Just a few short weeks ago, geeks everywhere were up in arms over Google and Verizon’s discussions on ending net neutrality for wireless networks. A scant few people agreed with their reasoning for assigning important for certain types of network traffic over others. It seemed un-American and wrong.
Google isn’t stupid. Just yesterday they announced priority inbox, which sorts your gmail using their algorithms inside their web client so the messages they think you think are most important always rise to the top, while the rest languish toward the bottom, in essence giving higher priority to certain messages over the other.
I hate it. If you really can’t figure out how to make rules or filter your own email, you’re doing it wrong. Every decent mail program comes with the built-in ability to move messages in and out of your inbox and protect you from spam. The rules take a few minutes to set up, but once they’re set, they work forever.
If we don’t trust Google or any company to tell us what bandwidth should be allotted to which sites we visit, why in the hell should we trust them with our personal communication? Google’s priority inbox solves a problem that only those who have no idea what they’re doing have. Instead of teaching them to fish, Google just gave the people a fish-catching machine.
Net neutrality will die because Google wants it to and most of you were too lazy to try and stop it. What’s next, Google telling us how to vote?
