At least part of the reason why this is coming up, is because speech has become too “free” (as in beer), and this challenge to the current political elite cannot be allowed to stand. Look at the blogosphere calling the corporate media on their clubbiness. I look at the Tester, Busby, Hackett, Webb, and Lamont campaigns, and I see an ascendant netroots flexing its political muscles; there is no way that the Titans of Capital will allow this to stand. Corporate pandering Democrats are getting picked off one by one. They will in turn pick off corporate-pandering Republicans. Bad news all around.

Instead, corporations need to assert control over this populist medium, by making it too EXPENSIVE for the people to actually use. Then, only the rich will be able to afford to communicate– only those who are part of the capital elite, or have sold themselves out to it in order to pay their telecom bills.

This pattern has played itself out with every communication innovation I know of. Ruling elites always either crack down on or attempt to overwhelm peer-to-peer communication; as said, it’s a natural competition for them and they should be expected to do that. They survive and prosper through heirarchal one-to-many communications and “mushroom management”… and if it costs too much to run a blog, or a streaming radio station, or a netroots PAC, or a wireless ISP, or a record company, or a movie studio, then guess who gets to maintain dominance?

the other frame i’ve seen argued is the commons debate.
That is labeling the network as a essential service which is highly regulated, and access is metered out on a equal basis regardless of you potential ability to pay for better service.

personally I think that this viewpoint is dangerous, as while it might sound ‘fair’ for the little guy, historically commons are under-developed, and people like Coase http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Coase have won nobel prizes arguing on how privatizing a common is in the common good.

the other point I see is there is nothing saying that the overall price paid by everyone will actually rise in the medium term. by having publishers pay it will allow other players pay less.

I think it will encourage more competition (it makes the industry more attractive for new entrants)

have you got any thoughts on how congress could lower the price of entry/lower the price of exit to the industry at the same time that they allow them greater freedom to charge? that might be a nice compromise. (sure you can charge more.. but we going to let companies X,Y,Z in as well)