[unethical_ban]

The big difference is "type of content" vs. "brand of content".

If a network theoretically prioritized phone calls, email and registered messaging platforms, or deprioritized bulk file-sharing during congested periods, that would be reasonable.

What I see here is ISPs trying to rent-seek and get big players like Netflix or big game companies to pay for being on the premium tier, while charging customers for the privilege as well.

And from a privacy perspective, ISPs shouldn't know what kind of traffic is on its network anyway. I'm on VPN as much as possible these days.

[310260]

>If a network theoretically prioritized phone calls

This already exists and is an example of a good use of priority. Cellular networks offer Voice over LTE and this is inherently prioritized over all other network traffic. This is done specifically for E911 but also implements special settings so calls can continue to go through even when coverage is very poor (and where VoIP apps would start to fail).

[BHSPitMonkey]

We already know how technically successful those implementations will look in practice; Look at the "messaging only" free tiers in airline ISPs which are only able to distinguish permissible traffic from a selected few partners (mainly Apple/Meta) and likely requires cooperation in the form of special APIs and agreements between the companies.