[rayiner]

You touch on a lot of good points, but I'd argue that there are some overarching issues as well. Fundamentally, our legislators and our regulatory bodies do not share certain values in common with a certain subset of technology companies. "Open" and "neutral" are words that have self-evident value to your typical Google engineer, but mean nothing to most people in government. The langua franca in regulatory circles today is neo-classical economics. That's why we're talking about cap & trade and spectrum auctions and insurance mandates.

Effective lobbying organizations have learned to speak the language. Environmental organizations these days aren't appealing to the duty of people to preserve the environment for future generations. They're talking in terms of externalized costs and how allowing pollution undermines economic efficiency.

From the FCC's point of view, the decision not to regulate the internet was considered a huge win. To this day, they crow about how abstaining from applying the heavy-handed common carrier regulations to internet service allowed it to blossom into what it is today. It's considered a massive success for policy that favors deregulation and private investment.

You can't get anywhere in this sort of environment speaking the language of "neutrality" and "openness." Post-Clinton, nobody in Washington speaks that language anymore.

And to be perfectly fair to everyone involved, nobody wants ISPs classified as common carriers, not with all the additional baggage that entails. Maybe Congress needs to legislate to give the FCC authority to implement certain "light touch" regulations over internet providers, but nobody wants to go back to the bad old days of oppressive 1950 s-1970's style regulatory burden.

[DannyBee]

I don't disagree with you at all. You are completely correct that the message people want to use here just isn't going to resonate right now.

When you say " To this day, they crow about how abstaining from applying the heavy-handed common carrier regulations to internet service allowed it to blossom into what it is today."

You hit the nail on the head here. Of course, this mixes up correlation and causation, but yes, the FCC somehow believes they played some role in all of this, when in fact, things happened despite them, not because of it...

The carrier have no reason to negotiate any regulation at all. Everyone is willing to give them everything they want, for nothing. The only thing that scares them is the uncertainty of courts, and they are doing wonderfully there :)