I'm a Verizon subcriber. I have been for as long as I can remember. I like the coverage and I like my plan. I also love my Droid. If you offered me a free iPhone that was legally fixed to work on my Verizon plan, I'd turn you down. I wouldn't trade my Droid for any phone on the market. I wouldn't trade my plan for any on the market. But if the Verizon/Google plan to create a separate private internet goes forward, I will. When my contract expires, I will.
I don't want anyone's private internet. I don't want anyone's two-tiered system. I use the public internet. I love the public internet. And Verizon and Google may think they can kill off the public internet, but they underestimate the will of the public. People will keep it alive, innovative, and thriving, even if they do it for free. Because people love the public internet.
Verizon and Google are making a huge miscalculation. Because those who most love the current internet, those who use it the most, are the ones who will be most outraged by this effort to undermine it. Many won't be giving money to those that are trying to undermine the internet they love. In a nation and a world where more and more private media are corrupt, dishonest, and irresponsible, a public media can be the only defense against complete corporate plutocracy. Even many businesses will want nothing to do with those that are trying to undermine the only defense against complete corporate plutocracy.
Many of us remember the key role the internet played in disseminating information during what turned out to be a failed coup in Russia, in 1991. Many of us view the internet as the last best hope for the establishment and preservation of democracy, around the globe. Liberal, conservative, or somewhere in between, the ability to communicate freely is widely deemed to be one of the most important of all democratic values. And this move by Verizon and Google is a blatant attempt to undermine the greatest public communication tool ever invented.
If Verizon and Google don't come to their senses, and if the government fails to force them to, I will be done with Verizon and Google. If my phone service suffers, so be it. If my coverage suffers, so be it. If I have to do more research, rather than clicking on Google's search engine, so be it. I will find alternatives that better reflect my values. I may be but one person, but I doubt I will be the only person making this move. Because apparently unlike Verizon and Google, many people value doing what's best not just for themselves, but for the common good.