Okay, the truth of the matter is that while I don’t like the idea of tiered internet service, I really don’t like the idea of the FCC regulating the internet either.  Regulating to prevent regulation… yikes!  The truth of the matter is my objection to the idea of tiered services – or quality of service regulations, or any other deviation from what I have today –  is that right now I get everything, and it all comes in at max speed, and I can get whatever I what, however I want.  The Economist’s website pumps into my home as fast as XKCD, bacon recipe blogs, and porn.  My silly little comic is delivered to you at the same speed as all the aforementioned sites.  I don’t think I’m contributing much to the collective well-being, and bacon recipes are a dime a dozen.  The Economist is a vast source of information and knowledge, and way more people care about it than my site.  I totally get tiered access, payolas, exclusivity agreements, etc.  Frankly, I think those things would all be long run beneficial to everyone. 

Look at cable television.  If you want to watch out of market NFL football games, you have one very expensive option.  You can complain about the price all you want, but if you paid for the service, then clearly you valued that service, and if you didn’t, then football must not be that important to you.  (And if you couldn’t afford that service, the ability to watch out of market games is a privilege and not a right, so it sucks for you, but no big loss either.)  And for everyone who has no desire to watch out of market NFL games, we are all spared the costs of those games being broadcast to us.  (And for those of you who pay for the pass, you get all the games.  ALL of them.  If the pass did not exist, you would not have access to all games, only some games, and if you’re a Dolphins fan in Dallas, you probably wouldn’t have any access to those games.)  And while it’s harder to find round the clock coverage of high school sports – I think it’s actually impossible to find this – and some people are probably very upset that high school sports can’t afford to be broadcast, but the NFL can, nobody cries foul.  New networks pop up all the time, and failing networks get bought out or disappear.  Really popular shows that all wish to watch air on ABC, CBS, etc, and niche shows air on niche stations that require extra money to be seen.  I do not understand why the internet SHOULD be any different.  Is it nice that right now it is NOT different?  Sure.  But at the end of the day the internet is a privilege and not a right. 

Verizon provides a service which they do not have to provide, and they will provide it in the way that makes providing that service as profitable as possible – which is a good thing, I’d hate for my ISP to find something else so much more profitable that they abandon FIOS.  Anointing the FCC our “saviour”, and bestowing upon them the ability to tell ISPs what they can and can’t do smacks of inefficiency, and gives the FCC too much power.  (In particular, the power to be bought out.  At least if Verizon is bought out, Verizon will only accept terms that will not cause its customers to flee elsewhere.  If the FCC is bought out, there is nowhere to Flee, and the FCC doesn’t care about keeping customers “happy enough”.)  Mandating application, service, priority, etc homogeneity will certainly stunt innovation, and establishes fertile grounds for a very solid oligolopoly of ISPs.  That’s not good.

Yeah… The internet may not be a truck, and Senators on both sides likely have no clue what they are talking about.  Those two truisms lead me to conclude that whatever the internet is, I don’t want the government having keys to its engine.