If parent means to assert or imply that taxpayers in the U.S. paid for more than a tiny fraction of the costs of laying down the copper and fiber over which residential internet service is delivered in the U.S., I would like references supporting that assertion. The argument parent probably wants is that in much or most of the U.S., local governments granted the telcos and cable companies a government-created monopoly in the local jurisdiction, in exchange for which it is reasonable for government to expect the companies to submit to certain rules, especially since the rules are essentially the same as the rules by which monopoly power in the railroad, telegraph and telephone industries were somewhat-successfully ameliorated, and especially since there exists in the fundamental architecture of the internet a bright line in the form of the boundary between the IP layer (and everything below it) and services that ride atop it that can serve as the target of network-neutrality rules, and especially since most of the architects or "technical founding fathers", many of whom are libertarians and lovers of private-property rules, BTW, of the internet support the imposition of network-neutrality rules. Reader who doubt the existence of a "bright line" at the IP layer should make sure they have read the classic paper "The End-to-end argument in system design" and the history of the internet since the publication of that paper. (In other words, the "quality of service" arguments used by the telcos etc to argue the impracticality of network-neutrality rules have always been on the losing side of debates for the first 30 or 35 years of the history of the internet, and consequently suffer from a high burden of proof.)
For these reasons, even a lover of property rights and constitutional limits on government like myself can support network neutrality after having familiarized myself with the pro-network-neutrality arguments by people with a track record for good calls in internet design and internet policy and with the history of industries with very strong networks effects, like the railroad, telegraph, telephone, cable and residential-internet-service industries.
And I have to say that the largeness of the number of opinions arrived at with almost no knowledge in this comment section is very depressing.
For these reasons, even a lover of property rights and constitutional limits on government like myself can support network neutrality after having familiarized myself with the pro-network-neutrality arguments by people with a track record for good calls in internet design and internet policy and with the history of industries with very strong networks effects, like the railroad, telegraph, telephone, cable and residential-internet-service industries.
And I have to say that the largeness of the number of opinions arrived at with almost no knowledge in this comment section is very depressing.