a distilled explanation of net neutrality

[nyzophobia]

Found this on Slashdot: It's not all about supply and demand when talking about net neutrality. I pay for my bandwidth with a bill at the end of each month. Google also pays for their own bandwidth with a slightly :) larger bill at the end of each month (or however often they pay their bill). All the networks in between Google and my house have struck a deal saying that they will carry traffic between eachother's networks. But now some of the in between or end user networks want to charge more to certain companies because they feel that they use a lot of bandwidth. Ah ha, but they are already paying for their bandwidth. What they actually want to do is charge a premium to companies they feel have a lot of money. They want to charge the carwash more money per litre on the water they use, because they are making better use of that water, and making a huge profit. Imagine going to the gas pumps, and having to pay more for gas, because you're a pizza delivery guy, and you're making money off of that gas. Or because you're Walmart, and you make gobs of money, we're going to charge you 10x the amount we'd charge a regular person for gas. They are doing the exact opposite of supply and demand. They want to charge you more, simply because they feel you have more money. Not because there's only so much bandwidth to go around. Everyone is already paying for their bandwidth.

If you've never heard of net neutrality, in a nutshell it's the issue of free market competition for ISPs (the companies who provide internet access). ISPs lately have been banding together into a handful of really huge companies, and now they're trying to leverage their effective monopoly. I can't explain this better myself... if you care, go here.