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I think ultimately all attempts at analogy end up failing, so I'd try to avoid them when talking to your dad. First off, the government already has "business with the internet". Cable, DSL, wireless, etc. companies are all already regulated in general, and always have been. We don't just allow anyone to come along and dig up our streets or put up utility poles so they can run cable or fiber. We also don't allow any random company to start broadcasting on whatever radio frequency band they want. These are all scarce public resources, and restricting access to them makes sense. So the number of companies that can become ISPs in any given area is limited (by the government), and IMO that's actually the right thing to do. If you can get your dad to agree with that, or at least understand where that sort of thinking comes from, then move on to: The best way to ensure that companies in a particular industry don't engage in anti-consumer behavior is to ensure that there's a good competitive landscape. If you can do that, there will eventually be a natural equilibrium between a company's profit motives and the quality of service it provides to customers, because customers will be able to vote with their wallets and only patronize companies that give them what they want, for a price they think is fair. Hopefully that's not controversial. In fact, it's very "free market" and "no gov't interference", so I think it's something your dad would agree with. But: If we don't and can't have a competitive landscape, the next best thing is to regulate what these monopolies can do. Net neutrality regulation ensures that ISPs won't try to charge you more if you want to stream high quality video rather than just crappy video, for example. It keeps them from "bundling" websites in differently-priced plans to cause you to have to pay more to see more of the internet. And on the other side of the equation, it keeps ISPs from charging certain content providers a premium to send their bits over the ISP's network. You might also want to add, but isn't strictly necessary: These things may sound theoretical, but they're not. ISPs have constantly been in a tug of war with the FCC to determine what they're allowed to do. The FCC, for its part, had tacitly agreed not to regulate them under Title II as long as they maintained the neutrality of the internet. In 2014-15, Verizon decided they didn't want to play ball anymore, and thought they had the political clout to avoid Title II classification, so they sued the FCC, claiming the FCC didn't have the right to enforce net neutrality under Title I rules. The court ruled that Verizon was correct, but Verizon overplayed its hand: the FCC ended up classifying them under Title II anyway. So we've always had some form of net neutrality, even though up until 2015 it was more of a "gentlemen's agreement" between the FCC and the ISPs than actual regulation. Once the ISPs got too big for their britches, the FCC smacked them down, and hard. |