Awhile back, I echoed the electricity analogy: the problem is that the "telecoms are threatening to charge a premium for how the utility is used, instead of how much of it is used." Someone from the Hands Off the Internet Coalition commented on that post.
Tim, the analogy is flawed and doesn't make sense. Unlike electricity, the internet and e-commerce sector is growing exponentially. It seems that the telecoms are already implementing some of Lessig's points on usage but our entire internet's infrastructure must undergo a series of major upgrades that net neutrality laws will slow down, further relegating the US the slow lane (no pun intended).
Net neutrality is simply a distraction. I work with the Hands Off the Internet Coalition and I don't think we should be adding rules and regulations to fix a problem that doesn't exist.
More recently, Andrew pointed to a rebuttal by David Cowan:
ISPs are not public utilities; they are businesses whose owners–including individual investors and pension funds–have no legal obligation to amuse Eric [Schmidt] with whatever internet sites he craves. (Should AOL and the mobile environments of AT&T and Verizon be legally forced to provide access to outside content?) Having said both those things, the market will not reward ISPs who effectively block or even slow access to the full array of web sites.
David talks a lot about an "express lane" - a concept that, although all packets are created equal, some (such as video and VOIP) will "expire if they arrive late". This is undoubtedly true, but paying for Quality of Service (QoS) standards is different than what the telecoms are talking about.
My real problem is "letting the market decide" when the market is an oligopoly at best and a monopoly at worst. Anti-trust principles generally raise some red flags when there are relatively few suppliers, relatively high barriers to entry and high elasticity of demand. I have a single choice for my cable provider; some of the real lucky ones may have 2-3. If Google refuses to pay for premium delivery, you and I will be adversely affected - and may not have a viable substitute.
More importantly, the telecoms who wield this monopoly power have inherent conflicts of interest, as Jason Calacanis already found out. The problem is not just discriminating on the content of those packets (i.e., video, VoIP), but on who is sending those packets.
Some ISPs want to clamp down on VoIP or YouTube because it uses too much traffic, but conveniently have their own competing services. How can you trust these companies to self-regulate when they have a clear conflict of interest?
This is precisely the type of situation that we shouldn't let the market to decide.
In a perfect world, where all broadband options are available to everyone and there are no barriers to entry, we don't need to regulate neutrality. But obviously we don't live in a perfect world. The general public is stuck in the middle of a battle between the service and content providers with little or no leverage.