said by JimF:said by RossHSTL :
When people play the capitalism card they often forget that for capitalism to work you have to have competing companies offer the same services. In many places people only have one choice so if that company goes forward with tiered internet they have no other option but to use that company.
The reason you don't have competing companies is usually that there is not enough profit in it. If you regulate the price to uneconomically low levels, you never will get a second or third company. That may keep the present customers happy with the present services, but not those who can't get the new services they want. What people are asking for in this discussion is to keep their present services and prices as they are. You will never get more advanced services, like video conferencing, that way. That is why the free market works better than regulation in most cases.
This is a totally false argument. The reason there is not competition in most markets is because of exclusive franchise agreements that makes competition impossible. It has nothing at all to do with profit or market share.
