I'm not really offering solutions. I'm pointing out the lack of a decent evaluation of how we got here and how we can fix it. Almost all net neutrality discussions are people that want to prevent large ISPs from enacting draconian restrictions on their networks vs the people that don't want any government regulation of anything. There doesn't seem to be much constructive discussion. Just people taking traditional 'liberal-vs-conservative' positions and digging in to duke it out on the canned talking points that traditionally follow.

The people that say "networks are private property and I don't want no government in my private property" are forgetting that most of those networks were built during periods of guaranteed profits (AT&T) or just regional monopolies (cable companies). It's not like these companies were little mom-n-pop shops that were built from nothing with no help from anyone, and now the 'big bad government' is coming in to kill them off by helping their competitors. These companies where weened off the government's teat.

The people that want to bring in the government to restrict the internet are forgetting that there is a whole can of worms that will be opened if the government starts getting their hands into the internet. Sure it could be just 'net neutrality' regulation now, but what you picture as what 'net neutrality' should be will not be what it looks like once an actual bill gets passed. Not to mention all the attempts to tack on 'child porn' filtering and crap (possibly creating some 'Internet Filter Czar' position in the Executive Branch).

Even solutions like: "the internet should be like the highways; built and run with tax-payer money." So the government now runs the major backbones of the internet in the US. This means:

  1. Companies can easily become ISPs by hooking into
     the backbone at reasonable rates
  2. Congress will be salivating to pass bills to put filters
     on these backbones to 'protect the children.'
  3. The networks will be less secure as routers, servers,
     etc are administered by incompetent administrators that
     only have their positions because they know how to play
     the government bureaucracy politicking games better than
     more technically skilled colleagues.

The average consumer is stuck between a rock (the government) and a hard place (large corporations with vested interests). Neither solution is particularly palatable, and it's naive to say that one solution or the other will save us from all the evil in the world.