Worth reading. I think he’s right that to some extent this phenomenon is born of geeks in search of a cause to fight for — certainly this is something I’ve been guilty of. On the other hand, the practical level of competition in the US broadband market is appalling (if understandable). Comcast’s monkeying with bittorrent; various ISPs’ hijacking of the DNS system; Rogers’ throttling of encrypted traffic; all of these have been fuel for the fire. And although we haven’t crossed the threshold beyond which the market can’t be expected to correct the situation, these businesses’ poor decisions have at least made such an event seem plausible.
On the other hand, I also agree with Julian that the government’s proper response is probably to threaten to regulate rather than to actually regulate. It seems like the relevant bureaucrats might agree: I think this may be the tack that the FCC is taking with respect to the iPhone and AT&T.