Burger King® Can Help
Burger King® the fast food chain that is home to the iconic Whopper®, recently decided to address the issue of net neutrality in a fun, yet surprising way that shocked customers.
Most Americans do not understand what net neutrality is so in an endeavor to help customers understand, Burger King® released an ad that explains what net neutrality is and how it affects all Americans.
The ad explains how net neutrality exploits “fast and slow lanes,” charging more for access to the internet. Are you still confused? Let’s explain it using the Whopper®.
Burger King® created a menu option that includes the Whopper® MBPS (Making Burgers Per Second). They charged the regular price for the Slow MBPS Whopper®, triple the price for the Fast MBPS Whopper® and six times the price for the Hyperfast MBPS Whopper®. If you wanted your Whopper® made in the “normal” timeframe, you would have to shell out a whopping $25.99.
The same goes for net neutrality. Companies will now have the ability to slow down your access to sites they don’t support.
The ad includes an actor explaining the new system to customers. “Burger King® corporation believes that they can sell more and make more money selling chicken sandwiches and chicken fries, so now they’re slowing down the access to the Whopper.” This statement has a lot of truth to it. ISPs (Internet Service Providers) try to sell things that directly compete with one another, which means that it’s in their financial best interest to steer customers towards content that makes them money. For example, DirecTV is now owned by AT&T. Does this mean that these two companies benefit from steering potential customers away from other ISPs? The short answer is yes.
The danger of not having net neutrality is that ISPs can push customers into services that make them money – essentially creating conglomerates. This isn’t in the best interest of Americans, a nation founded on freedom.
You can rest assured that Burger King® isn’t changing their prices to these astronomical amounts. They just wanted to create a viral advertisement that informed Americans about the danger of living in a world without net neutrality.