> If you can think of a better example, I'm fine with using that. Comparisons between regulation of telephone service and internet service seem like the closes

> If you can think of a better example, I'm fine with using that. Comparisons between regulation of telephone service and internet service seem like the closest analog, and there are certainly examples of the former. Early telephone network providers were forced to peer by government regulation, for instance. An even more closely related example is the regulation that cell network providers may not charge extra fees for tethering; that's actually quite close to the net neutrality argument, where the cell network provider is being forced to act as a "dumb pipe" and accept traffic at the same cost regardless of the source (though admittedly they have metered usage billing, which I would be totally fine with from my ISP if that solves the problem). That we as a society accepted regulation in both of these cases is not a sufficient argument for why net neutrality is necessary, but it defeats the argument that such regulation is unprecedented. I think we're in agreement about what we want, and the argument that net neutrality will fail to produce this is reasonable since we aren't currently in the goal state. My fear of anti net-neutrality legislation is based on the fact that what we have now, though not ideal, is acceptable, and it's quite plausible that things could become much worse rather than better unless this is addressed very, very thoughtfully. I'm open to the idea that net neutrality as it currently stands is unsustainable, but that needs to be paired with a clear explanation of how revoking it won't lead us to the nightmare scenario I've described above in which a small monopoly of providers serve as unelected gatekeepers. As I mentioned earlier, if the answer is metered billing where the high costs of the long tail are amortized by the low costs of popular content, then that seems perfectly appropriate. You also gave an example in a sibling comment about net neutrality only being waived when consumers had access to a certain number of providers.