This is the Indicator from Planet Money, I'm Darian Woods.

And I'm Whale and Wong.

For the last couple decades, there is this tech policy issue that keeps resurfacing.

People were out there rallying in 2014.

And again, in 2017, sweet, sweet internet freedom and what these demonstrators are rallying

around is the principle of net neutrality.

This is the idea that content on the internet should be treated equally and that internet

users get to decide what they do on the web, not internet service providers.

When net neutrality supporters don't want is for a broadband company to tell their customers

for example, you can send an email but not stream a TV show or, hey, you'll get higher

speeds for a particular streaming service.

The Federal Communications Commission first enacted net neutrality rules in 2015 under President

Obama.

Then the Trump era FCC repealed those rules.

And when that happened, net neutrality advocates warned of a dark future, the end of the internet

as we knew it.

And I scary prospect indeed and so we wanted to figure out whether that doomsday scenario

came to pass.

It's an important question as the current FCC with a new democratic majority moves ahead

of plans to restore net neutrality rules.

And yet most of us probably haven't noticed much of a difference.

It's like it's the end of the internet and I feel fine.

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