Keep the Internet Open

> Your examples are all safety (including public safety), or shared-resources (radio spectrum). Fiber I lay in the ground isn't a shared resource, and no one's safety is impaired by prioritizing my on-network traffic over off-network traffic.

That's true, sort of. The fiber you lay in the ground isn't a shared resource, but the internet as a whole IS. Mediating my access to it without reasonable alternatives removes my stake in a shared resource.

> A more direct analogy is government regulation of something like how food tastes or how entertaining TV shows are.

I'm trying to interpret this charitably, but I must admit that my initial reaction is "that's absolutely ridiculous". This strikes me as a lurid, sensationalist comparison designed to appeal to anger rather than logic. If I am missing an obvious logical connection then I'd love to hear it.

If anything, I think a worst-case breakdown of net neutrality falls closer to having my personal choices regulated than government intervention does. It's not hard to imagine an example scenario where it is only profitable for my home to be serviced by an ISP which has political beliefs antithetical to mine. In such a case it would be perfectly legal for them to charge exorbitant rates to access this content, effectively controlling what I consume.

> There's some justification for regulating carriers who have an enforced monopoly in a region, but the problem is the monopolies are local government monopolies, and the regulation here would be national.

I think you're making this statement because of regulation requiring that providers service an entire market? I can't imagine how else to interpret the statement that "monopolies are local government monopolies", given that most people have a choice of one (two, if they're lucky) of {comcast, time warner, AT&T}. Simply lifting this regulation doesn't necessarily solve the problem - admittedly I'm speaking from a position of ignorance, but it strikes me as likely that there are many consumers to whom it isn't immensely profitable to provide service.

To the folks on HN who don't vehemently, vehemently oppose a non-neutral system, your line of thinking puzzles the hell out of me. Is the idea that government regulation is bad in all cases but corporate regulation is OK in all cases? Why? Because you've bought into free market forces making all things better no matter what?

Those forces only make things better unless they don't. To me, it's crazy that's not immediately clear.

In this case, the regulation is for keeping the system free unless you're a monopoly or part of an oligopoly. Your future chances of being in that camp are so minuscule and even smaller if you support killing off Net Neutrality. Are you fighting on behalf your future self that will likely never exist? That's arrogant and delusional.

This is not what Ayn Rand meant by espousing the public good is best served when people are self-interested. That's not the same thing as being delusional.

How about I don't know if I support or oppose net neutrality because depending on the source it means something different.

I would love to see an actual technical, written definition so that I could tell my Congress folks to put it in a bill.

If only Sam knew someone that had the President's ear...

I had to switch from Sonic (to Comcast) for just that reason. I had a bonded DSL connection from Sonic that could just barely get 10Mbps. And the bonding really wasn't even worth it because one line was at 8 and the other at 2. And it was all due to the unmaintained copper coming from AT&T. I agree with their new strategy though - the only way to have any control over their service quality was to own their own fiber.

Now, I'm in Cincinnati and have excellent fiber service from Cincinnati Bell, so it's possible to have good quality from the incumbent carrier.