You are wrong. One of the many bad consequences of this legislation is that Internet service will almost certainly become exactly like cable TV, as has already happened in places without such rules, in that you will be allowed to access a subset of the Internet for free/cheap, and will have to pay more for broader access.
Why on earth would you think this would not happen? Because the tiny handful of telecom and cable companies, already protected from competition by various laws and regulations, will decide to leave hundreds of millions of dollars on the table so that people like them more?
> Why on earth would you think this would not happen?
How about the fact that in the prior 20+ years it did not happen. Comcast was just as powerful five years ago, as they are today. The access market was just as limited in terms of competition, 5 or 10 years ago.
Your premise is that due to limited competition, it must occur. If that were how things actually worked, it would have occured before net neutrality in a very big way.
First, 20 years ago, in 1997, it wouldn't have worked. Hop in your time machine and go back and ask random people on the street how many of them want to pay a monthly fee for "internet access". Follow up with a bonus question of which they'd keep if they had to choose, TV service or Internet.
Second, you are right, Comcast would have loved to turn the Internet into cable TV five years ago, and as a member of the protected oligopoly, they would be in a good position to do so, except... oh yeah, net neutrality regulations prevent that.
Third, now that we are in modern times where most people do use the internet, it already has occurred where no preventive measures exist. There are examples in this very thread; click them.
You're missing a key piece. As opposed to 20 years ago their core businesses (home telephone, cable television) have been in decline. As people cut the cord(s) these companies will need to further monetize the ISP aspects of their businesses to compensate.
It's not fair to look to the past to make predictions about the future here because the world was very different from a business perspective.
And people are 'cutting the cord' because TV content is boring trash, and the media/news channels completely controlled by a few megacorps. You can't get independent or personal views, you can't get personalized shows, you can't get streams from completely random nobodies.
TV is monopolized to hell and back and full of advertising people can't stand. The internet provides everything you could want, without the cancer that has infected television. People wouldn't cut TV out of their lives if TV actually provided what they want at a fair price.
Why on earth would you think this would not happen? Because the tiny handful of telecom and cable companies, already protected from competition by various laws and regulations, will decide to leave hundreds of millions of dollars on the table so that people like them more?