Comment Re:"we provide network access as part of rent" (Score 2) 185
If you provide network access as part of your rent, you provide network access as part of your rent, period.
It's not really that simple. My apartment provides water as part of my rent. If I start filling swimming pools, they're going to get upset. I realize this is more akin to data caps on internet access rather than net neutrality, but the point is that "providing network access" isn't completely cut and dry. If some service is provided with a property rental, and not billed separately by consumption, the renter does have some rights to restrict the use of said service, especially in cases where the tenant has other options to receive the same service himself, at his own expense.
However, blocking access to certain sites unless said sites pay up is akin to extortion, so I think it's a very bad idea. The points made by CrankyFool are exactly right. Big companies like Amazon and Netflix don't care if 35,000 people can't access them because of some apartment company's attempts at extortion. They will ignore the situation, accepting that those 35,000 people can't access them, and many of those 35,000 people will get pissed off at the property rental company and rebel in one way or another. It wouldn't be pretty, and in the end would only harm the property rental company, whose reputation would be damaged when they are painted by their own tenants as censors at the same time as those tenants circumvent or move.