[thidr0]

One thing I don't understand about net neutrality. Say I'm a toll road. I built the road when cars were relatively small and light. Now, some cars are getting really heavy and big (think semi trucks) and are the majority of my traffic. Because of this, they beat up the road and cause more congestion. So I want to repair the road and/or add more lanes by increasing the toll on these trucks. But all the trucking companies are complaining and preventing me from doing it, thus ultimately hurting the small personal cars that want to zip through.

Obviously this is an analogy to net neutrality, so why is this reasonable situation fundamentally different? In a free market, shouldn't I be able to increase the tolls on my private infrastructure for those that put the most stress on it?

(Now I will say, the fact that there's only one toll road option for many people is anti-competitive and against the free market, but that's not this topic)

[sagarm]

Packets don't damage network infrastructure, and lack of competition is not a different topic.

ISPs' monopoly on access to broadband customers allows them to extract rents based on the marginal value of each transaction. There's no reason we as a society should allow this.

Imagine if the cost of your water supply depended on your companies profits. That's what we're talking about here.

[lowpro]

@sagarm 's comment clears this up pretty well, but to clear up the monopoly point: You can always drive on a different road. It might take you a lot longer, but you have many options. Many (most?) internet connections are not like this. Even in suburbs close to big cities any one ISP often has a monopoly. My entire town only has Comcast, and it's very close to a large US city. Personal example, but there's no options.