It might seem like something of a pet project here on GameRevolution, especially as we don't cover the music world but games are art and thousands of indie game developers depend on the Internet to live, so I'm going to continue beating this drum in order to increase awareness of Net Neutrality and the benefits it has for our economy, our way of life, and the possibility for a much wider middle-class in America.
I've been directly benefiting from the Internet's open nature for years now. It's allowed me the opportunity to get a job out of college when there were none, move where I needed to when I needed to, and it's given me the chance to do something I love. I don't have the technical skills to develop video games. I wasn't motivated enough to pursue programming or anything like that.
I liked to write and play video games and that was about it. I would never consider myself an artist but it strikes me as a deeply personal thing that artists, musicians, and other creative people have joined huge corporations like Google, Yahoo, and Netflix in urging the Federal Communications Commission to protect the Internet's neutrality and freedom.
In a letter posted to Freepress.net, talented people like Fred Armisen of Portlandia, Sarah Browning (whose name has "poet" next to it on the letter), and Michael Stipe of the now defunct R.E.M. write that "the open Internet has powered the creative community's pursuits and offerings in the 21st century."
The collected artists and musicians write that the FCC's regulations would "allow rampant discrimination online" and that "telecom giants… would be able to pick winners and losers online and discriminate against online content and applications."
"The open Internet's impact on the creative community cannot be overstated. The Internet has enabled artists to connect directly with each other and with audiences. It has eliminated the barriers of geography and taken collaborations to new levels. And it has allowed people—not corporations—to seek out the film, music and art that moves them." I don't think anyone could argue against that last point with the increasing visibility given to startup creators, even if I still can't manage to sit through most Youtube videos.
What Net Neutrality opponents don't realize is that allowing people to continue using the Internet to develop themselves and their life's potential will only help the biggest corporations. Even with Internet piracy, the wealth of free content online, and non-stop Netflix usage, the biggest companies in America are making record-breaking profits. If there's some concern about money, why doesn't anyone look at how much is tied up in the banking system and debt?
I like to think that I could be a creator some day, be it in music or movies or even games, but do we all really want to be cogs in massive, inflexible machines where decisions are made at the top and read in a memo at the bottom? There are certainly some corporations that serve great purpose in our lives and to them I gladly say takemymoney.jpg.
To the rest, I ask for change. I ask for understanding and a sense of global community, which is all these artists, musicians, tech corporations, and game developers are asking for. Whose houses are the cables buried under in the first place?
