I hadn't really looked into Net Neutrality before, but watching PBS NOW's video on youtube and the interview with the ISP's representative, I realized how obvious this issue is.
The ISP's are claiming that big web businesses are not paying their share of Internet costs. It took me, embarassingly, about five seconds to say "Don't they pay for bandwidth, too?" And of course, another interviewee pointed that out. But AT&T, Comcast, and other providers are trying to increase their revenue by offering, I guess, "premium" bandwidth to their services or "partnering" services.
Obviously, anyone who uses the Internet should be against this, just for freedom's sake. But is this a good idea, economically, for the ISP's? If they block sites that users want, will those users switch ISP's? If the big ISP's collude, will new, smaller providers fill the niche of users who really want net freedom? Or will users begin to pick among the larger ISP's by which offers access to the best sites? Will we have to pay premium prices to our ISP's to see those sites we want?
There are many questions that removing neutrality raises. I'm not a fan of the federal government being involved in anything (even though - or because - I work for the DOD), but in this case, it might be good for the FCC to prevent ISP's from blocking or degrading service to certain sites. In the video, an ISP representative said that they would never block, degrade, or otherwise hinder any website. But then they turn around and explain their "fast lane" proposal. So they're not going to play favorites, but they will prefer some content over other content!
Now, I understand that they are the providers, and we pay for the service, and in using their services we agree to their terms. That means they can decide if someone will get priority on their network, and we can't make them stop, directly. However, I believe it will be financially damaging to ISP's in the long run, because someone will compete and offer neutrality; and even if it costs more, it might be worth more to the end user.
One other point that bothers me about this, and should bother the big ISP's: giving "fast lane" preference to certain content providers means tracking what users do on the Net in some way. If I were in their position, I would be VERY afraid of any kind of monitoring, because the government can, and will, at some point try to get at that information. And when that happens, freedom loving people will be upset. Maybe they're banking on Americans not caring about freedom in the near future, but to me it just seems like a bad idea.