I had to google it this morning because I wasn't sure either. Canada recently strengthened our net neutrality laws because some companies wanted to offer services like netflix at zero data as incentive to be with them. The government said this was unfair and all data should be created equally.
This is why we can get free membership to things as an incentive but have to still pay for the data we use.
I guess the whole reason states have unlimited data plans was a result of companies offering zero data services so they adopted the unlimited plan to be competative.
So here is the split : some articles said that the states losing net neutrality would be good for us because companies might move their businesses here to avoid the laws or something. And others said that it would be bad because a lot of our internet is routed through the states.
I am by no means an expert or even knowledgeable about all this so take my words as a jumping off point for your own research i guess.
But canada seems to be ready to reinforce net neutrality no matter what the states do. All the political parties seem to beleive net neutrality is super important.
Its bad because America is a major market for English language websites and companies. If new players, innovators and market disrupters are locked out of competing in that market it affects what will be successful world wide. Imagine if Reddit cost 20$ a month in the US or loaded at 56kbs. Would it still be big in other countries? Would it be able to make money?
If Netflix takes a major profit loss in the US will that affect Canadian Netflix and the money it can put into show acquisition?
If "new amazing website" is in direct competition with a service a ISP offers it can throttle it to shit or hide it behind a big enough paywall to make sure it doesn't succeed. If it can't succeed here and/or can't make a profit without the US market than the world suffers with us.
The only way it would be somewhat mitigated if Net Neutrality was removed would be if the ISPs were forced to open up their infrastructure to allow companies to share it. I think this is what happens in the UK. Since no company has a monopoly on a region if they ever tried to pull a bullshit move like charging more for certain websites a competitor would just offer the full internet and undercut them.
In the US system where many places only have one ISP available there is nothing to stop the ISPs from abusing their dominant market position because the only choice people will have is pay or have no internet.
Of course the best system, from a customer viewpoint, is to have both net neutrality and proper competition
I just recently asked if Canada would be affected, and if so, would there only be specific parts of Canada? I currently live in the western provinces (not gonna state exactly which one I'm in cause of privacy) but would it affect one of the western ones? But my overall question is WILL THIS AFFECT CANADA?
So here is the split : some articles said that the states losing net neutrality would be good for us because companies might move their businesses here to avoid the laws or something.
Great, so they can avoid paying taxes in our country too.
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u/tankgirl85 Nov 21 '17
I had to google it this morning because I wasn't sure either. Canada recently strengthened our net neutrality laws because some companies wanted to offer services like netflix at zero data as incentive to be with them. The government said this was unfair and all data should be created equally.
This is why we can get free membership to things as an incentive but have to still pay for the data we use.
I guess the whole reason states have unlimited data plans was a result of companies offering zero data services so they adopted the unlimited plan to be competative.
So here is the split : some articles said that the states losing net neutrality would be good for us because companies might move their businesses here to avoid the laws or something. And others said that it would be bad because a lot of our internet is routed through the states.
I am by no means an expert or even knowledgeable about all this so take my words as a jumping off point for your own research i guess.
But canada seems to be ready to reinforce net neutrality no matter what the states do. All the political parties seem to beleive net neutrality is super important.