SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: Guess what? Net neutrality repeal wasn’t the apocalypse

Jan 9, 2019, 5:55 AM

Net Neutrality...

(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Do you remember a little over a year ago, the Trump administration was going to change the net neutrality rules concerning who would have access to the internet and if some companies might have preferential access.

Democrats just made up a bunch of garbage about net neutrality — and Jay Inslee was one of the leading shovelers. He’s still talking about it while building his campaign for presidency in 2020. He warned us that internet speeds would slow down, that fewer people would have access to the internet, and that the future of the internet looked bleaker than ever.

He was baying at the moon. It was just completely made up. There were FCC commissioners who said that all of the fear-mongering was completely made out of whole cloth. You had all of these Democrats who didn’t even know what net neutrality was, but then because Trump was pushing for the repeal of net neutrality, it became one of the most important issues in their lives.

RELATED: Gov. Inslee responds to I-405/net neutrality comparison

Now, a year later, we know how wrong Jay Inslee and all of the zealots who said that the repeal of net neutrality would spell doom and gloom for a free and open internet were. You know what has happened a year later? Zero of the horror stories spun by Inslee and others have come true.

In the last year, the average internet speeds have climbed by roughly a third. The number of homes with access to fiber internet jumped 23 percent in the last year. What we’re seeing is that a free market works like free markets often do.

 

SpaceX's mega rocket Starship lifts off for a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Friday, Nov. 13, 20...

Associated Press

SpaceX’s Starship returns from orbit and is captured by launch pad arms in a dramatic first

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX’s Starship made a triumphant return to Earth on Saturday, caught in midair by giant mechanical arms where its journey began 22 hours earlier. It was the grand finale that Elon Musk and his team hoped for — the first-ever capture of a Starship flying back from space. But with […]

3 hours ago

Associated Press

New Orleans port sues to get control of tanker that crashed into cruise ship on Mississippi River

Just hours after a tanker in New Orleans lost its steering and slammed into a docked river cruise boat, the city’s port sued to make sure federal investigators can seize the vessel that is owned by a subsidiary of a Chinese company. All 197 passengers and crew on the American Heritage cruise ship survived Friday […]

5 hours ago

The control tower is seen at Washington Dulles International Airport after the Federal Aviation Adm...

Associated Press

Why a problem on the ground can affect flights thousands of miles away among other issues

Regional U.S. air traffic control centers communicate using a complex network that’s “one of the largest telecommunications systems in the country,” and disruptions like those seen on Friday with an hourslong, nationwide grounding of flights can reverberate widely, according to an aviation expert. Michael McCormick, a former airspace manager with the Federal Aviation Administration, said […]

5 hours ago

Associated Press

At least 6 killed and 11 injured when bus overturns in southwestern Colombia

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A bus overturned Saturday on a highway in southwestern Colombia, killing at least six people and injuring 11, the National Police said. A police report seen by The Associated Press said the driver may have briefly fallen asleep at the wheel, causing the incident. Videos shared on social media showed emergency […]

5 hours ago

Aircraft are seen at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, in At...

Associated Press

US sports scramble back to normal after FAA ground stop upends team travel

Major sporting events slowly returned to normal Saturday after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights nationwide for several hours a day earlier, disrupting travel plans for professional and college teams across the country. Most college football teams playing Saturday travel the day before kickoff, and a number of games were delayed by hours to […]

5 hours ago

Poe Russell ground stop...

Frank Lenzi

KIRO Newsradio host Angela Poe Russell stuck in Cabo until Tuesday after ground stop

KIRO Newsradio host Angela Poe Russell and her family are stuck in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, until Tuesday after a ground stop left them waiting aboard their plane for 6½ hours Friday.

7 hours ago

Dori: Guess what? Net neutrality repeal wasn’t the apocalypse