FREDONIA — What do Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Uber, Netflix, Airbnb and eBay all have in common?

At least a couple of things.

One, they started from nothing and evolved to be Internet giants, as ubiquitous as the weather.

Two, they are part of the Internet Association (IA), staunch supporters of keeping the rules in place for the Internet; rules without which, there’s a very good chance you never would have heard their names, let alone conduct any business with them.

“Since its inception, the Internet has been governed by principles of openness and non-discrimination,” explains IA on its website. “Net neutrality is the legal principle that underpins the free and open internet as we know it today. Simply put, it means that broadband gatekeepers – Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, and other Internet service providers (ISPs) — should treat all internet traffic equally and not discriminate between different bits of data. That’s how the internet works today: users can go to any website and access any type of content, whenever they want.”

If Thursday turns out the way most everyone is predicting, net neutrality is soon to be a thing of the past and the gatekeepers will be given the extra authority of keymasters, with more power to control both speed and access of everything on the net.

What’s so special about Dec. 14? That is the date the five commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will be voting on whether to repeal net neutrality rules. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, once a lawyer for Verizon, has led the charge in abandoning net neutrality. A majority vote is all that is required to do so, and given that the FCC conducted a preliminary vote in May for public comment on overturning the 2015 net neutrality order, all indications point to Pai getting his way.

Pai has argued that net neutrality is equivalent to government interference and that the rules should be abandoned to make way for a better, freer internet.

“Essentially, my proposal would repeal the Obama administration’s heavy-handed regulations adopted two years ago on a party-line vote that regulated the internet,” Pai said during an interview with the Heritage Foundation. “And what I’m proposing to do is to get rid of those regulations.”

Supporting Pai in ending net neutrality are, predictably, the large ISPs, Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and others.

With the ISPs and the companies that make up the IA making opposite claims — the former claiming that net neutrality hinders internet freedom, the later claiming it secures internet freedom — the Post-Journal reached out to a few local experts for their perspective on the issue.

Dr. Ziya Arnavut, Department chair of computer sciences at State University New York Fredonia raised concerns that eliminating the current internet rules would stifle competition for small upstart businesses, in part because they wouldn’t be able to afford to pay for faster speeds.

“(Bigger companies) will have unfair advantages using the internet,” Arnavut said. “Now we are able to use Google or Bing or any other search engine and we do not see a difference in terms of speed.”

Arnavut said that the ISPs will most likely create a tiered system, a “pay to play” dynamic where more money equals more speed. The larger companies will naturally pay for the fastest tier, while the small start-up companies will be challenged to afford it.

“That means the small companies will suffer,” said Arnavut. “If you let everything be dominated by the big companies, then I’m afraid of the future for this country.”

Arnavut said that if Google and others have to pay more for higher speeds, it’s only a matter of time before “these companies will reflect it in their costs; because they are paying more, eventually they’re going to ask you to pay more.”

Taylor Roesler is a senior at Fredonia and star pupil of Arnavut who was recently hired by Microsoft. He starts in February and according to Arnavut, Roesler is set to make more money in an entry-level programming job than any previous graduates of the computer science department.

Despite preparing to work for a company that is set to benefit economically from repealing net neutrality, Roesler warned that such changes are going to be challenging for the rest of us.

Roesler said that one likely outcome is that companies like AT&T will go the route of cable companies, bundling packages together, which ultimately limits the consumer’s access.

“You’ll have your basic internet package (you pay a fee for),” Roesler began. “Say you want to stream Netflix and stream social media, well that will be another $10, $15. Say you use a blogging website, then you’ll have to pay another $10 or $15.”

Roesler echoed Arnavut’s concerns about small businesses being able to compete in such a world.

“Microsoft can pay Verizon (for example) a whole bunch of money to make sure that their bandwidth (is adequate),” said Roesler. “A mom and pop shop that might have a website that would rely on people going to that website to find them or use any of their services, they can’t pay a large internet service provider to not have their bandwidth throttled, so it will be atrocious trying to go there.”

Perhaps even more concerning than the potential higher costs for access, is the possible limiting of access altogether.

“If net neutrality laws are repealed, internet service providers can block access to content, should they feel (so inclined),” Roesler said.

Dr. David Rankin, chair of the Department of Politics and International Affairs at SUNY Fredonia said that regulatory bodies such as the FCC have had an ongoing trajectory of deregulation since the Reagan administration.

“(Eliminating net neutrality) is in line with the Trump administration’s perspective, but four of those (FCC) commissioners were appointed by Obama,” Rankin said. “The movement to deregulate media in general over the last several decades has been a bipartisan effort.

“It started with Reagan in a lot of ways, accelerating under Clinton with the Telecommunications Act, which led to this. We moved from 50 companies in the early 1980’s owning most media to six global conglomerates. (These administrations) have all been, more or less, pushing towards and appointing people like Pai who has worked in the industry for Verizon.”

Rankin used the fox guarding the henhouse analogy in describing how many regulatory agencies are staffed with former industry members.

“In a sense, they’re being asked to regulate the very same industry they work for,” said Rankin. “(Pai) is a former Verizon lawyer who…defended Verizon’s ability to advance against any potential regulatory concerns, which might inhibit profit. Now he’s the chairperson (of the FCC).”

Rankin echoed Roesler and Arnavut regarding the potential change in consumers access to the internet once net neutrality is no more.

“Can they control or restrict content? That’s the big concern always with over-consolidation, monopolies and oligopolies. There’s always a concern that if you control too much of the marketplace, can you restrict or influence the content?”

Nobody knows what the internet in this country will look like after Dec. 14 and the ISP companies like Comcast and Verizon have pledged not to make any drastic changes to access and that it will, in fact be better for everyone.

It seems most people aren’t convinced by that proposition.

Tim Karr, senior director of strategy for Free Press, said in an interview “Tens of millions of people have commented at the FCC. We’ve looked at those comments…and more than 98 percent of those commenting said they want to keep these net neutrality rules. (Pai) says this is government regulation of the internet. It’s not. It’s regulation of internet service providers. It protects it. It allows us to connect to everyone else that’s online. It prevents internet service providers from blocking, throttling, or degrading access to sites.”

One may ask why all these internet companies like Google and Amazon aren’t jumping on board the deregulation bandwagon.

“They argue that (abolishing net neutrality) would hinder the kind of innovation that led to their successes,” said Rankin.

Many people blame the Trump administration for this current situation, but Rankin said that would be a limited perspective of the truth.

“You could argue that Trump and the FCC chair has pushed against net neutrality, but with minor nuances here and there, both sides, both (Democrat and Republican) administrations from Reagan forward through Obama have facilitated this dynamic. Big media corporations are donating to whomever is in power.”