"Net Neutrality" is a term describing the policy of treating all traffic as equal on the Internet (basically). This means that if your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is net neutral, they will deliver all websites to you on the same connection at the same speed. You can get Joe Blow's blog and Microsoft's website using the same connection.

Some people, including a lot of ISP's don't like this idea. They want to give everyone crappy access and make corporations and individuals pay for the right to have their content delivered on "premium" lines. This benefits exactly nobody - except the ISPs who can now give you crappy service and make a bunch of money from people willing to pay to make it better. The only thing that will change for you and I is that most of the Internet will become really, really slow.

Let's compare this to radio. As we all know, radio today is super awesome and unique everywhere you go. You hear the best content no matter what city you're in. You can listen to the same clear channel station with the same stupid jingle in Denver, Salt Lake, Atlanta, New York, or anywhere else you go. Essentially the whole operation is controlled by one group and watered down for the least common denominator.

If Joe Blow wants to start a radio station, he will need to apply for a frequency, pay millions of dollars for licensing, wait several years, cut through red tape for several more years, then probably get sued for some insignificant thing by clear channel or someone else in an effort to maintain their control over the airwaves. The radio is controlled by corporate interests because they're the only ones who can afford to buy the frequencies from the government. It is not used as a medium for benefitting mankind in any way, it is used to line someone's pocketbook.

Who's fault is it? You could say it is the FCC's fault for making it so difficult for people to participate in something that should belong to them. It's their fault for bending to the will of corporations who would seek to take away our natural resources (yes, radio is a natural resource) for their own benefit.

In comparing radio to the Internet, we can see the the Internet now is still in its youngest days. It is almost like the wild west where just about anything goes. People can speak freely about anything and are given the same voice as anyone else.

I found it interesting to see in the last election the dichotomy between opinions on the Internet and opinions expressed by the mainstream media. The mainstream media would only talk about certain candidates while the Internet, where people's voices can be heard, talked about everyone. Where mainstream polls put people like Ron Paul so low they weren't even worth mentioning, Internet polls showed him with support as high as 80% of people polled.

Of course the Internet is still only used by some, and as a resource for political and world news pales in comparison with mainstream media. However, the tables will someday turn when the generation now in elementary schools is running the country, the Internet will be as or more important than what we see on TV. It is the one opportunity we have to take back the flow of information from the corporations and give it back to the people. It absolutely must be protected!

So how will a tiered internet (the opposite of net neutrality) hurt us? It will turn the Internet into another radio. It will set the barrier to entry so high that only the corporations and people in control will be able to use it to its full potential. The rest of us will become noise in the background, little 10 foot FM transmitters capable only of transmitting our MP3 players to our car stereos. The power of the Internet as a truly democratic platform will be squelched and the status quo will be maintained.

Imagine a world where a candidate like Ron Paul can have equal press simply because he has the support of the people. Where we can hear the news that we really care about instead of the latest Brittany Spears updates. This is the world that the Internet makes possible and its the world that a lot of people are very interested in taking away.

Disclaimer: This article isn't about Ron Paul, I only use him as an example of an idea that is very popular but just so happens to never get mentioned by the mainstream media.