> Similarly, zero-rating isn't usually considered a network neutrality problem as long as the option is open to everyone at the same pricing.

That's still extremely anti-competitive. Incumbents are in an much better position to pay large sums of money to have relatively minor services stream for free. People will flock to those services and a small competitor will have no viable option of paying for the fees and remaining profitable.

You might counter that with "get funding!" But I think the internet is amazing because of it's low barrier to entry. Blocking that might not prevent "disruption" from startups, but it sure as hell will prevent many people from casually trying things.

I think the natural consequence of zero rating or other benefits for "big" providers is an expansion of CDNs and other intermediaries to let a collection of small sites benefit from the infrastructure investment of others, in addition to consolidation (such as content providers running YouTube channels vs. their own video infrastructure).

It's less competitive but I think “extremely anti-competitive” is an overstatement: it might mean that when you talk competition to Comcast, Verizon, etc. you're talking about companies on the scale of Google, Amazon, Netflix, etc. but those would be an option whereas without some sort of parity it'd be the choice between using your ISP's service or paying $200/month.

I do agree that there's a public-good aspect to supporting Internet access but I think that's an even greater change to the current market, at least where most users are on wireless.

The first point is exactly what Comcast can do with their own video service that they can't do with a random video service. (They can do it with someone like Netflix with open content servers.)

If NN were structured such that a company like Netflix had to provide content servers for internal-to-network deployment or netflix customers would higher rate or lower performance for Netflix traffic, but Comcast had to charge the same rate and same standards for Netflix, Comcast's own video product, or any other third party to do this, I'd support it.

I don't particularly value the ability of a carrier to engage in bundling/commercial exploitation of the monopoly, but I do want providers free to engage in technical innovation to provide multiple 4K streams and gigabit access to customers at $50/mo, etc.

This is an even bigger deal when you start looking at other network technologies (wireless/cellular, some of the WISPs, etc.) than fiber to the home or HFC.

I found the wording in your second sentence a bit confusing but I think that simply goes back to the fair/open aspects: let Comcast put VOD servers in every neighborhood in the country, but require them to allow Netflix, Google, etc. to purchase rack-space at cost so they have the option of parity.

Yes -- if they are a regulated monopoly, that is the best way to allow some bits to be "premium". I think CDNs would likely also put servers in those places, so smaller sites would have the ability to use them as well.

Competition > Regulated Monopoly > Unregulated Monopoly. (A duopoly which decides not to compete isn't really competition.)

Some CDNs already do but this would at least make that more open and less of a back-room deal, too, so someone like Fastly doesn't suffer because the Akamai negotiator was in the same frat as the Comcast person they're negotiating with.

I think the regulated monopoly model makes the most sense for the last mile connection: make it like what we had with DSL where anyone can rent the wire and competition happens at the service level. I wouldn't mind Verizon offering a ton of bundled services over FIOS if I could simply buy only internet from someone else.

The downside of removing competitive pressure on the physical last mile is it removes the incentive to invest in building it.

Fiber to the Home is an extremely marginal economic proposition today. It's not deployed today. Without strong economic drivers for it, it won't get built.

I'd accept that once FTTH exists (bringing fiber back to a neighborhood point), that might be good enough to not require more competition at that level (as long as maintenance can be done.) I'd in principle be fine with any solution to get that built -- a regulated monopoly, direct government buildout, whatever.

Regulated monopolies are profitable, just capped to prevent abuse, and I'd be surprised if there was trouble finding investors for a guaranteed return even if it's not as big as it could be.

Also, not sure you've looked at FTTH recently enough: Verizon alone has 32 million customers according to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_in_the...