The decision to remove net neutrality has been reached after a 3-2 vote made by the Federal Communications Commission today. This result comes two years after stricter policies around net neutrality were put into place, ensuring internet providers wouldn’t be able to block or limit access to content by offering paid workarounds.
With the move to dissolve net neutrality, back-end online services, cloud development services, and online based games are in jeopardy. Developers who publish their games through services like Steam or Itch.io are also in danger if companies choose to charge more for bandwidth.
Net neutrality allows the consumer to access content regardless of where it’s hosted, and makes sure that preferential treatment is not given toward some Internet providers.
Even when stricter laws for an open Internet were introduced, companies would still restrict consumer access to competitors. The Verge notes that “without any rules in place, they’ll have free rein to do that to an even greater extent.”
Although these changes will not occur instantly “Internet providers will likely continue to explore subtler methods of advantaging themselves and their partners, like offering data to use certain services for free or speeding up delivery of their own content,” cautions The Verge.