@ShawnLanden: Good comment. The internet has innovated and grown just fine under Net Neutrality.
@dbg: ISPs make money from content providers uploading into their pipes, and again when we download that content. You don't see any AT&T, Verizon or Comcast execs shivering in bread-lines, cup-in-hand. The so-called "Internet Freedom Act" is nothing more lobbyist sponsored legislation to destroy Net Neutrality so monopoly ISPs can start profiteering on the back of small business and the public.
@dbg: Read kiram9's experience before posting. Also look up what throttling Comcast has done. Denial doesn't make these not factual. Then imagine the corporate gloves coming off if Net Neutrality goes. We the people require the FCC to protect Net Neutrality.
@kiram: Well put. Dar's trolling this forum full-time spouting the same irrelevant analogies over & over. If not a paid corporate shill, let's wish him well moving to Somalia to live out the dream of no central government protection for people's freedom.
@dar: Talking is preventing you from listening, and your every new irrelevant metaphor only continues to prevent your understanding of why Net Neutrality needs to maintained. Just like the interstates, the internet took massive govermment investment to build. Your trailer parks Aunt didn't have the scale to build I-80, and neither is she going to be providing a viable ISP alternative to Verizon/Comcast/AT&T. A libertarian free market might be your Utopia, but in the US of A we live in, government build the internet and FCC regs are needed to stop monopolies from taking away Net Neutrality.
Being a Birther must make you able to post on a topic without research. Net Neutrality protects Free Speech from big corporate control. You and your conservative Fox-News watching brethren should be supporting it.
@Dar: Net Neutrality *is* the status quo nurturing innovation and growth to-date. Success is apparent -- we don't need to justify it. The burden of proof is on you as to why we should trust monopoly corporations (ISP) to forsake potential revenue streams to protect our freedoms. The deregulated, trusting approach stood us in good stead with Wall Street .... NOT!
The fact is, investment-intensive infrastructure systems (railroad, interstates, telephones, internet) are inevitably kick-started by tax-payer subsidy, need monopoly/oligopoly maintenance for scale, and common-sense regulation to protect small business & the end-consumer.
Can you point to one example where an unregulated free market has done this without screwing the little guy?
You're either ignorant or a corporate shill. The internet was designed & built by taxpayer dollars (DARPA). When the NSF transferred it, Net neutrality was an implicit requirement on those private corporations. Now it's under threat and we need explicit FCC regulations to protect innovators (and their investors) from the ISP monopolies who want free rein to extract profits by shaping to prioritize traffic from "featured content providers".
To see a corporate sock-puppet astroturfing anti-neutrality, check out Jim Snowden: http://twitter.com/jwsnowden commenting on tkarr's post above: http://openinternet.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/17835-6017
Then tell me that McCain's trojan horse bill isn't bought and paid for by the large ISP lobbyists.
@JimSnowden: Way to suck up to the boss! We'd heard AT&T executives were imploring employees to use personal accounts to astro-turf the anti-neutrality lobby. Thanks for confirming the sock-puppet rumor. Here's a couple of questions for you: 1/You're right. Google doesn't pay a nickel. In fact, they pay millions for bandwidth to fulfill content requests. Monthly, I pay my ISP for bandwidth to download my content requests. Why should AT&T be able to shape service quality so as to prioritize 'featured partner content' traffic that kicks-back additional revenue? We've already paid once on each end of the pipe, surely shaping the pipe for additional profit is just extortion? 2/ Net Neutrality has allowed innovation to flourish and the internet to grow exponentially. Why mess with a good thing? 3/ The campaign to protect Net Neutrality has been transparent, open and inclusive. Why are big ISPs like AT&T employing sock-puppets and astro-turf campaigns to push their case?
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