Originally Posted By: Sethan
If you are ready to pay for Internet toll booths to go to your favorite website then keep believing that.

What happens when Verizon, Comcast, Suddenlink or ATT decide they are only going to let their cronies move traffic on their fiber lines. Sucks for you since 99% of America has a extremely limited choice of providers when it comes to getting internet. If you are lucky you may have 2 options.

Lets say ATT has a huge liberal board of directors...they may decide that if you want to go to FOX NEWS then it will cost you 15c per minute. Hell they may decide to just not let you go there at all.

Lets say Verizon needs more profit on the bottom line...Instead of providing a betetr service to their customer they now have other options. Well guys, Hulu is taking up alot of our backbone. Lets charge them 400 million dollars extra per year to move their traffic on our lines or we will block them. Guess what...your Hulu account now cost 70 dollars per month instead of 7.

I could go on for days with examples of why removing Net Nuetrality laws will be bad for the average internet user.




NN regulations are new, and still under court challenge and this hasnt happened yet. Assuming it would happen in the near term without NN is an assumption without much merit.

While it is a valid *worry*, cant assume it will happen. There are many reasons outside of NN regulation that still prevent this.

First, there are actually other laws that could come into play.

Second, it would be extremely unpopular and could lead to other legal or regulatory changes addressing this - the worst (from telco view) being the govt taking steps to ensure competition is possible like I outline.

Third, in the meantime it would open them to retribution. What if TWC then dropped the liberal channels and only carried FOX?

Of course this leads us back to #1 and #2, because at this point the entire country realizes something is drastically wrong with the system.

People often paint a picture of doomsday catastrophe looming in absence of NN, yet even without we are probably not close to doomsday. Many areas of the country actually still have decent competition as well.

For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)