Thursday, February 8, 2018

Net neutrality in a nutshell? Forget the tech giants, ask Burger King

Words about net neutrality have been bandied about in mainstream America over the last year since  FCC Chairman Ajit "no really guys, i'm just a geek like you, look at my oversized and not at all pandering Reese's mug" Pai publicly expressed his opposition to the idea. American nerds have been keen to the concept and its consequences for quite some time now, and Pai's words drew backlash from most of  the technical community, who astutely pointed out that his position was pro-ISP and anti-consumer.

It's a pretty simple idea - the internet should be open to all, and service providers should actually provide access to everyone, without playing favorites or purposely blocking pieces of the web for any reason. What reasons, you ask? Well there's a ton of them, including some really good ones. Personal bias... kicks... politics...

You know... money.

But I digress. Ever since net neutrality arguments caught the public eye, the subject has been broken down to its simplest facets, talking mainly about pay for play and fast/slow lanes, with parallels from tech pundits and just outright horrible "explanations" put forth by our technologically simple leaders in Congress. But out of all the noise and opposing voices, you know who actually got it right?

Burger King. That's right. the King published a video explaining the base concepts of net neutrality by using, of all things, the Whopper sandwich. Watch, learn, and be amazed:



So what do you think? Absolute genius right? Whopper neutrality? The traditional megabits per seconds being replaced with "making burgers per second?" The open mockery of Ajit Pai and his pander mug? The best part about is that it not only talks about the principles of net neutrality, but presents the restaurant and diners as ISP's and their customers. Take a listen at the Burger King clerk's words:

"Burger King corporation believes that they can sell more and make more money selling chicken sandwiches and chicken fries, so now they’re slowing down the access to the Whopper."


That actually parallels real concerns. Without net neutrality, ISPs could always drive users to the services that they stand to make the most money from instead of allowing user choice. These likely would be be services that they or their partners provide. Next up is the $20 Whopper customer. They were able to get their sandwich without waiting because they paid to be priority customers over everyone else to get their product. Almost like how a repeal of net neutrality would favor those with money huh? Weird. Granted that's an extreme case, but as long as ISP's aren't making any promises that they won't operate that way, we still have cause to worry.

The themes accurately depict how a world without net neutrality could potentially operate. And in the end the customers share how they learned about net neutrality through their hellish meal experience. Say what you want about BK and the King, but they put out an entertaining commercial that actually helped educate the populace on an important issue, pointing users to change.org/savethenet to learn more. And you should want to know more. And go there. Because this is kind of important.

2 comments:

  1. How can you be so simultaneously hot and intelligent? The net should be neutral but our opinions shouldn't be as we take action to save the net.

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    1. well it's easy to do when inspired by certain pink-haired game industry superstars. ain't nothin neutral about that :)

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