In case you haven’t heard, our country is embroiled in a covert war that endangers the very souls of young people (and cool old people) all across America. That’s right, I’m talking about the fight over what we, as college students, hold so dear: the internet.

The ongoing battle between telecommunications and tech lobbyists over the idea of net-neutrality has recently attracted the attention of President Obama and many concerned Americans, such as myself. Let me explain what this fight is about:

There are two schools of thought on how we should regulate the internet. The first is the belief that internet usage should be like electricity usage; you pay the electric company some money, they give you electricity, and you do whatever you want with it. The internet, like electricity, can be considered a public utility and should, ideally, be accessible to everybody without complication. Internet content providers, such as Netflix and Hulu, would be able to reach consumers without being hassled by internet service providers (ISPs), such as Comcast.

The second option is that internet access should be like cable access. The cable provider gives its customers a variety of packages and channels while making deals with the individual cable channels. The cable company has a different deal with each channel and provides consumers with a sports package for X amount of money, a movie channel for Y amount of money, and so on. ISPs, which are analogous to cable companies, are potentially able to restrict access to internet content providers in order to generate profit. ISPs could slow down or even entirely block internet content providers who do not pay for their right to use massive amounts of bandwidth. There is no question that the internet is essential to our 21st century economy and society. The real question which you need to ask yourself about net-neutrality is do you think companies like Netflix should have to compete with other companies in order to reach you? I believe that competition between internet content companies to deliver the fastest content can only benefit us as consumers. The false-utopia of net-neutrality sounds great to the uninformed, but in practice it will only discourage the classic sense of competition which allowed cable companies to develop the myriad brilliant series which currently exist in television.

The only regulation which the issue of net-neutrality currently needs is a limit on how much ISPs are allowed to exploit their market. If ISPs are prohibited from unfairly charging internet content providers, costs will never pass onto the consumers. This would allow the internet to evolve as an only slightly regulated market, competitively generating the best content providers have to offer.

Obama admitted that, although he believes ISPs should provide equal service to content providers, the decision ultimately lies with the Federal Communications Commission. Whether the FCC decides to allows ISPs to charge for service or not, internet-neutrality will continue to be a battleground for Americans for some time.