Copy/pasting this from thingist, but: "We're trying to have a society over here." Imagine this for a moment: You just purchased a new microwave and would like

Copy/pasting this from thingist, but: "We're trying to have a society over here." Imagine this for a moment: You just purchased a new microwave and would like to plug it in on your countertop and cook a delicious burrito, but you can't. Why can't you? Because the power company only allows you enough power to run a small coffee maker, or maybe a rice cooker, or maybe a toaster, but none of these things at the same time. This is the internet, and it is horrible. Now imagine that General Electric, who makes the microwave, also owns the power company. They have decided that only GE branded appliances will work properly on their power distribution network. You can have a toaster, but if you have a GE microwave, the toaster will only toast things like 10% (because the GE microwave gets priority, you see), and won't work at all for bagels. Now imagine that Westinghouse, who manufactures your toaster, actually pays GE to transmit the power to your house. Would this make you angry? This is net neutrality. Howabout this! You purchase 10,000 gallons of water from your city. The city enjoys selling you these gallons, but they decide that you are only allowed to use them in the shower. If you want to use some of those 10,000 gallons in the dishwasher...wellllll, you're going to have to spend an extra $30/mo for the privilege. This is AT&T, and this is internet on cellphones. This is insane, and this is stifling innovation. ISPs and telcos, we're trying to have a society over here, would you please get with the program? Why is this nonsense tolerated? In the past we've gotten together as a civilization and realized that certain things are important to our continued development. Schools, for instance, were recognized as important because it's important to have an educated population. The interstate system was recognized as a hugely important economic driving force because it allowed people to quickly move around. The rail system was recognized as important because it meant that we could move goods. Why haven't we gotten together (well, we have, geeks have) and decided that having un-meterd fiber to every home in the United States is an enormously important piece of our future success as an economy? How awesome would it be if I could build a (albeit crappy [because I don't have generators and flywheels]) datacenter in my house? I want to build $really_cool_app...so I just do it. This is freaking possible. The incremental cost of transmitting bits is almost nothing. Why aren't we making this happen? By the way, US lawmakers, other countries are making this happen.