[fro]

Another argument: Legislating that ISPs must treat all their bits as equal may cause ISPs to lose the flexibility needed to optimize their networks. Laws that inhibit freedom of private companies may look like a good solution to certain problems, but they often have unintended side effects that decrease the efficiency and effectiveness of the company.

Allowing market forces to work solves the original problem, and does not create laws limiting freedom and innovation in the company.

[tptacek]

This is my problem with net neutrality (and I'm not even a libertarian!). The Internet service model is such a moving target --- and (I personally think) it's so not what (many) neutrality advocates think it is --- that legislating it seems counterproductive.

Service providers should not be allowed to use local monopolies to harm competition in other markets or to form cartels in them, but legislated "neutrality" doesn't seem like the right way to ensure that.

[danielweber]

Absolutely. Water companies regulate water usage of their customers. You're going to find that regulation is needed on any shared resource.

You're free to get a leased line that is private and just yours, but you will pay significantly more for that. The Internet lends itself so obviously to packetization and shared wires that it takes an extreme case to justify using a private network rather than sharing a public one.

There needs to be regulation to stop (say) the DSL company from impacting VOIP traffic. But a completely unregulated network will lead to the torrenters destroying the VOIP traffic just as fast.

[tzs]

For market forces to work, there needs to be a market.

Maybe we should do what they did in the UK, and require the owners of the physical layer to the homes to lease lines and space in their switching centers at a reasonable price to independent ISPs. Then there would actually be a competitive market for ISPs, and then we could let market forces provide net neutrality for those who want a neutral ISP.