Thanks for at least engaging with this instead of downvoting with no response. I would argue that you are putting a negative spin on the analogy, so I'll put t

Thanks for at least engaging with this instead of downvoting with no response. I would argue that you are putting a negative spin on the analogy, so I'll put the corresponding positive spin on it to balance out. For the road crew, we expect them to give us ready access to the places we most want to go. Imagine a highway - we would judge it a poor highway indeed if there were no exits within 10 miles of a large city. Similarly we do not expect the highway crew to give us equal access to some rural area, even though someone might one day build a fine resort out there. We don't judge a road by how well it gives access to things not yet built, but how well it gets us to the places we want to go. Using that spin, we should actively encourage ISPs to make paid fast lanes, akin to a tolled expressway, with preferential access to the most common web destinations. I do not agree with that conclusion. What I do think is that focusing on whether or not a company is allowed to perform any sort of rate-limiting ignores the much bigger issue that competition has been historically stifled in the ISP sector. Many (most?) municipalities offered exclusive franchises to cable (television) providers which made competitive entry illegal. Those cable providers are now our locked-in ISPs. If we must have government action, it seems to me that the best course is to allow freer entry into the market - this looks like allowing competitors rights-of-way to lay wire, allowing access to utility poles (based on my recollection the majority are not owned by telecoms - I should be fact checked on that, though), and dissolving any exclusive franchise agreements. Rate-limiting, as I started this entire thread with, is just a red herring. (Final pedantic point - road work is done by a multitude of private firms contracting for the government - it is monopsony not monopoly.)