The ISPs didn't spend billions building this network, they were handed billions of dollars from the government to build the network

What if it were Comcast charging Sony extra money to deliver their streaming service for Sony produced content? What if Time Warner wants to charge Hulu extra money to deliver content since it is owned by Comcast? You can dismiss Netflix for not creating content to a small degree (house of cards, arrested development, orange is the new black all produced by Netflix themselves, I would argue they are a content creator as well but thats beside the point) but if you substitute Netflix for someone else, its obvious that this is anticompetitive.

This is hacker news - Can you imagine trying to start a web based company and being forced to pay monthly fees to every single ISP just to get decent speeds to end users? What if Comcast decides it wants to start delivering goods so they jack up prices on instacart's monthly fees Or they want to expand into Taxi services so they throttle uber down to 52 kbps for all their customers

> The ISPs didn't spend billions building this network, they were handed billions of dollars from the government to build the network

This is absolutely false. Almost all the existing cable infrastructure was built with private money.

> Can you imagine trying to start a web based company and being forced to pay monthly fees to every single ISP just to get decent speeds to end users?

So? It's precarious to build a business that depends wholly on someone else's expensive infrastructure. I don't see why web businesses should be different than app businesses in this regard, which have the same problem. If Apple decides to vertically integrate into your market, as an iOS app developer you don't have much recourse.

>Almost all the existing cable infrastructure was built with private money. [citation needed] meanwhile, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_the_United_States#G... has a great list of numerous government programs and funds that have dispensed billions of dollars into network infrastructure in the US

>I don't see why web businesses should be different than app businesses in this regard

So you see the World Wide Web as an equivalent to the Android Play Store? I find it hard to believe you do not see the gaping difference here. 1. the web was invented by a government agency 2. You pay for access to the web, this includes upload and download bandwidth, there are no restrictions that limit what you are allowed to do with this bandwidth, there is no agreement that you will only use specified port numbers, and not upload more than x amount of data, etc 3. would you say the automobile industry is wholly dependant on someone else's infrastructure? (roads, highways, street lights, electricity, etc) 4. again you pay for access to the web, not the web itself - the internet is not a product that is controlled by anyone, only its access is controlled. This is fundamentally different from an app store that a company wholly owns, and controls all content within

Comcast does not own or control any part of the internet itself, everything on the internet exists on the internet independently of Comcast. The only thing that Comcast provides subscribers is a pipe to and from the internet with an agreed upon speed to the internet

> meanwhile, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_the_United_States#G.... has a great list of numerous government programs and funds that have dispensed billions of dollars into network infrastructure in the US

The only projects on that list that have distributed significant money are funded by the Universal Service Fund. That money doesn't come from general taxation, it comes from a specific tax on the telecom industry. Imagine if the government levied a 15% tax on smartphone sales and spent that money to subsidize telephones for the poor. Could you then turn around and say "Apple and Samsung are getting massive government subsidies?" That's basically what you're doing when you point to USF and say public money went into the telecom networks.

Moreover, this debate is mostly about cable, which has historically been a different sphere from "telecom" (i.e. the phone system). The networks we're talking about, Comcast's, TWC's, etc, are cable networks built with private money after deregulation in the 1990's.

> So you see the World Wide Web as an equivalent to the Android Play Store?

The World Wide Web is just a set of protocols that runs mostly on private networks. It's a platform owned by the companies that own those private networks.

> Imagine if the government levied a 15% tax on smartphone sales and spent that money to subsidize telephones for the poor. Could you then turn around and say "Apple and Samsung are getting massive government subsidies?"

Not only can you say that, you should say that. The tax money is ending up in Apple's and Samsung's pockets, routed through poor people (who presumably benefit from the subsidy, of course, and thus putatively benefiting society as a whole as well).