DISQUS

While I can understand and appreciate this conservative argument that "government intervention" will create inefficiencies I think that the Internet is a unique market that deserves more consideration before hastily applying Smith's thoughts to it. Certainly no net neutrality advocate is calling for a government owned Internet backbone, they are just saying that there needs to be some sanity in how far infrastructure providers are able to go in filtering or providing different QoS levels to their users. In my mind a world in which Internet providers are allowed to go as far as blocking or slowing down content of their choosing is as bad as one in which a government (China) uses their control of the resources to block out free speech and hunt down protesters. Instead of letting this grow out of hand to where providers are offering faster rates through their network to one company and not to the other, why don't we just continue on our current model where an individual, or a corporation pays their provider based on only the speed between them and their ISP. If I want a cable modem I will pay for a cable connection, if I want dialup speed I will pay for that, but either way I expect equal or nearly equal speeds on the content I am paying to access.