[revo13]

I would propose that it did exist as sort of a defacto state of the internet. Only in recent years have the telcos begun looking for revenue grown, leading them down the path of treating their subscriber base as some sort of resource to be bargained off to the highest content provider/bidder, while still charging large sums of money for the customer to have a connection.

[Bahamut]

That's not true (about the recent years) - there has been a lot of lobbying spent by the telcos and big cable for at least the past 10 years. Every time someone influenced by their lobbyists have tried to bring a bill to Congress to authorize them to charge for consumption, Congressmen have found that it was an immensely unpopular action and it would fail. The only reason why the actual charging started happening recently is because the FCC lost a court battle stating that with how they chose to regulate companies, they did not have the authority to impose net neutrality.

[revo13]

I realize it isn't only a recent years activity. However, when it was floated 10+ years ago, it was met with a certain air of hilarity. The groundwork has since been laid (including that court decision) to get us where we are today with respect to providers starting to get bolder in their operations and lobbying efforts, to the extent that certain assumed beliefs about the behavior of the Internet are being threatened in a legitimate way.

[wrkng]

yep that's right -- it was the de-facto state of affairs basically from the beginning of time until now