Al Franken Sells Out Consumers by Supporting Net Neutrality

Al Franken has made his case for Net Neutrality, which is the biggest lie that has been foisted upon the American consumer in a long time. If the Federal Communications Commission supports Net Neutrality as Al Franken and others propose it, American consumers will be forced to underwrite the profits of large corporations like Google, Amazon.com, Apple, and more by paying for infrastructure upgrades to the major Internet Service Providers like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon.

Franken and other propagandists are trying to frighten consumers into fighting for Net Neutrality by assuring us that the ISPs may suddenly and without clear justification cut off our access to the Internet. The truth that has been buried beneath these lies and innuendos is that the ISPs are only asking that major application providers fairly pay for the bandwidth they are using.

In a truly neutral net, application providers would pass on the costs of their infrastructure to THEIR customers, and the rest of us would not have to pay for those infrastructure build outs.

When a liar like Al Franken uses his political position to bamboozle consumers into believing false and malicious propaganda, consumers need to stand up and tell Franken and the other toadies for greedy big corporations to take their lies and shove them into the special interests that pay for their political careers.

Franken’s propaganda isn’t doing American consumers any favors. Nor is he the champion of small business owners, either — most of whom will never even entertain the idea of creating bandwidth-hogging applications that could use a free ride on the backs of the customers of the major ISPs.

Too many people in the tech industry have jumped aboard the Net Neutrality bandwagon without acknowledging that they are essentially demanding that someone else pay their bills for them. It’s one thing for a politician like Al Franken to lie about business rules that will benefit his special interests but raise access fees for the average consumer.

He seems to have forgotten that the business lobbies don’t actually vote in elections. Franken may have thrown Google and Verizon under the bus for proposing a more fair settlement for Net Neutrality (although it’s still not really fair to consumers) than the FCC has been entertaining, but he has sacrificed the American consumer on the dark altar of false economic policy.

It’s another thing, however, for people to assume that their next generation games should be delivered free-of-charge to them because the ISPs are being forced to pay the bills. How so many tech industry people could fail to see just how stupid and self-defeating this proposition is amazes me. Not one Net Neutrality supporter has offered any suggestions for keeping a lid on consumer access fees.

If the major ISPs lose the battle over Net Neutrality, you can expect to see new fees attached to your cable, satellite, and other Internet access services. Those fees will go to underwrite the profitability of big corporations that roll out new high-bandwidth using applications.

You’d be a damn fool to believe your local bicycle shop is trying to innovate on the Internet with a 10-gig-per-month game or service.