Yesterday on Last Week Tonight, John Oliver gave an excellent explanation of why you shouldn't trust Comcast, no matter what they say. He also realized that the solution to the problem resides in the comments sections of every website on the internet.
If you aren't familiar with the issue, net neutrality is the idea that once you pay for your internet connection, you'll be accessing any websites at the same speed, not affected by any deals those sites may have with your provider. Right now, the FCC is hearing arguments that companies like Comcast should be allowed to charge a company like Netflix more money to have the same connection speeds to their customers that they do now. Any company who doesn't pay would be limited to slower speeds.
If that seems unreal, keep in mind that it's already happening. At around 4:22 in the video above, there is a chart showing Netflix's connection speeds on various service providers, with a massive drop during negotiations with Comcast:
If Netflix has to pay more for its customers to get the same speed they get now, eventually they'll have to pay more to get Netflix. Even more importantly, the next thing that's better than Netflix might not be able to get off the ground because they won't be able to pay for the speed they need.
So all this brings us to John's proposed solution. The FCC is taking comments on the issue here, so make one less comment on a cat video today and go let them know that you don't want to pay more for the same internet you're already getting. You can also send them an email at openinternet@fcc.gov.
Oh, and remember, this isn't new. There are still plenty of places where your internet speed gets reduced after you use a certain amount of data. The latest push from cable companies just hides the cost to consumers by shifting it to websites themselves. Redditor quink made this this image 4 years ago to show what your internet might look like if cable companies get their way:
Net Neutrality [Last Week Tonight]