I think that there's a tech bubble around this issue. In my experience, most normal people happily trade internet speed for discounts. In fact, I've found that

I think that there's a tech bubble around this issue. In my experience, most normal people happily trade internet speed for discounts. In fact, I've found that people are more likely to be suspicious of those seeking high internet speeds than sympathetic. I am willing to bet that if someone offered an internet package that included full speeds for Facebook, Wikipedia, and 30 YouTube videos for $5 /mo, and then 20% speed for everything else, it'd do really well. Interestingly, this is a really a question about keeping the internet a free market. Just as a local boutique retailer would not be happy about the shopping center charging customers $1 per store they entered, small publishers, as usual, will be the people harmed by a non-neutral internet. I'm sure the big players are enthralled by the idea that their competitors will soon have an even harder time accessing alternatives, as if it wasn't difficult enough with a rabid copyright regime and restrictive network access. IMO, the only reason tech incumbents oppose net non-neutrality is because they're worried that Comcast will use it as a kludge to stymie the growth of their platforms as media platforms (which Comcast et al are desperate to do, because cordcutting is eviscerating the cable industry). It's too bad that the mainstream conservative party in the US has interpreted "free markets" and "competition" to mean making the startup environment extremely difficult for the little guy.