The Struggle for What We Already Have

[Commentary] For something that seems so simple and straightforward, "net neutrality" has sure created one big mess. Net neutrality, of course, is the principle that Internet service providers should not be allowed to favor some Internet content over other content by delivering it faster. Really, who could be against such a thing? President Obama came out for net neutrality during his presidential campaign. Julius Genachowski, his former law review colleague and basketball buddy, who helped him arrive at that campaign position, is now the chairman of the Federal Communication Commission. Right-thinking public interest groups, like Public Knowledge are fierce, unyielding proponents of net neutrality, viewing its goodness as obvious. Google professes to be a champion of net neutrality. So does Skype. Even the Internet service providers say they favor it. And yet, here we are, a year and a half into the Obama presidency, and net neutrality is no closer to being encoded in federal regulation than it was when George W. Bush was president.

Then again, maybe the current snarl isn't such a bad thing. Consumers have come to expect an open Internet, and companies will violate net neutrality at their peril. That is just the way the Internet has evolved. But don't spread that around, O.K.? With so many hours spent on this thing, who really wants to admit that it's much ado about very little?