[convolvatron]

what if its always more profitable to provide internet packages rather than equal access bits-are-bits service. even with several providers can you guarantee that at least one of them will charge flat rate or per bit rather than by content?

the cost of regulatory compliance in this case isn't an additional fixed cost like .. properly disposing of waste products, but avoiding business models that constrain and restrict access.

an internet where my usage - outside the question of compensating for last mile infrastructure and transit fees with a reasonable profit - is curated by some product management group solely interested in extracting the maximum profit from me and upstream services I might be using, isn't really an internet at all but cable television.

and if we're just talking about cable television, I can probably learn to live without the wealth of internet entertainment options I have today..but if you hack off the long tail and undermine the general free exchange of information because it isn't sufficiently interesting from a business perspective to my regional provider, you've lost something quite substantial just so someone else can make a buck.

maybe I'm in the minority, but as much as I enjoy having gigabit access, I would take an unrestricted 1Mb over a carefully controlled 1Gb in a heartbeat.