Actually, the empirical record on this shows that we see
more net neutrality violations by ISPs in marketplaces with high competition.[1]
This is counter-intuitive but here's how it works:
In a competitive marketplace ISPs have tighter margins and look for every opportunity for cost savings, so if throttling a high-bandwidth application only affects a small percentage of customers, and only a tiny tech-savvy minority of those affected will accurately attribute the effect to ISP throttling, it will incur only the tiniest competitive pressure on the ISP, so the ISP will do it to increase profits.
We actually saw more net neutrality violations in competitive EU markets than in the US, until EU-level net neutrality rules passed.
Another way to look at the limits of competitive pressure is from a startup's point of view: if your startup is offering a new videoconferencing service, how will competition help you when a rogue ISP breaks your service for 10% of your customers by throttling your service but putting Zoom in a fastlane? Your customers will not think "oh, I'd better switch to a better ISP," when ~10% of call participants are unintelligible. They will think, "oh, this new service sucks, I'm going to stick to Zoom."
Competitive pressure on ISPs does not protect nascent startups with small userbases from ISPs. And yet, everything we care about on the Internet started as a nascent startup with a small userbase.
Competition is great for keeping prices down and the US needs more of it. But to protect the long tail of startups and all the new ways people use the Internet from ISPs you need net neutrality laws.
1. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2700055. Key finding: Relying on consumer switching behavior to provide more comprehensive competitive discipline was insufficient for a variety of reasons, including the presence of switching costs.
This is counter-intuitive but here's how it works:
In a competitive marketplace ISPs have tighter margins and look for every opportunity for cost savings, so if throttling a high-bandwidth application only affects a small percentage of customers, and only a tiny tech-savvy minority of those affected will accurately attribute the effect to ISP throttling, it will incur only the tiniest competitive pressure on the ISP, so the ISP will do it to increase profits.
We actually saw more net neutrality violations in competitive EU markets than in the US, until EU-level net neutrality rules passed.
Another way to look at the limits of competitive pressure is from a startup's point of view: if your startup is offering a new videoconferencing service, how will competition help you when a rogue ISP breaks your service for 10% of your customers by throttling your service but putting Zoom in a fastlane? Your customers will not think "oh, I'd better switch to a better ISP," when ~10% of call participants are unintelligible. They will think, "oh, this new service sucks, I'm going to stick to Zoom."
Competitive pressure on ISPs does not protect nascent startups with small userbases from ISPs. And yet, everything we care about on the Internet started as a nascent startup with a small userbase.
Competition is great for keeping prices down and the US needs more of it. But to protect the long tail of startups and all the new ways people use the Internet from ISPs you need net neutrality laws.
1. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2700055. Key finding: Relying on consumer switching behavior to provide more comprehensive competitive discipline was insufficient for a variety of reasons, including the presence of switching costs.