I've been somewhat wary of "net neutrality" being legislated, because I figure that the well intentioned rules might have some unpleasant consequences, unintended or otherwise. Here's a scenario sketched out by Johna Till Johnson in ComputerWorld: we get net neutrality, either in law or FCC regulations. What if those new rules actively prevent differential pricing based on content or or quality of service? before you say that's impossible, consider any complex law written over, say, the last 50 years, and how many fascinating little side channels ended up being part of it.

If that came to pass, what might happen? Possibly this:

That means as user demand increases, carriers have just one option for recouping their costs: Charge by the bit. And that, in turn, will have a domino effect on peering arrangements. Tier-one providers now peer for free with each other. Once they have no choice but to charge for bandwidth, free peering will go away. And one of two things will happen then -- both unpleasant. Either user costs go up (to cover the costs of peering), or more likely, carriers won't bother to peer in the first place (because they can't charge users enough to recoup the costs of peering)

That might generate a "back to the future" kind of network, where you see a slightly different system, depending on which carrier you go with. Will that happen? I have no idea. What I do know is that the net neutrality advocates sound like they're digging for ponies, and I'm way, way more cynical than that.

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