Noen, #33 says:

Mike Friedman said:
no, it doesn't belong to the public! It's a bunch of fiber lines and switches and every single one of those is owned by a company, a government, or a private individual. None of it is owned by the "public".

Actually Mike, it does belong to us. Even though every TV station is owned by a company none-the-less the airwaves are indeed publicly owned. You might want to double check what you wrote there. Can you spot the error? I can.

1. I was talking about the Internet here... I ask again, given that each piece of the infrastructure is privately owned how can you claim the Internet is publicly owned?
2. The airwaves were publicly owned... but given that the government auctioned off the rights to much of them are they still publicly owned? You may disagree with that decision... but you can't argue it was made.

What has happened is that the Rethuglicans have sold off vast portions of government (that's us ya know) owned property (frequencies) to their buddies in corporate America. They feed off of and destroy what was once held in common.

1. Clinton also auctioned off frequency
2. Why do you consider frequency different from real estate? All land in the US was publicly owned at first. Governments auctioned it off or even gave it away. Were those actions also "Rethuglican" chicanery? Are all home owners in America "feed[ing] off and destroy[ing] what was once held in common?

Frankly, if the primary argument for net neutrality is based on the concept that private property is illegitimate I don't think it's going to get much traction.

I'm finding some of the reactions here very interesting.

For example, see Flying Squid, #27:

Or... skype could just invest in better servers themselves.

Mr. Calamari, how do you expect better Skype servers to solve network congestion and similar problems?

JohnB, #29, isn't quite as silly, but he demonstrates the "Let them eat cake" attitude that many of the neutrality absolutarians have:

Mike Friedman - Leased line. If you can get Skype to agree to receiving one.

So, in other words, because you are worried about a tiered Internet Skype can't do deals for guaranteed QOS with various ISPs and I can't buy a premium Skype connectivity service? You expect every single person who wants a premium service like this to get his own leased line? Is this really reasonable?

Finally, for pure comic relief, let's see LJSeinfeld, #17. Actually, he's so over the top I'm not sure if he isn't being sarcastic... but others seem to be taking him seriously and agreeing with him...

These companies/conglomerates/what-have-you need to be reminded is that the public internet, the RF spectrum, and other such things *belong to the public*.

I don't know what "other things" he's talking about so I won't comment on that. Modern RF spectrum is auctioned to the highest bidder and given the amounts paid it's hard to argue that they aren't buying a property right. As for the "public internet", no, it doesn't belong to the public! It's a bunch of fiber lines and switches and every single one of those is owned by a company, a government, or a private individual. None of it is owned by the "public".

I am growing increasingly more tired of businesses trying to call every little added ability to a given service a "value add" and expecting to charge more for it.

I don't follow - you expect businesses to offer additional services at additional cost and not charge for them?

What ever happened to over-delivering on a product or service.

Probably the same thing that happened to the tooth fairy... NOTHING! Because neither of them ever existed!

Money-grubbing swine.

Ummmm... yes... that's their job!

No... I'm not talking about just higher bandwidth.

I'm talking about a guaranteed service quality for a connection to a particular service provider (Skype).

That's the kind of value added service that net neutrality would prohibit.

You know, this is not a totally one sided issue.

For example I make heavy use of Skype Out but quality is patchy and I often have to fall back to regular phone lines.

Why shouldn't I be able to pay my ISP a little extra in return for a guaranteed high bandwidth connection to Skype's nearest Skype Out gateway?

Not unreasonable, right?

But certainly not neutral either.

Now, there are obvious concerns that an ISP making extra money this way might take steps to downgrade everyone else's Skype connection in order to make more money. I think in most cases competition would prevent that. In those where it wouldn't regulation may be the answer. But does that mean we have to ban value added services like this?