According to the discourse surrounding the core gaming scene right now, loot boxes and similar business models are the greatest threat to interactive entertainment. But while fans shout down publisher Electronic Arts over the progression in Star Wars: Battlefront II, the Federal Communications Commission is gearing up to kill net neutrality. Reuters and Bloomberg are each reporting that FCC chairman Ajit Pai, an appointee of President Donald Trump, will reveal plans next week to undo an executive order from President Barack Obama’s tenure that classifies internet service providers as equivalent to utilities.
Net neutrality is a concept that includes a number of rules and regulations with the purpose of preventing internet service providers (ISPs) such as Comcast and AT&T from blocking, slowing, or favoring certain content over their networks. The basic idea is that Comcast, which owns NBC Universal, shouldn’t be able to slow down a competitor like Netflix’s content while providing a fast lane for its own streaming service. This is one of the reasons that so many technology companies support net neutrality. But repealing this could also hit the budgets of gaming fans and divert some of that disposable income away from publishers and developers and toward Comcast and AT&T instead.
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