Impact of Net Neutrality on E-commerce

Besides House of Cards season 3 being released on Netflix, the most exciting news this past week is probably on FCC's decision regarding net neutrality on Thursday. 

What is Net Neutrality?

Net neutrality is a concept or principle that simply states that all data transmitted on the Internet should be treated the same, and that Internet infrastructure providers like broadband ISPs, should not discriminate against any kind of data source or any kind of data and should not charge different prices for services based on the user, provider, or content. The heated discussion comes from a case where Comcast allegedly give broadband capacity from peer-to-peer network to other websites ("throttled traffic"), and as a result Netflix reluctantly agreed to pay extra for their traffic. The video below from John Oliver's HBO show Last Week Tonight sums it up pretty well. 

It is widely believed that in the absence of net neutrality rules, broadband ISPs could and would treat connections to websites differently based on whether or not the ISP liked a website or network or had a business relationship with a particular website or network.

Why do we care?

Now that we have laid the basics of what the term means, let's see why it matters to E-commerce.

Hypothetically, smaller e-commerce and startup companies who could not afford the extra payments to get on the "fast lane" would suffer from a slower Internet connectivity, which may drive the customer away, especially if the said customer has experienced faster speed from bigger merchants like Amazon.com and major retailers. Overtime, polarizing the net may end up limiting the diversity of e-commerce options. 

Bloggers are another aspect of e-commerce to be affected. Marketers have been using social media, especially famous bloggers to showcase products and generate buzz. Most bloggers will probably face difficulties without Net Neutrality watching their back. In one sense, this means that brands will have less content competition. On the other hand, the bridge to consumers provided by bloggers will be harder to come by.
In conclusion, the passing of Net Neutrality is good news, especially for us netizens and smaller businesses trying to establish their presence online.