Just a few days ago, Burger King released a video of a sorry attempt to explain why they believe we need government to involve themselves in how access to the internet is distributed. They advocate for "Net Neutrality," or "Internet Socialism."
This video has nearly four million views as of this writing. It's been shared all over social media platforms. And when looking at the comments, many seem to believe that it's done an excellent job explaining why we need government to institute "Net Neutrality." The popularity and belief in the accuracy of this video should be considered the moment when all hope for America was lost. That this video hasn't been tossed aside, as the nonsensical, poorly-thought-out drek that it is, is a devastating condemnation of our society's utter lack of critical thinking and the public schooling system that taught us how to avoid using our minds.
Anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together who watches this video should have one simple question on their mind: why don't we have government instituting "burger neutrality?" Clearly, Burger King would gladly charge more for priority access to burgers if they could, but they don't. Or are we really supposed to believe that ISPs are evil corporations and Burger King, with their wildly unhealthy (but often delicious) assortment of slop that they serve up to the public, is a caring, charitable organization that doesn't offer priority access for a higher fee because they believe that just wouldn't be fair? Nonsense.
The reason Burger King doesn't run their business like the video demonstrates, the reason we don't see campaigns for "Burger Neutrality" and don't need Net Neutrality: competition.
If Burger King were to institute a policy like that in the video, they would be out of business in a week (unless, of course, they were to get the government to institute a "burger bailout"). After just one look at a priority access menu, every Burger King patron would find their way to the nearest McDonalds or Wendy's where they can get their burgers both timely and cheap. Customers would make the same choice regarding internet access.
Competition is the key to cheap and fast internet access. The threat of competition will drive business practices and offerings towards what consumers desire. If the real motive behind the "Net Neutrality" movement were better, faster, freer internet, then they would advocate for the elimination of government-created (often on a local level) barriers to entry that keep the market for ISPs limited to just a handful of options.
There may still be some fast lanes that remain, and, in a world where surgeons will soon be regularly performing surgeries on the other side of the planet via robotic arms and internet access, that's a good thing. But the caricature painted by the internet socialism advocates, in which rich people enjoy streaming Netflix and live events while the rest of struggle to check email, is absurd. To argue otherwise is to demonstrate a severe deficiency in intellectual capacity or to be dishonest. I can't say what category the individuals at Burger King who are behind the video fall into. But what is sure is that their video does not prove that we need government involvement in internet distribution; it proves why we don't.
