> This is pointless semantics.
Not really. If I mail something to you, I pay the postage. That's how mail works.
When I connect to the internet, if I request something from you, we both pay our respective ISPs to make it happen. That's how the internet works. And the limit to connection speed has historically always been the last mile on one side or the other.
So what Comcast did is pushed the congestion from the last mile to a peering point by purposefully not upgrading the peering point. And predictably, what happened is that the last mile wasn't the limiting factor anymore. According to 20-30 years of internet history, that's breaking the internet. Maybe not Comcast's contract with their customers (since they can unilaterally change that at any time) but definitely in terms of expectations.
That would be like gas stations suddenly advertising the pre-tax price on their signs only once you're done pumping $30 worth of gas they charge your card for $40 because of the taxes. Might not be explicitly illegal since so many other products are advertised on the pre-tax price. But it would be breaking with decades of convention. People might get really pissed as a result.
Sadly few of us have options to get internet aside from Comcast, where as in the gas station scenario we could easily stop patronizing BP or Texaco or Shell or whoever. That also gets people riled up. And rightly so!
