If you think of the bandwidth/latency of not being connected to the Internet as zero, and think of the bandwidth/latency of being connected to the Internet as some nonzero value, then this is a difference of degree, and not of type, with any other net neutrality discussion we might have. Net neutrality would dictate that you cannot charge differently for different streams of data. Here, the cost to the user with respect to a certain set of streams would be zero in one case and some non-zero value in another case.

Now, one could argue that it is not a violation of net neutrality because the data is still being paid for – it is simply being paid for by another source. However, I find these arguments unconvincing. If the intention of net neutrality had simply been to ensure that data was paid for, then it would not matter if data was treated better or worse based upon some payment of a company. After all, the data would still be being paid for – it would simply be that some data was being paid to have faster service associated with it. In principle, that latter example would be no different to an end user of the ISP paying for a faster connection.