I too am baffled at the widespread misunderstanding and fear of Net Neutrality. Conservative websites, pundits, and friends of mine are absolutely convinced it amounts to "government takeover of the internet" (which is a pretty hysterical concept if you know the internet's origins), and Obama's going to use these newfound powers to stamp out all dissenting opinion. I have had very little luck at explaining the matter in ways my conservative friends in ways they could understand, until yesterday, when I actually convinced a friend he was in the wrong.
Here's how I did it.
Him: "The last thing the internet needs is regulation. This is just another big government takeover. If a big corporation starts censoring internet content, competition will take over and they'll be forced to lift the censor. I trust the free market a hell of a lot more than I do Obama and the FCC."
Me: "I understand your argument in the abstract, but let me give a real-world example. Comcast is one of the largest internet providers in the country. In many parts of the country, including where I live, it is the only option for broadband service. NBC was just sold to Comcast. As such, Comcast has a very real and demonstrable need to promote NBC and MSNBC over competitors. You're saying it should be legal for Comcast to limit access to Fox News videos and FoxNews.com, and increase bandwidth for MSNBC videos and MSNBC.com?"
Him: "But they wouldn't actually do that. It'd be a PR nightmare if they just blocked access to Fox."
Me: "Ah, but that's not how'd they do it. Just like AT&T subscribers can call other AT&T subscribers for free, unlimited, but you're charged by the minute when you talk to people on other networks."
Him: "What's wrong with that? It's probably cheaper for carrier customers to talk within the same carrier."
Me: "Perhaps, but the same would go for MSNBC shows. Comcast would be getting 100% of that ad revenue to stream MSNBC shows and display MSNBC content. They would be getting 0% of the ad revenue for Fox News and FoxNews.com. Bandwidth to Fox websites costs them money, and bandwidth to MSNBC websites makes them money."
Him: "So you think they'd purposely speed up MSNBC and slow down Fox?"
Me: "Without Net Neutrality, there's no reason they couldn't do that, which is reason enough to support it. But what Comcast is proposing is that they'll charge by bandwidth, say, 20gbs transfer per month, but exempt NBC.com, MSNBC.com, and other web traffic that they own. Like Verizon does with vCast now. They'll say 'oh, we're not blocking access to Fox -- we're just giving you unlimited free use to MSNBC instead as part of your package.' So naturally, people will be much more likely to get their news and opinion from MSNBC, which is free, as opposed to Fox, which counts against their bandwidth credit."
Him: "Well obviously they'd have to make that illegal."
Me: "THAT'S. WHAT. NET. NEUTRALITY. IS!!!"
So I won him over. He and I agreed that internet providers should have the right to charge by total data used and be completely blind to what that data is. All ones and zeroes must be treated the same, whether they come from the internet provider's own website, or some private blog halfway across the globe.
As referenced in my example, I think conservatives should be the ones scared of an internet without Net Neutrality, given the Comcast-NBC merger alone. I'm quite sure they don't want millions of Americans watching Rachel Maddow clips instead of Bill O'Reilly clips just because Maddow's are free.