David Weinberger points to this amusing imagination of a town that ran sidewalks like ISP's want to run internet access. There's a simple problem with the whole scenario though: Sidewalks are generally city (or county) property, which means that they are a "public utility". As such, the city can regulate usage, and not allow any specific private interest to do so.

The internet though? Some parts are owned, other parts are public, still others live in some quasi-public status. It's really not the same thing at all. Not to mention that various municipalties do, in fact, regulate usage of the sidewalks. You can't set up a business on one, and in many places, you can't (legally) ride a bicycle on one either.

My problem with the net neutrality debate is the apocalyptic tones being used by everyone involved. The telcos and cable providers would like me to think that video is going to overwhelm limited bandwidth - yeah, right. I've seen various doomsday predictions of a bandwidth crisis for years, and it never seems to materialize. On the other hand, we have other people telling us that the ISP's are entities of raw evil, ready to slice up bandwidth into tiny little chunks and screw us all over.

Neither of these dark visions represents reality. We've had a mostly unfettered net for a long while now, and I seriously doubt that consumers will be willngly led to gated communities of crappy service - with or without regulation. Likewise, I seriously doubt that video is about to kill the internet star. In general, I trust the market to deliver reality far, far better than I trust government. When we invite government in to "give" us net neutrality, there's going to be a price. That price would probably involve content restrictions "for the children", along with a raft of other "good stuff" that would end up limiting my freedom of expression. To the people calling for net neutrality laws, I say this: be very, very careful what you ask for. You might not like the form in which it's delivered to you.