Which brings us to WHY I chose the name DAGNY.... from ATLAS SHRUGGED a novel about the railroad.
Originally Posted by Dagny D.E.W.
Dagny, you should read the history of the REAL U.S. railroad barons in the 19th and early 20th century. See what happens when you have monopoly/oligopoly companies unfettered by government interference. The railroad barons were examples of evil so-called capitalists at a level that's probably unmatched since then.
While I like Atlas Shrugged, that doesn't mean the choice is always between the government destroying everything and a free market utopia. Sometimes things go horribly wrong if you let businesses run unregulated.
You should also realize that even without "net neutrality," the internet is not a free market. The internet was designed by and is still somewhat managed by the US government. Time Warner or some other cable company has a virtual government mandated monopoly in Austin or in other cities. They got the exclusive rights to lay cable in public areas, use the City of Austin power poles and right of way, etc. In exchange for this monopoly, they agreed to be regulated. Other companies were not allowed to compete. Now that their monopoly network is built out, they want to be allowed to compete on a "free market" bases using their government enabled monopoly.
It's similar to phone companies, water companies, electric companies, etc. They were given monopolies or near monopolies in order to bring a new service to the public. If you just hand the monopoly infrastructure over to Wall Street, things will go bad rapidly. Look at what happened with Enron and the electric power in California in 2000. They "deregulated" electric power in California. Enron gamed the system to move power out of California, causing brownouts, and then said they could "find" extra power, but the price would be higher. It turns out the energy traders were being taped talking to each other about how they were deliberately creating blackouts.
The internet is a public utility, nearly as vital to our country as electricity, water, gasoline, etc. We've allowed or caused it to be set up as a monopoly in many cases. Companies built the infrastructure with the understanding that they will be regulated as a public utility. Turning Wall Street loose to manipulate the lifeblood of our country will only lead to disaster.