Net Neutrality: You Should Care.

Have you all seen stuff about the FCC's upcoming Net Neutrality vote? I'm honestly not sure how people could still not know about it, because I've been keeping myself only minimally informed about current events/politics these days because I'm SO EXHAUSTED by it and even I have seen all sorts of stuff about net neutrality.

But, for those of you who are actually living under a rock right now, here's the issue in a nutshell: net neutrality is what ensures that the internet stays a free and open space, and if it goes away, internet providers will be able to charge more for specific things. You want to keep watching Netflix? Well in addition to paying for Netflix directly, you may have to start paying your internet provider more to be able to access it. You want to be able to Google all of life's most puzzling questions the minute they pop into your head? Be prepared to shell out money for speedy results - eliminating net neutrality will mean that internet providers can demand more money for higher bandwidth.

I could go on, but hopefully you get the picture. Repealing net neutrality would help only the huge corporations that provide our internet. And guess what? They already make enough money. Really, they do. And repealing net neutrality wouldn't help any of the rest of us. At all.

Why, then, you might be asking, is this even something worth voting on? Wouldn't this just be a hard no, and we could all move on?

Yeah, you would think so, wouldn't you? But we seem to be living in the upside down, in a parallel reality where everything is the same mostly except a lot more horrible and we have to worry about things like whether the people who are supposed to make decisions in our interest are going to do something that will completely screw over all the individuals of this country. Like, literally all of us.

So, unfortunately, this becomes something else we have to worry about as citizens. It's not enough to be worried about holiday plans and what to buy people for Christmas and the driving conditions for the day and all the normal December things. We also have to worry about whether the FCC will do the right thing and protect us from this really bad move. Isn't that fun?!?

I'm so tired. I'm so tired of carrying the weight of wondering whether everything will work out for an issue that shouldn't even be talked about. It's one thing to feel compelled to speak up about an issue that is complicated and has some definite pros and cons regardless of the solution (and there totally are some of those), but it is so exhausting to be fighting for things that shouldn't even be on the table for discussion. Net neutrality is important. It shouldn't be something we have to fight to not have taken away.

I feel like this world is a confusing, scary place these days, and it takes so much more energy to navigate than it used to. I've been thinking about this song often, mostly just because I think we all need to open our eyes and just do the right thing, but also because it starts off  "All this feels strange and untrue / and I won't waste a minute without you / my bones ache, my skin feels cold / and I'm getting so tired and so old." It rings true. I'm so tired.





If you would like to do something, you can click here to express your desire for net neutrality to be upheld. It only takes a minute or two. And it's important. If you use the internet and don't want to pay more than you already do to continue using it, you should care.