So… for those of you who don’t know yet, the Fight
for Net Neutrality is on, and has been, for a little while. But the Cable
Company Lobbyists, have just stepped up their game.
Here’s a brief summary:
Net Neutrality is the state of fair and objective
distribution of content across the world wide web. Internet Service Providers
(or ISPs) have, up until now, had a duty to treat everybody’s content equally, and
provide the same service to content providers, regardless of affiliation or
money. In straightforward language, this means- if YOU are a small, online
retailer, you are entitled to the same service from your internet provider, as,
say, a massive corporation like Comcast.
But this may all be about to change, meaning smaller online
retailers will risk not being able to provide a good enough service to your
customers. This, of course, means you may lose business, and become less
competitive.
The £1.5bn UK florist industry is becoming increasingly
competitive, and moving online. This means that, if you run a florist in today’s
UK market, the outcome of the war for Net Neutrality, may have a massive
impact, on your business:
At retail level, the UK Floral industry represents £2.2bn according
to the Flowers and Plants Association. In real terms, that means, each of us in
the UK are spending on average, a mere £36 on flowers and plants per year. £8
of that is spent on plants.
Let’s see it from the customer’s perspective: if it takes
me, the customer, 15 minutes to load the information on your site, because your
server has decided to prioritize someone else’s content, I WILL get bored, and
I WILL go and spend that sum of money somewhere else, or just go to Tesco and
buy my flowers (though perhaps, not for much longer!).
In an increasingly rushed society, I don’t have time to wait
endlessly, for your website to load on my screen. And it’s frustrating. Let’s
face facts: In the grand scheme of things, to me, the customer, in that moment,
flowers just aren’t that important.
That is why the issue of Net Neutrality is so important to forward
thinking business owners. To find out more about the fight for Net Neutrality,
check out our earlier blog, Flowers
of War.
So far, the main organisation responsible for leading the fight
for Net Neutrality, have managed to cause quite a stir amongst congress. Fight
For the Future.org ran a mass ‘Internet Slowdown’ earlier this month, to which
many, many large online retailers signed up to.
But the fight continues. FFTF report that President Obama
had said, as part of his campaign promises, that he would ‘take a back seat to
no-one’ with regards to Net Neutrality, and promised to make sure that the
commissioners he appointed to the FCC would ‘act accordingly’ to re-instate Net
Neutrality. However, we all know how hard it is, to get politicians to make
good on their promises.
The Internet Slowdown shook up the cable company lobbyists,
who have now reportedly been ‘tag-teaming’ both Congress and the FCC in the hopes
they will not have their god-like
powers to control what content we have access to, removed.
Fight For the Future are now rallying more support, and
asking individuals and business owners alike, no matter what country you are
based in, to petition
Obama to keep his promises.
We’ll keep you updated, as promised.
If you would like to know how you and your business can get
involved in the fight for Net Neutrality, or simply find out more about this
important issue, check out www.fightforthefuture.org.