> By now we were supposed to be living in an internet dystopia.

To be clear, the implications were always expected to be that ISP would start running extortion rackets where they would charge fees to competitors or large internet money makers. Effectively double-dipping on consumers, so not only do you pay the ISP for internet access, but Google, Netflix, et al have to pay ISPs for access to you.

This did happen. Netflix was throttled a few years ago and they reached a "deal" with Comcast and a few months later, Netflix rates were increased.

> This did happen. Netflix was throttled a few years ago and they reached a "deal" with Comcast and a few months later, Netflix rates were increased.

1) This happened prior to net neutrality regulations.

2) This was a peering dispute, not throttling.

3) Net Neutrality did not regulate peering.

The quote from the judge in the article:

"It's going to fall on deaf ears. Everyone has been on their best behavior since 2018, waiting for whatever happened in the DC Circuit [court case over the FCC's repeal of net neutrality]. I don't place weight on the argument that everything is fine and we don't need to worry."

Comcast paused all its data caps among other things due to Covid https://corporate.comcast.com/covid-19

Maybe Covid restrained other ISP actions we would have otherwise seen

It's interesting, the ISPs argument for capping data generally gives some nod to congestion / traffic control. Covid hit and you would imagine that with distance learning, work from home, increased use of streaming services for entertainment, etc, that the traffic would only increase.

Comcast (and others) realized the PR nightmare that it would cause to keep the caps in this situation, but it seriously undermines their congestion argument.

They’ve restored them now; I got a notice last month. Two person household with one TV and one PC and a couple phones, no torrenting or anything.

Of course, Comcast's own OTT services are exempt from the data cap. What a coincidence :)

And a net neutrality violation. Maybe CA customers won't be subject to the cap anymore? Or maybe they'll force Comcast to include their own traffic in the cap?

Almost certainly the latter. Data caps are still legal, from my understanding.

Yes, the caps are legal, but counting some data towards the caps and other data not towards it is what's illegal. The question is will Comcast hamstring their own streaming service by counting in the cap, or just get rid of the cap?

Wait, you were uncapped until just last month? In my area the cap was only removed for 3 months total. They did generously raise it from 1TB to 1.2, though.

>By now we were supposed to be living in an internet dystopia.

No, no we weren't. Like any hot political issue, the ramblings of enthusiastic dummies should not be the standard by which we judge a position.

The most cursory of sober analysis recognizes that business models do not change overnight. Even if they wanted to act as quickly as possible, established ISPs have tons of inertia.

Extending a slightly charitable take to proponents of net neutrality recognizes that ISPs would use their existing leverage to take inches here and there, skillfully massaging the messaging with expensive PR and marketing teams each step of the way. The question is whether the sum of those changes is just a business taking advantage of negotiation power, or if it sums into too anti-consumer of a business model.

ISPs are afraid to make their move too soon