Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

Why is it whenever I read an article about net neutrality, as in this Washington Post article, I always see the following US Postal Service comparison:

Blocking premium pricing in the name of neutrality might have the unintended effect of blocking the premium services from which customers would benefit. No one would propose that the U.S. Postal Service be prohibited from offering Express Mail because a "fast lane" mail service is "undemocratic." Yet some current proposals would do exactly this for Internet services.

Well of course nobody would propose that.Unless of course the US Postal Service mentioned that to provide the Express Mail service they would have to stop delivering first class mail for a while, until all of the express mail was delivered.

So as long as there is high margin express mail, then your simple letter is going to be ignored, or take much longer to be delivered. Now why doesn't anyone point out that simple fact?

I know why. Because facts aren't important here.After all, the internet is just a series of tubes, right?

The other example I often see trotted out is a medical one, and what do you know, it is in the same article:

When traffic surges beyond the ability of the network to carry it, something is going to be delayed. When choosing what gets delayed, it makes sense to allow a network to favor traffic from, say, a patient's heart monitor over traffic delivering a music download.

Who could argue with saving a life? Just ignore the fact that virtually no medical information is actuallt sent over the net currently.

So why do I never see an example where California suddenly decides to make the 405 freeway into a toll road? After all, there are plenty of other freeways so that shouldn't be a problem, right?

Net neutrality is a level playing field, one that has allowed the internet to become the valuable to that it is.If net neutrality had not existed, we simply wouldn't be using the internet for anything today. It would not have evolved as a useful tool if it was only used by those who could afford to pay for it.

Don't think so? Just name any internet advance created by a Fortune 100 company. I'll wait.