Comment Re:Does it matter? (Score 3, Insightful) 73
Forget government, any ISP that tried it would lose all their business customers the next day. Basic economics and game theory say that won't happen.
Basic economy says that limited consumer choice of goods and/or services, creates a distorted market that leads to higher prices, products that doesn't actually fit what the consumer needs, lack of availability because it isn't "profitable enough", stagnation in product development and infrastructure investment.
How many actually have a choice in an ISP? And it also seems you missed or forgot that before the federal net neutrality law that came into effect in 2015 some ISP's actually introduced zero-rating while intentionally maintaining low caps which meant a price hike for consumers who went outside their ISP's preferred services, and that through the secondary effects I mentioned above.
Have people actually forgot what a total and utter shit show it was to get a decent internet connection without almost being bled to death financially before 2016? It has gotten better, but not by much unless you live in very specific areas. Another reminder of that shit show in case people have forgotten, in 2013/2014 Comcast and Verizon intentionally slowed down Netflix streams until Netflix coughed up a bunch of money to get "preferred peering", ie those ISP's wanted more money even though people had already paid for their internet connection but they couldn't jack up consumer prices any higher.