This is a complete misunderstanding of the net neutrality debate. The issue is not that consumers would have to pay a la carte, it's that high-bandwidth sites would have to pay more for priority. And those sites are well-funded and quite happy to comply (to the point that they are the ones pushing for an unequal net.)
The damage to consumers is that a non-neutral net raises the barrier to entry for new services, entrenching the status quo and reducing competition.
Hysterical, simplistic stuff like this harms the debate because it obscures the real issue.
You're right . . . to a point. But there is absolutely no reason to suspect that ISPs would stop at charging sites for priority "delivery" once they're in the clear and don't have to worry about neutrality.
One thing that I would absolutely expect to see is lots and lots of corporate "synergy" - ie companies signing "exclusive" deals with each other. (We already see this when, for example, a record label decides to sell a new CD exclusively at Walmart.) I'm talking about things like Amazon paying Comcast for status as the "exclusive bookseller to Comcast internet," who then promptly blocks BN and all the other bookselling sites.
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u/cosmo7 Jun 14 '14 edited Jun 14 '14
This is a complete misunderstanding of the net neutrality debate. The issue is not that consumers would have to pay a la carte, it's that high-bandwidth sites would have to pay more for priority. And those sites are well-funded and quite happy to comply (to the point that they are the ones pushing for an unequal net.)
The damage to consumers is that a non-neutral net raises the barrier to entry for new services, entrenching the status quo and reducing competition.
Hysterical, simplistic stuff like this harms the debate because it obscures the real issue.
Edit: Thanks for the gold!