Network neutrality is in peril and that is a bad thing. But net neutrality is not really what those of us who care about democracy and a free marketplace of ideas should be fighting for. Each community needs to be fighting to wrest access to the internet out of the hands of the megacorporations who currently dominate it.
The net neutrality debate makes clear that it is past time to start treating internet like a utility rather than pretending internet service providers operate in some sort of fantastical free market. Most regions of the US are dominated by only one or two major internet service providers. A marketplace that only has one or two sellers is not a free market.
Unfortunately, Santa Barbara is among the roughly 50 percent of communities in the U.S. that only have one high speed broadband provider. On the hopeful side, here’s a map of all of the cities in the U.S. that are taking steps to reclaim their digital freedom of choice.