Yes, we are on death’s door. Yet again, the FCC is aligning with big cable lobbyists to try and strike down net neutrality and disenfranchise everyday Americans. As the CEO of a massive multi-million dollar streaming service, I am appalled at the FCC’s gumption to take away not only the fundamental rights of every citizen, but also a large chunk of our profits.
Let’s be clear. I stand with the little guy and hate to see large corporations vertically integrate in order to squeeze money from the consumer, unless of course, my company is able to do precisely that, in which case we would gladly support any bill that increases our revenue. My morals are staunch and unwavering when it comes to protecting the freedom of the internet, but I am happy to exploit the capitalistic system in literally any other way to trap people into paying more for my service.
Furthermore, without net neutrality, a select few companies would have the power to speed up, slow down, or censor content. This would silence free speech and perhaps even more crucially, hinder us from reaching our 4th quarter goal (my streaming service doesn’t have a strong relationship with any of those broadband providers — if you are reading, Time Warner, please get in touch and I’m sure we can work out a lucrative symbiosis!)
I cannot express how important this moment is in American history. We can either stand up to the tyrants of greedy big business or — actually, we shouldn’t completely demean all big businesses because some of them offer amazing services and might even have a one-month free trial for all your favorite shows in one place. Anyways, what I was saying was that this will be the moment that your children will ask you about. When net neutrality was threatened, what did you do? And you can either say that you fought valiantly to ensure its protection or that you screwed over a lot of other non-broadband corporations that, yes, exploit you nearly constantly when they can, but also are very ardent supporters of social causes that financially benefit them.
So please, even though the internet Day of Action is over, we hope you will send a message to the FCC that a free market is the best kind of market and that all the companies that support net neutrality are automatically unproblematic liberal bastions of hope.