My understanding of what you are predicting from this is:

"You as consumer will be charged extra to see blogs you choose

According to SP's interpretation, it's not all about ads on blogs.

Like cable TV, you will have a choice of content you can view for free.

If you want content not approved by the carrier's corporation, you will have to pay extra.

So, if he is correct, Agonist will not be visible, eventually, unless you pay extra to see it."

Yes, you can get your book published in obscure book stores even if Ingram doesn't carry your book but mass audiences won't see it. Suppose you are an independent bookseller, how much of your inventory can you afford to devote to independently published books? That is how censorship is done; it's like baseball; a game of statistics.

The more I see of the mainstream - politics, economics, business - the more I think we need to develop an alternate country. If enough people got onboard, it would make the current system meaningless. A shadow economy (barter, localized private lending); community-based businesses; doing without most government functions.

We need to be able to say to the Corporations and Financiers and Government, "Go away - we don't need you".

Retired Mainframe maven, active curmudgeon, poet, writer.

can you seriously believe that the world would accept AT&T, or company like it, as a censor? Take a deep breath and rest assured that the world will still be revolving in the morning!

a cancer. I wish I could just wake up and find it was all a horrible dream.

So what about access overseas? Canada? Europe? South America?

New technology gives a short period of free speech before the powerful realize what's happening and figure out how to control it. This was as true of cheap printing technology (which was rapidly made more expensive) as it is of the internet.

I remember feeling most sick about it in the early 90's when the large coastal newspapers (NYT, WaPo, LATimes, et al.) refused to take ads on the health care debate going on at the time.

Based on history, the best we can do is slow down the reach of control for a little while.

Corporations are already permitted full control over storage under their ownership.

Storage they 'rent' out to lessees can fall under Riders that would allow the owner access, or the right to limit access, as they deem necessary and proper for the operation of their enterprise.

in other words, they own the storage, they own the pipes, therefore they feel they can control the traffic using the storage and the pipes........hardly surprising (especially in light of recent activity)

"Everything Free is worth what you pay for it"...never truer--either it's to cheap to be worth having, or bought with the blood sweat and tears of those willing to sacrifice for it.

I expect to see affairs devolve into a Corporate Feudal-state, since Feudalism is really the only culture Conservatives seem to understand (almost instinctively)....and since they have the Money and the Guns, they'll make it happen (cue up Jay Gould) as they tee up the working Class against itself, so as to take advantage of the chaos to their advantage.

Depressing, but all too likely

"It's the American Dream---because you have to be asleep to believe it." -- George Carlin

calling the IT help desk to fix a problem with this computer. Chatting with the IT fellow taking my order, I mentioned the net neutrality ruling.

He explained to me that this must happen so that business has room on the internet without being crowded out by unimportant personal stuff. I asked him why everybody overseas has faster internet than we do without these measures. He explained that by telling me that Americans are stupid, so we want television and internets with ads and no content.

When I said it was too bad school was too expensive, because it would be nice to learn more about the internets, he explained that schools are toast because of the teachers unions. He said that unions are out of date and have no value anymore.

Then the told me to stop drinking the koolaid.

I really need to find a way to work online so I can get out of this country.

proposed by the Pirate Bay might help a little bit. That and anonymizing services like iPredator would, I believe, make many sites difficult to shut down and their data difficult to analyze and trace. I'm not an expert on this stuff though, so I could just be getting my hopes up...

Edit: Oh, and Ars Technica has some additional commentary too.