December 14th 2017: The day the internet died.
It's a weird thing to wake up to, the repeal of net neutrality in the US. There's is absolutely nothing that I, as a British citizen, could do to prevent the FCC from taking this course of action. Which, to be fair, isn't too far from the reality for American citizens either; the result is not particularly unexpected, despite widespread criticism.
There's also no way of knowing the impact it will have. Worst case scenario, as a non-American, would be seeing other governments (particularly my own) mimicking the decision and formally handing the web over to corporations, rather than people. Except, outside of the US the ISP market isn't dominated by monopolies, so the market would actually stand a chance at forcing effective neutrality. That means I'm fairly insulated from the most obvious repercussions. Harder to measure, but probably more likely, are the ripple effects. How many new services will simply never exist if US providers decide that road blocks are more profitable than open highways? How much innovation in Silicon Valley will be lost to firms spending less on R&D and more on bandwidth?
On the other hand, if ISP's in the US do abuse their new powers it could lead to the slow (or relatively sudden, depending on perspective) eroding of the US as a global leader in technology and software. Whilst the UK is not exactly well placed to pick up that slack, countless other countries would likely benefit. Less of an American influence on the web could actually be widely beneficial (of course, not to Americans).
The result is that the loss of net neutrality, from a global perspective, is a bit of a grey area. We may benefit or we may lose, but ultimately we will be slightly more able to shape that destiny. The ridiculousness of the decision is that such luxury is not afforded to the US itself. They are the ones rolling the dice, but they're also the ones with the highest stake, all balanced precariously on an unknown odd. No matter what happens next it's pretty unlikely the US will benefit, but the rest of the world just might.
On that note, if you are in the US and are rightfully worried/angered by the decision that occurred yesterday, I'd point you towards Ethan Marcotte's break down. It offers a slim silver lining which is plausible (unlike some of the others doing the rounds) as well as an even, yet irritated, overview of what it could actually mean. Well worth a read and well worth enacting.
