Please only write 1-2 paragraphs summarizing the answers down below.
2-26 How do the interests of carriers differ from the interests of websites? What are the implications for websites from a value chain perspective?
Although the main goal of carriers is to grant consumers access to the Internet, some carriers favor certain websites online over others, and, due to the power over online content that they hold, they are able to manipulate and interfere with the accessibility of a website on their carrier. That is, some carriers could prioritize access to some parts of the Internet, but not all of them. According to Facts on File, some carriers have the ability to participate in “slowing, or ‘throttling’, access to content online” and are even able to partner with certain websites to ensure that that specific website is able to be accessed faster by consumers in comparison to other websites. These types of practices directly conflict with the goals of websites as it provides some websites with an advantage over others. Some websites may not have access to resources such as money that would allow them to partner up with carriers to ensure that their websites are being distributed to consumers in an efficient manner. Additionally, some websites may not want to participate in acts like these as they view it unfair to the consumer whose access to the Internet is being unknowingly controlled by a select few, namely, carriers and big websites.
2-26 Carriers seek to limit the kind of online content posted to the Web, whereas websites favor the freedom of access and expression to cyberspace. From a business standpoint, carriers would rather shift away from net neutrality to usher out unwanted content and expand their potential for innovation. Internet service providers, or ISPs, see net neutrality as an opportunity to standardize the Internet to uphold consistent maintenance fees and services provided to the public. From a value chain perspective, net neutrality does not favor the goals of websites. For a business to improve, it is necessary to understand the buyers “who add value to the company’s products or services” (Wallace, 2017). This can be achieved through user-generated content such as product reviews or discussion forums that require a certain kind of freedom not supported by net neutrality. As a result, maximum efficiency for the lowest cost is hindered by the regulations of net neutrality; hence, websites may not benefit as much from a value chain point of view.
2-26The interests of carriers are different from websites simply because one is for net neutrality and the other is not. The net neutrality rules prohibit charging websites different prices no matter the amount of bandwidth that is in use to prevent abuse. This can be seen as unjustifiable since carriers such as Verizon are a form of utility, and not all utility bills are the same price every month. Instead of charging more for the amount of bandwidth usage, they lobby for new rules to prevent the ISP’s from charging them differently than anyone else. They believe that it is better to pay as little as they can for bandwidth. Many of the websites that censor their content, such as YouTube, Google, Twitter and Facebook, are the ones that are in favor of net neutrality. Carriers rely on customer subscriptions, whereas websites rely on sponsored adverts and pop-ups from other organizations, as well as personal marketing. From a value chain standpoint, websites have it more difficult because their value is entirely dependent on the advertisers that are willing to utilize their website to advertise themselves. Without net neutrality “individual carriers can provide higher connection speeds to certain websites or throttle access to others” which would cause an imbalance Reid (2018).
2-26From a value chain viewpoint, careers and websites have conflicting interests. If the net neutrality law prevails, careers will not benefit from their efficient networks, thus undermining the value chain and vice-versa (Greenstein, Peitz, & Valletti, 2016). Conversely, if the net neutrality law stops websites this will incur higher costs to get reliable speed, thus raising operational costs (Pil-Choi & Kim, 2010). Alternatively, websites could avoid paying extra charges and instead watch their speed reduce, thus lowering service delivery. On the contrary, if the net neutrality law prevails, websites will enjoy a fair and cost-friendly business environment, thus promoting the value chain.
