PaigeFTW: New World Order
And now, time for something completely different.
What does the U.S. presidential election — and the ascension of Donald Trump — mean for gamers? I’m not talking about how Trump feels about censorship or violent video games, mind you (I honestly don’t think he cares about either): This is about net neutrality.
Net neutrality, as a refresher, is the principle that Internet providers are required to offer an “open Internet,” meaning that consumers are guaranteed equal access to all (legal) content, regardless of source. Put plainly, it means your Internet provider can’t choke your Steam bandwidth just because it’d rather load Facebook faster.
The Obama administration has supported net neutrality, but early indications are that Trump will not.
Is this bad? Well, it depends whether you stand with websites or Internet service providers.
Those who are in favor of net neutrality argue that, without it, ISPs would gain power to control the access, speed and bandwidth of many websites. (For example, AT&T’s recent kerfuffle over its decision to offer DirecTV streaming free of charge to customers is a violation of net neutrality, regulators say.) This would especially hurt consumers, experts argue, in areas that only have one or two ISPs to begin with.
Those against net neutrality argue that regulations are only holding back the still-growing online industry, arguing that abolishing it will encourage ISPs to make improvements to aging infrastructure and develop better services. From this perspective, net neutrality stifles the free market and has led to the very monopolies that the government worries about today.
Trump hasn’t made any recent statements about net neutrality, nor has he named a new head of the FCC at the time of this writing, but experts predict that he will push for an overhaul or possibly even a repeal of the current rules.
Where that leaves Internet denizens remains to be seen.
