The problem is that they aren't deregulating the industry. Providers such as Comcast are legislated monopolies in certain areas, and do not lease out their line

The problem is that they aren't deregulating the industry. Providers such as Comcast are legislated monopolies in certain areas, and do not lease out their lines to anyone else. There isn't anyone else to go to when these providers begin instituting caps. I believe what rms is saying is you can't apply laisse-faire capitalism to a government instituted monopoly. You either need to remove the monopoly and allow capitalism to do its thing, or you need to institute regulation to prevent them from ripping off the customer. > Oh, horrors - we wouldn't want people to try to provide services in order to make money! As everyone has said, there's plenty of bandwidth to go around, so why are they doing this? They're doing it because there is no competition to prevent them from doing so. They certainly aren't hurting for money. They're simply taking advantage of the lack of competition provided by government mandate.