Not My Photoblog

I’m Zachary Lara and I live in San Francisco, CA.

Net neutrality, the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all data that travels over their networks equally, is important to me because without it ISPs could have too much power to determine my Internet experience by providing better access to some services but not others.
A pay-­to-play Internet worries me because new, innovative services that can’t afford expensive fees for better service will be less likely to succeed.
I’ve been an internet user since I was able to access it through a community owned bbs. There were no fees for access and everyone that felt like contributing, did so. The users helped shape the access to the internet through modules they had written and everyone was invited to help shape the experience.
Since that time I’ve experienced the birth of GUI based internet. I’ve written pages for myself and others. Educated hundreds on resources and access and otherwise helped inform my and previous generations of users.

I never dreamed that a business would be allowed to control and shape the ability to access the internet. It was never a service that a corporation has shaped or built, it has always been an open landscape with infrastructure created by the users.
Don’t let this change. Don’t let greedy companies dictate how this resource is controlled.

I understand the appeal of listening to lobbyists who offer to make your life more comfortable. Companies who will give you material wealth that will benefit your families, but in the end you will hurt generations to come.
Children, parents, grandparents. They will all suffer because of the myopia of a regulating body that failed to realize they were unleashing a controlling structure over a resource that never belonged to them.
You don’t ask children to pay for access to a playground where they can create from their imagination. They don’t expect that bigger slides are delivered because of a single company that can bring them from outside the gates to the playground because the community and city has already created the resources to do this. The fact that companies like comcast and verizon want to charge for that last step to the home after the content has already been created, paid for and directed sometimes thousand of miles to the ISP is nothing but immeasurable greed and want for control over the users.

Please stop this.

Sincerely,

Zachary Lara