I'm not saying those aren't valuable (I think we should have them), and I agree that premature regulation can choke future growth, but I think we would need some fundamental regulation to actually prevent the worst fears. Maybe exclusivity limits on ISPs that lay the groundwork so they can recoup costs, and even collect some rent, but still allow others to compete on that groundwork.
I'm sure this had all been debated ad nauseum, and there will always be some reason why any decent idea will be argued against. But I think if we can try to find some way align ISPs and customers incentives, it'd be far better than the current situation.
Nope. The internet (or rather, providing internet access) is not now, and has never been, a free market. Ever.
Monopolist ISPs have been tacitly constrained by the FCC for at least 20 years. They don't do crazy anti-consumer stuff, and the FCC leaves them alone. Verizon comes along in 2014 after many years of this compromise, and says screw this: we're gonna do what we want, and we'll get the courts on our side and say the FCC doesn't have the authority to regulate us in this way under Title I. And, well... it worked. The courts agreed. Verizon, however, thought it would be politically untenable to classify ISPs under Title II. But the FCC didn't flinch and did it anyway. So we have strong net neutrality regulation as of 2015 because Verizon pushed too hard and forced the FCC to do something. But in reality, we had a "gentleman's agreement" of net neutrality much, much longer than that.
Radio spectrum is a scarce resource. The allowance to dig up roadsides is not (and should not be!) granted to everyone. I can't just start up an ISP company tomorrow and meaningfully compete with Comcast or Verizon. And that's not entirely bad. We can't let any random person broadcast on random radio frequencies and interfere with everyone else. We can't let any random person come up and dig up the ground and lay cables and fiber whenever they feel like it. That would be incredibly disruptive and wouldn't be in the public interest.
So we have very little competition in last-mile internet service. And that can be ok, if we regulate it properly.
But are we? Do we have a perfect system to compensate for that? Hell no. Far from it. It's actually pretty terrible. But things like net neutrality are the only things keeping last-mile internet from turning into a minefield of anti-consumer, anti-competitive behavior.
If there's another system that can give us more competition in the ISP space, then by all means, let's pursue it. But anything like that will take years to come into being, and until that happens, we need the current regulation in place.
> While I agree 'something' should be done to preserve the competitive nature
Two things:
1) What should be done, then? If you have no actual concrete ideas, then what are you actually arguing? Let's just throw everything in the toilet and hope it sorts itself out?
2) There is no competitive nature. There never has been, and unless we do something incredibly novel, there won't be. We tried the idea of requiring the incumbents to allow RAND access to their infra, but it didn't work. What else?
Seriously, if you have actual, concrete ideas, please make them known. If you don't... why are you arguing against something that has proven to work, however imperfectly, and replacing with... nothing?
But in the year 2017, we still can't transfer money instantly without credit checks being involved.
The internet has thrived thus far as a free market. While I agree 'something' should be done to preserve the competitive nature, I don't think Title II is the answer.