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Comment by crazy1van | Hacker News Reader

"an effectively free an open internet is going to be accessible by motivated individuals, period."

I believe most citizens (myself included) live and act with the intent to obey the law. So while a free and open internet may be technically feasible for any individual, if the access techniques are actually illegal, citizens who wish to obey the law will lose access. The law still very much matters, even if it is hard to enforce and easy to circumvent.

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It certainly matters very much. I didn't mean to imply 'none of this matters'; rather, that the internet is anti-fragile and will continue to service humanity in more-or-less the same way regardless of any law (at least that is even remotely likely to be passed).

Besides, unless I am mistaken (I don't follow it that closely) there is not any whisperings of making things like VPNs or adhoc networks illegal. It is primarily about the "right" of the telcos to favor certain traffic, by increased speed or traffic not counting toward your quota for some sites/services.

If telcos have a 'right' to favor traffic, then using anything that subverts their ability to control your traffic is probably illegal. Rights don't mean anything if you don't have laws backing them.

The current condition in the US seems to give both telcos the right to favor traffic and users the right to subvert that ability.

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