Burger King, Of All Outfits, Has The Best Net Neutrality Explanation

In a viral video that demonstrates the need for internet Net
Neutrality, a Burger King franchise angers customers by
modeling their service in a way that mimics an internet
without Net Neutrality. 

Net Neutrality, something important that the FCC just overturned, is a hard nut to explain. It's especially difficult to explain why it's important, and why the FCC's decision will affect you and me.

Essentially, Net Neutrality is a principle that prohibits internet service providers from speeding up or slowing down access to content, or blocking it altogether, from any application or website you want to use.  

The fear is big corporate internet providers - think AT&T and Verizon, that ilk - will slow down or block content that either they don't make money from, or contain messages they don't want you to hear or see.  Or they'll make you pay exorbitant prices for content you want to see, but is not normally a moneymaker for them.

Net Neutrality was how the internet worked under the Republican-led FCC, under its chairman, a former Verizon lawyer, decided to do away with it. 

Quite a few people in Congress, including a number of Republicans, are interested in enshrining Net Neutrality back into law. 

Of course, the internet service provider lobbyists don't want this. These internet providers are even trying to block or close down municipal internet service providers. There's now something like 750 local municipal providers around the United States.

 The municipal ones are usually run by local governments, or panels, and have faster download speeds and are less expensive to consumers than internet access offered by the big companies.

So anyway, it's up to the rest of the public to apply pressure. How do you get the public to sign on to such an esoteric idea?

Burger King, of all companies, has found a way to do that with its flagship Whopper sandwich. Burger King put out a wonderful video that demonstrates how a lack of Net Neutrality works.

People who want a Whopper right away would have to pay a whopping $26. Or, if you don't want to pay that much, you'd have to wait a ridiculously long time for your Whopper, even if there's no logical reason to make you wait - the Whoppers are already ready to serve. Or, in the video, if you don't want to wait for the Whopper, you can settle for a chicken sandwich, though you probably don't want chicken.

The video is brilliant. It is so worth the watch: