right, but a company who blocked a startup competing with google would face next to no backlash, while (if they were big enough) severely disadvantaging said startup. heck, it doesn't take blocking - what if google loaded in 0.05 seconds and duckduckgo loaded in 1 second? i'm pretty sure that would push most of the users google's way.

This, right here, is the real danger - that relinquishing net neutrality will end up stifling competition and, thus, innovation.

You can't prioritise some packets without disadvantaging others. Unless the rules were crafted very, very carefully (and, let's face it, do we really think that would happen), I could easily envisage major connectivity providers auctioning off a handful of "prime video streamer" slots to companies like YouTube and Netflix, leaving other companies' services unusable. And that's just what I can imagine - the unintended consequences that I can't imagine are potentially far, far worse.

We got from 14.4k dial-up to multi-megabit always-on broadband (both fixed-line AND mobile) without compromising on net neutrality. The potential disadvantages far outweigh the claimed advantages.

What competitor?