themselves.
The latest US labours data tells that unemployment rate became lowest (<4%) in last two decades or so, basically comparable to the most prosperous times in US. But I wonder if the purchasing power of today is comparable to that of the last truly prosperous time? I feel with the advent of diminishing Net Neutrality, with power being concentrated to a handful of already big-powerful companies, it’ll have a very similar effect to what the Walmarts, Targets and Supercuts have had in the past. I don’t think that big corporations are bad, but at the same time I feel there should be a balance between the ratio of Big corporations Vs small businesses, that’s increasingly becoming lop sided in the favor of big organizations each year. All the more, with many developing countries that look up on US as an example in policy making, I can’t help but have some grey clouds hanging over my head as to its eventual impact- a decade down the line.
This article is second in line in my personal attempt to rejig not only my love but discipline for writing- Day 2 of 30 Minutes for 30 Days.
