Getting a high-traffic service to pay extra or degrading other services are basically the same thing. Because the obvious question is “what happens if they don’

Getting a high-traffic service to pay extra or degrading other services are basically the same thing. Because the obvious question is “what happens if they don’t pay”? The obvious answer is throttling. > And if it was a low user / start up phase app it wouldn't provide any competitive advantage for an isp to throttle it. What we’ve seen in developing nations is internet that’s subsidized but only for certain companies (eg free Facebook, paid everything else) and people just use Facebook and have 0 access to the outside internet. There are examples in the US at least, albeit less severe. It was (is?) common for cell phone companies to offer unlimited data cellphone plans, but they throttle video streaming to a lower resolution. Then offer “unmetered streaming of Netflix” (pick your VOD provider) while, again, degrading the video stream of other companies. I’m pro-net neutrality but also I question if subsidized internet would actually be bad. If you can take a heavily metered or poor service, and subsidize it, then that could be the tool that helps bring internet to more people at less cost to those users. Advertisers would basically be subsidizing internet through these giants. The catch would be to find rules that don’t throttle competition which I don’t know if that’s possible.