[alexeisadeski3]

They may have been monopolies once, but they're not anymore. At least in the US. Most people already have two broadband subscriptions: home cable broadband and HSPA+ or LTE. The home cable broadband is in competition with ADSL throughout much of the nation, and the HSPA+/LTE providers are in fierce competition everywhere.

Furthermore, what makes you say this:

>In a free market, net neutrality wouldn't need to be regulated because companies who attempted to enact business plans like the AT&T plan described in the article would rapidly find themselves losing marketshare to competitors.

I certainly would not expect them to lose market share.

[cheald]

I'm not really sure that you can call mobile data networks competitors to home broadband, if for no other reason than that their usage is aggressively capped, and is device-specific. I've never heard of someone cancelling their cable broadband because they can just tether their phone for all their household's internet needs instead.

ADSL vs cable is certainly the big battlefield right now, but even then, you're dealing with one telco and one cable provider. Time-Warner and Comcast are so reviled that it's practically a joke now, but people still subscribe to their services by the millions, because they don't have any actual alternative.

> Furthermore, what makes you say this...I certainly would not expect them to lose market share.

If I had my choice of several competing, technologically-equivalent ISPs, and mine decided to start charging extra for full-speed access to Netflix (or Netflix started charging me extra because I was an EvilISP subscriber, meaning that sending me those bytes costs them extra), I'd jump ship to a competitor who didn't in a heartbeat.

[nitrogen]

The home cable broadband is in competition with ADSL throughout much of the nation...

Except the only cable company and the only phone company often collude to convince the state legislature to outlaw anything that could actually compete with them, like municipal fiber projects.

[dkuntz2]

Why wouldn't you expect them to lose market share? They're actively hindering customers from their desired actions. Doesn't that typically mean customers will look for alternatives?

[alexeisadeski3]

Most people prefer to buy cheap crap instead of quality.

[dkuntz2]

Even if cheap actively hinders them from doing something they want to do?

[alexeisadeski3]

You don't think YouTube & Facebook & iTunes would pony up?

[dkuntz2]

I don't think they'd always be given the choice to. Especially something like Netflix, which directly competes with cable companies and their online offerings.

[alexeisadeski3]

You're talking about a population which elected both Bush II and Obama.