Sam Pardue

Net Neutrality helped nurture my business

Lensbabies, LLC started as an ecommerce company with just $5,000 in capital -- just enough to get started but not enough to pay extra money to big internet companies to guarantee that our customers would have equal access to our website. The equal access to the internet allowed our company to flourish, and within 6 months we had sold our unique SLR camera lenses to customers in 40 countries around the world. Why on earth would the FCC want to stifle economic innovation by limiting customer's access to our website?

Lensbabies, 3 years later, is now a thriving global brand, with distribution around the world. We are the first US company to export SLR camera lenses to Japan, Germany and China in decades. The access to a larger customer base has allowed us to reinvest in new product development to the point where our award winning product line is recognized by photographers everywhere.

Net Neutrality was critical to our success. Please don't cave in to the mega corporations who would like to design the Internet to serve their needs rather than the little guys.