Just suppose New York state decided to close a big budget deficit by selling state roads, and local governments got on the same bandwagon. Suppose further that big corporations like Walmart, Amazon, Apple, etc. bought the roads.

To recover a return on their investments, road owners then charged tolls and set new speed limits on their roads. Walmart roads had higher tolls leading to Target stores and for trucks delivering for Amazon. Amazon increased tolls and lowered speed limits on roads leading to Walmart and Target stores. It would be the end of "road neutrality." Travel by road as we know it would be over.

We've come to take "road neutrality" on the internet the same way, thanks to previous policies that treated the net as a public road. That's net neutrality: all travelers (surfers and content providers) got treated alike.

That's no longer. The Trump administration's Federal Communications Commission is killing net neutrality. And the companies who own the "roads" we surf on — Spectrum, Verizon, etc. — get to change routes and speed limits as they choose. With the new Trump policies, they can control where and how fast one goes, what one can see, and how much more it will cost.

Does anyone believe that will improve internet use for the general public? And who benefits? Certainly not the individual internet user. Once again, the White House and Republican Party come to the aid of their corporate sponsors.

Anthony M. Cresswell

Altamont