Petersaber

The thread is being assaulted by anti-NN people. I'm refreshing the page every 20 seconds, and I can see AMA's responses being downvoted one by one from top of the page to bottom.

I'm not AMA dude, but I can answer.

This won't create a better competition, because one of two sides in this competition holds both the means of competing and the rules.

Let's say you're a Netflix in it's infancy, called Flixnet. Comcast has a similar service coming up. Comcast has the ability (and incentive) to prevent you from succeeding, and he does by throttling your speed to near-zero. Both services are operational, except loading a movie on your service takes 10 hours, while on their service, it takes 10 minutes. How can your Flixnet compete with that?

Also, in the years before net neutrality came into existence is there any evidence that ISP's throttled the traffic of ordinary users?

Tons. 2014, Level 3 throttled Netflix and similar services

Comcast extorted Netflix for millions of dollars by throttling them to near zero

Comcast blocked BitTorrent (a legitemate protocol)

Verizon waged war on tethering apps

2012, AT&T blocked Apple's FaceTime videochat... among their lower-tier users only

Google's Wallet app was being blocked by pretty much all mobile providers who had their own apps like it

AT&T tried blocking Skype!

You will have to Google each example individually, though, this is a copy-pasted shortlist I made.

I dunno, the same things you stand to lose when you lose police department, justice system, laws...

Keep in mind that the infrastructure in the USA isn't public. It's private(ish). By throwing away NN, you allow a select group of companies to control the activity of their competition, thus destroying free market.

Let's say you're using Netflix. Comcast owns Xfinity. Now Comcast has the ability to slow down your access to Netflix, while keeping Xfinity at max speed. They either demand Netflix to pay them to release the throttle (just like 4 years ago), or just choke Netflix to death. After all, if loading a movie takes 10 hours on Netflix, and 10 minutes on Xfinity, noone will remain "faithful" to Netflix...

NN is a shield, not a sword/prison. Arguing that Net Neutrality "infringes on our freedom" is like arguing that laws against killing or owning other people are infringing on our freedoms.

Yes, pre-2015 Internet... most notably Comcast choking Netflix and blocking P2P.

Well, I do remember how Netflix basicly stopped working because they didn't agree to being extorted...

Internet was not fine.

2014, Level 3 throttled Netflix and similar services

Comcast extorted Netflix for millions of dollars by throttling them to near zero

Comcast blocked BitTorrent (a legitemate protocol)

Verizon waged war on tethering apps

2012, AT&T blocked Apple's FaceTime videochat... among their lower-tier users only

Google's Wallet app was being blocked by pretty much all mobile providers who had their own apps like it

AT&T tried blocking Skype!

Internet was not fine.