That was a refreshing antidote to the mindless defense of big business mounted by Tom and his fellow rightwingers. Every word in that article was a sober statement of fact, written by somebody actually familiar with the industry.

It really is foolish to hope that ISPs will innovate in a way that benefits us. Not just because of the obvious greed and self-interest factor, but because ISPs provide a generic and standardized service that works well precisely because people generally keep their hands off the technical infrastructure.

Except the ISPs themselves, as the article described. They're not above abusing their power over the pipes. The example of substituting advertising for error codes when you ask for a nonexistent site is a classic example. Not only is it dishonest, but it plows the ground for phishers to defraud people with the very same tactic; and a good proportion of those Potemkin Web sites you get on a failed search try to depost viruses and other malware.

No you don't want ISPs to innovate. ISPs "innovate" the way railroad companies "innovated" in the 19th century, by using different track gauges so that only their own trains could travel on their tracks. Our digital infrastructure is exactly like a railroad system, and it's only going to work for us if it's regulated and standardized. Any other way lies madness.