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OK Go's impassioned plea for net neutrality, quirky videos


It looks like Damian Kulash has given some serious thought to the issue of net neutrality, going so far as to voice his concerns in the Washington Post this weekend. The OK Go man began with a brief overview of the Google / Verizon "net neutrality" scheme, but this is the part that really caught our interest:

The Internet is the purest marketplace for ideas that the world has ever seen, and the amazing power of such a level playing field has revolutionized everything. Google knows this better than anyone. It started in a garage and became an industry leader by having great ideas, not mountains of cash. And it's wonderful: The Internet works! It rewards innovators such as Google, and it relegates protectionist, defensive, idea-squashing fogies such as record companies to the dustbin of history.

Now that the Internet has been around long enough to have developed its own giants, though, we need to make sure they don't ruin what's great about the technology that made them. We need to make sure they don't crush the idea industry the way the music giants crushed the music industry...

And this is why net neutrality is important: it preserves the virtues of the technology (and protects them from a market that would erode those virtues for short-term gain). Really, the whole thing's worth a quick read. Hit up the source link to check it out for yourself.