If you want to understand “net neutrality” you have to start by taking an objective and mature look from the “50k foot” level. I’ll give you the key background points, and I’ll give a lengthy explanation, and then try and provide a couple brief paragraphs on why you should be opposed to “net neutrality”. These will be summarized in bullet points at the very bottom if you want to skip to there. Finally, here is a post with a lot of good sources for rationale and arguments against net neutrality if you’d like to avail yourself of additional objective criticisms.

1) There is a very competitive playing field with regards to the Internet, content/service production, and content/service delivery. In this competitive environment, companies are looking to exploit all possible (legal, we hope/expect) means to gain an advantage.

2) We have a government that is historically and currently willing to interfere in the marketplace. The extent and direction that they interfere in is largely determined by the political advantage legislators can gain in exchange for providing lobbying companies with competitive advantage (via regulatory legislation).

Put 1 and 2 together and you have a simple and accurate explanation for why there are some companies for “net neutrality” and some against, and why companies on either side are pressing the government angle to try and gain and/or retain competitive advantage.

So why are some companies like, let’s say, OpenDNS or Twitter. falling on the pro-NN side? The common theme in companies supporting NN is that they are primarily content and/or service producers. They do not own or control the means of delivery. They are dependent on delivery channels to survive. It’s easy to understand then why Twitter might prefer the government to dictate that companies with control over the -content delivery- aspect be legally prohibited from taking actions that might interfere with, raise costs associated with, or otherwise create some competitive disadvantage for Twitter’s business activities. Now I don’t believe this is likely; it certainly hasn’t happened yet to any significant degree and the couple examples that I am aware of were handled without government intervention. It makes sense too – Verizon (they would be a -content delivery- company in this case) would have a customer uproar if they suddenly started degrading or blocking access to Twitter or Flickr or Google.

Why are some companies like AT&T falling on the anti-NN side? For one thing, companies don’t usually pine for the government to dictate how they do business – it adds no revenue and burdens them with the expense of regulatory compliance. Specifically and in this case, AT&T as a content delivery company (at least where it’s broadband Internet offering is concerned) is responsible for the costs associated with maintaining its network infrastructure. I can imagine they may want to explore, at some point, the pursuit of revenue not only from subscribers to their broadband delivery offering but from those content/service producers who account for larger portions of traffic over their network. Or they may never pursue this! But I -know- they will want to keep the option open in case it is a viable opportunity for competitive advantage or increased revenue.

Getting this far and understanding the background is important in my opinion, because if you start to attribute “evil” or “conspiracy” to companies on either side then you are not looking at the situation with any degree of maturity or an understanding of market dynamics. I’d have to wonder if you grasp capitalism itself.

In reality, these companies are looking at a playing field where government favoritism is up for grabs. It shouldn’t be! If we could get a government that finally devotes itself to the narrow purposes of justice, liberty, and security… as an advocate of a limited government I expect ours to stop interfering, but that is not the case right now and as a capitalist, I expect the companies I invest in to play to win using whatever (legal, again) means they have.

So why should you fall on the anti-NN side as far as what action our -government- should take? At this point you should at least realize that NN represents an increase in the scope of government, and would be a form of legislated favoritism. If you oppose government subsidy of certain businesses or industries, or if you oppose government growing in scope even while it’s failing to manage basic functions like balancing it’s own budget, then you have similar reasons to oppose NN. In my opinion NN decreases justice (via favoring one group of companies – and shareholders – over another) and liberty (by restricting the legal mechanisms available to one group of companies to grow and be successful).

Since NN represents a change from status quo in the direction of increased government scope, there ought to be some compelling reasons for that increase. The chief reason usually given, that this is necessary to protect the consumer, is not compelling to me. The hypothesis is that unless checked, content delivery networks will, I guess, exercise some sort of arbitrary censorship, blocking one content producer but allowing another at their whim. But AT&T does not have a monopoly and consumers have choices between broadband providers, making such actions (which would disenfranchise customers) counterproductive and unlikely. I see no increase of justice, liberty, or security resulting from NN. If you can’t find a compelling reason to increase the scope of government then you should oppose it, or at least not support it.

In bullet form:

.) Net neutrality is an unnecessary increase in government scope/expense at least at this point. We should not legislate based on a theory of what might happen if we don’t at least in those situations where safety/security is not an issue.

.) Net neutrality represents an unjust interference by government insofar as it would favor the competitive interests of one group of companies over another group.

.) Net neutrality decreases the liberty of those American citizen business owners and shareholders who own, operate, or invest in the companies that would be prohibited from taking otherwise legal actions as part of their competitive strategies for growth and success.