It seems like companies have been much more on the side of the angels than the government this past year.
They have been a much louder voice for equality and civil liberties.
The proof is all around me: everything good comes from companies: cars, computers, my house, my heating furnace, restaurant food, hotels, etc.
Everything crappy and bad is related one way or another with govts: bureaucracy, dmv, borders, postal service, state hospitals, state schools.
I have an exercise for you right now.
Let say you are pissed at your current ISP and don't want to use them anymore, who would you switch to? If you have 1 extra choice of high speed internet, congratulations you're one of very small percentage of people. If you don't have other choices (like me) perhaps now you see the problem.
Which is my original point: keep increasing that power...
I don't know how old you are, but I remember it was very different ~20 years ago.
Previously Internet was classified as a telecommunication service, and was following the same regulations. Any company could easily enter the market and provide a service. Until FCC deregulated it in 2002 and 2005.
First was reclassification from telecommunication service to information service, the second was removing requirement to lease the infrastructure to others at reasonable price.
Now in order to enter the market each company will need to lay its own infrastructure, but it is even worse than that. If a company wants to run its own fiber cables (like Google Fiber was doing) they need to get incumbent ISPs to move their wires to make space. And those incumbent ISPs purposefully are delaying the process.
In Nashville Google managed to convince city to pass a legislation which would not require incumbent ISPs action, and moving existing wires could be done while lying the new ones (it's done by the same technicians that incumbent ISP would sent anyway). And of course the city was sued by incumbent ISPs.
This shows how fucked this situation really is, because even Google is giving up on their Google Fiber project, and if they can't who else can enter.
Oh and nice bonus, is that Title II requires pole sharing, once it is repealed that requirement won't apply as well. That means any new ISP entering the area will have to deal with constructing new poles or new wells which is even more expensive.
So in short if this is repealed we will be in even more fucked up situation right now.
Oh yeah, also Ajit wants to make sure that individual states won't be able to impose their rules overriding it.
Do you want 5 different ones of each, so you can have market choices? What if there's a really good 6th contender, you mind digging up your yard once again so you can get their service?
Oh, you only have one of each, but still have a choice between providers? That's a great "natural free market", I must hear more about how it came to be. Do please tell.
You need community owned, or privately owned but regulated last mile access, so that multiple ISPs can access you as a customer, for there to be a working market. That means government involvement.
I might also add a constant fact: You are the government.
Companies what regulations repealed: to increase the company's power while pretending to protect you, but in fact increasing your dependence of said company.
Why do you have more faith in companies than a government? Do you honestly believe that market forces can sway mega corporations?