by (Originally posted as a comment on the Huffington Post)
In contrast to the title of Dave Winer’s post, Net Neutrality is an important issue for all users of the Internet, for exactly the reasons he details. Can you imagine being charged more for when using a telephone to talk about politics and less when discussing football? The idea that some traffic on the Internet is more valuable than others is valid as relates to operational services such as DNS, etc. However, users should be free to visit sites of their choosing without censorship, performance penalty, or additional charges levied by common carriers.
Internet traffic is every bit as much of a commodity as electric power, yet no power company would dare attempt to charge more for watts used to operate a television and less for those for air conditioning. Bandwidth providers must be reminded their role in the greater Internet is to provide connectivity without prejudice or favoritism. If common carriers – emphasis on "common" – wish to provide content, they must do so based on the merits of that content and not because of their powerful position as the gatekeepers of our personal and business connection to the electronic world.
