It’s Saturday. Imagine waking up and moving immediately to pull up Netflix – ready for a great day of relaxation and excited to watch that one movie that’s been on ‘My list’ for months now. The site is almost loaded, the red line is spinning and spinning and spinning when suddenly, a pop up appears. It reads, ‘Please upgrade your plan to proceed. You do not have access to this site anymore. Click here to learn more’. Easy enough, just click the link and solve the problem. Rage and disappointment flood in when behind the link, it is uncovered that the only solution is money. The Netflix ‘package’ (that includes a few other sites), costs $20 a month, and it must be purchased to use the site again. A Netflix subscription costs $10 in itself, may as well just buy a physical copy, because it’ll cost about the same amount. 

This is a theoretical circumstance, but a similar problem might someday arise. Why? Because of Net Neutrality. 

Net Neutrality is a principle set in place to keep internet providers from controlling what people see and do online, based on who they are or how much they pay. Revoking Net Neutrality was proposed in July 2017. Federal Communications Commission will vote on Dec. 14; however, Congress can overrule the decision. 

Many people do not support the banning of Net Neutrality, stating that it violates many of their freedoms. 

“I do not support the revoking of Net Neutrality,” said Sophomore Evan Chladny. “I believe it’s essential to the internet to be free, and open for everyone no matter what company provider, or who you are, how much money you have, I think everyone should have equal access to the internet.” 

There are some people that are considering both sides of the revoking of Net Neutrality. 

“If you pay a certain amount of money, you should have a certain amount of quality – like if you don’t pay as much then you shouldn’t get the same amount of quality as the people who do pay more,” said Freshmen Katera Draney. 

The revoking of Net Neutrality can be viewed in many ways; as a fight against equality or a fight against freedom. Which one is correct is solely up to the person. However, it is almost entirely agreed that internet is an important part of our society today. It takes the internet to post this story. The regulation and restriction of it will affect a large majority of people. 

“You cannot function in society without internet access, not in a first world country… you go to the gas station, there’s an internet access to pay for the pump of the gas. So it’s not like we can quit using it, and so it’s a little bit of a have and a have not,” said Sophomore Pre-AP English II Advisor Anna-Lynn Morris. 

 For more information on Net Neutrality visit battleforthenet.com