While its true and Vint Cerf seems to confirmed as much that there certainly would be benefits to fast lane the fact of the matter is the companies we rely on to provide us with internet here in the states are some of the least trustworthy and most underhanded organizations out there. I wouldn't even mind fast lanes if there was a panel of independent experts with, no direct ties to the broadband industry or organizations like the MPAA, that sorted out which services overall, instead of specific websites that pay, were given priority as a means to only reduce latency (overall speed should only be limited by a persons connection and the website itself). After all, virtually any streaming application or constant flow of data would do well to find practical ways to reduce latency. However such a system is pretty much a pipe dream and not likely to happen any time soon. The other risk is that ISP's barely upgrade there networks as is, give them a chance to make certain aspects better than others and suddenly you could find yourself with a fast lane and bus lane. Net Neutrality is certainly not perfect but until the ISP's show they can be trusted there's no way in hell I want the entire Broadband industry to have access to fast lanes.

The ultimate irony might be that fast lanes in and of themselves are actually a good idea. Of course when I speak of fast lanes I mean prioritization for services in general, not specific websites. Basically the ideal would be a completely independent panel of network engineering experts, without connections to ISP's or content providers would determine which services could be significantly improved via prioritization (any sort of streaming weather it be videos, webcams, or game streaming) and which ones would be virtually unchanged without prioritization (email). In short any sort of service that would be subject to buffering would be given a boost and the focus of any sort of fast lane would be about reducing latency to reduce buffering, never limiting or providing extra bandwidth (max bandwidth allowed should always be left to the websites themselves, limited of course by the end users max bandwidth). Of course the chances of finding such a panel is about as likely as finding a unicorn with a talking frog as a best friend. Furthermore the chances that such policies wouldn't be abused by our beloved ISP's are downright impossible. It's all but guaranteed organizations like the MPAA would pull out all the stops to make sure protocols like bittorrent would be sent to the bottom of the heap, which would suck for open source software as when you're downloading a multi gig file like a Linux distro a well seeded torrent will almost always beat a traditional HTTP or FTP download. Not to mention that Network management is complicated enough already, and one of the strengths of Net Neutrality is that things are simplified. Basically could work but the chances that it would isn't worth the risk if you ask me.