Although the concept of net neutrality is a complex one, the focus of it comes down to three main ideas. Internet service providers (ISP) can no longer prioritize giving their faster connection to the higher paying customers or companies. ISP also can’t ban or slow down connection to legal content such as websites of their competitors. For example, an ISP with the old legislation used to be able to speed up the connection for a website such as Netflix and make it faster as long as Netflix paid more. Similarly, if an individual customer paid more, it was once legal to give him a faster connection than a lower paying customer.

At first glance, net neutrality seems like a positive concept with everyone gaining equal access to the Internet; however, there are flaws in the new laws. The Internet is a business, and with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulating it, that means the federal government is getting involved with business. The U.S. prides itself on having a free market economy, but with Internet being regulated, the FCC is overstepping its boundaries. With the involvement of the FCC, it’s very likely that competition in the market is going to go down, which would, as a result, raise prices of internet service for numerous consumers.

The way a business works is if a customer isn’t happy with the treatment or service he’s getting, then he has the option to switch to another company. The Internet should work the same. No ISP has a monopoly over other companies, and if customers don’t like the connection they’re getting from a company like Comcast, nothing is stopping them from switching to another provider. Competition encourages businesses to continue trying to perfect their product instead of settling for something mediocre.

Net neutrality might appear positive at first glance, but after taking a deeper look, the best thing would be to treat the Internet as a business without getting the government involved because this keeps an element of competition between the various Internet providers. The government should only get involved if it’s absolutely necessary, and in this case, the way the Internet was working was fine prior to the implementation of net neutrality.