The USA championed anti-monopoly legislation with famous cases against AT&T, Kodak and Standard Oil amongst others. The Federal Communications Commission has now voted to cancel its Net Neutrality Rules which prohibited blocking and throttling of internet traffic or offering "fast highways" to those who pay most.
Whilst one can put forward arguments where paying for performance may be beneficial in certain circumstances, the removal of the rules promotes the situation where companies can (and therefore probably will) act to squeeze out or disadvantage other companies. This plays to the vested interests of large established companies with deep pockets and will constrain the small agile contenders which are the life blood of the current digital revolution. The danger is that this will kill off much of the innovation that the US is famous for.
So there you are, a glorious example of disjointed government simultaneously encouraging and discouraging monopoly abuse.
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