One might be tempted to think that the end of “net neutrality” might well be counterbalanced by the tendency of all things of the electronic sort to grow and thus outpace the attempts to enclose them. That is, what would a fast-lane really mean in a world in which all lanes are getting faster all the time?
But we’ve learned this lesson again and again in capitalist modernity, during the slow but steady war on all things held in common and distributed equally. The very minute a top-up option is added – and added, as it always is, as simply more good on top of a very good thing – the forces of neglect, disinterest, and deliberate sabotage begin to go to work eroding the old, non-topped up forms. Education, health care, old-age pensions, civil services of every type – it always works the same way. And now, from the looks of it, the internet as well.
Once the mega-corporations (which are getting more mega all the time) who man the pipes can sell special sections of the pipes to the mega-corporations that provide the expensive content, watch to see how long the older, slow-lane sections of the “information superhighway” are under-maintained, full of pot holes and lined with crab grass, despite the toll booth newly erected every few miles.
