Neutralized

FLEMINGS, HAJJ. "Net Neutrality: Why Michigan Startups Need to Join the Fight for an Open Internet." Hajj Flemings. Hajj Flemings, 18 July 2014. Web. 21 Jan. 2015. <http://hajjflemings.com/2014/07/18/net-neutrality-why-michigan-startups-need-to-join-the-fight-for-an-open-internet/>.

After a long period of time, trying to decide how he felt about Net Neutrality, he had finally come to a decision. He had finally accepted it, even though it was driving him crazy. It made him feel like he wanted to bang his head against a wall. It was only one year ago he could just click and immediately download his favorite show... He went to make a cup of coffee and … BAM … it was loaded on Netflix, his favorite site. He used to be able to take a video, and upload it to vimeo instantly. Now? It takes 45 minutes. Sadly, Brian had come to terms with the fact that the net was no longer neutral. It made him sick to know that big companies with deep pockets could just throw their weight and money around to tie down faster download speeds and leave smaller (better) companies in the dust.

Brian ran over to the kitchen to stock up on his favorite snacks. Then he went back up to his room and sat back down in his desk chair. He was getting ready to access his favorite site – Netflix.com to watch a movie. After arranging his munchies and settling in, Brian started to type the letters on his keyboard …  n e t f l i x . c o m. When, he hit that frightening key – ENTER – he thought he knew what was going to happen next.

Suddenly, something completely unexpected occurred. Brian was not greeted by the usual big red welcoming netflix.com banner, as usual. Instead, he was treated to a sign that said: “Try out Hulu, we have great shows!” All of Brian’s worst nightmares about Net Neutrality came back to him. It was real. He is living in it. He had to grab his inhaler, because he felt like he couldn’t breathe. He thought he lived in a wonderful time, a time before this horror was a reality. Brian looked over at the clock. It was 1:30AM, so he had to head to sleep.

The next morning at work, Brian went to Getty Images to download a 10mb picture, and a popup emerged. “Sorry, this will take three hours”, it said. “Why don’t you try Flickr?, They subscribed to our fast download service.” Brian was so aggravated, he couldn’t speak. He was so angry, that he felt like smoke was actually coming out of his ears. This was no longer a small irritation. He didn’t know where to turn, but someone had to do something.

Then came the final straw. The next day after work, Brian was excited to watch a cool new GoPro video on Vimeo. He set the quality to 1080p (Highest Quality). Brian was enraged. Instead of being able to watch the video in 1080p, he was forced to watch it in 240p because a little notice popped up saying “Vimeo does not pay your ISP(Internet service provider) enough to allow you to watch it in High Quality.” He vented about that absurdity on Twitter. Was anyone listening? He didn’t know.

Brian was beside himself. At that moment, he began plotting how to end the madness. He had seen an advertisement for Google Fiber, claiming to be “the fastest internet in the country”. He wanted to see how he how it could be his.

Brian lived in Tennessee. When he looked on Google’s website, Kansas City was one of the only places in the US that was already totally hooked up. He promptly called Google’s support line to talk about getting fiber to the place he planned to move in Kansas City, but when he finally made his way through 5 minutes of Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball as hold music and got on the line with a human, all he could hear was screaming.

The Google support people seemed to be going crazy. When they finally picked up the phone all Brian heard was screeching. Amidst the yelling, Brian thought he heard someone crying: “We’ve been hacked! We’ve been hacked! They’re trying to shut us down!” The last hope for Net Neutrality was slipping away. “If a giant like Google was not safe, then what was?” he feared.

“What the hell is going on?” Brian wondered. To Brian, Google had been the only possible source for salvation. Now even that route seemed doomed and destroyed. “How will the world be saved? How could it ever be healed?” he thought. Life will never be the same.

Brian vowed he would no longer participate in this phony scam. He promised himself that as long as there was no Net Neutrality, there would be no Brian1981 logging onto the internet. He was about to shut down his computer for good, but he realized he just could not allow the big corporations win. Big problems require big solutions. But Brian realized he could not make these crucial changes on his own. He would need 1,000 hackers working together to have any chance of successfully saving Net Neutrality.

Brian started composing his manifesto to send a pleading e-mail to the hacker community to join his fight. Within 3 minutes of sending his S.O.S. request, Brian’s inbox filled with hundreds of responses from hackers around the world looking to join him and bring back the net as it was supposed to be. In less than 30 minutes, Brian had nearly 2,500 hackers at his disposal, ready to fight. He quickly composed a plan of action to send out to his fellow fighters. Brian was about to hit that fateful ENTER key – when suddenly 5,4,3,2,1 SHUTDOWN.