Ending End-to-End?

Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy has a piece called "Stealing the Internet" up on TomPaine. Sounding a distinctly Lessigian note, Chester attacks attempts by Net infrastructure providers to meter and differentially charge for different uses of bandwidth.

Now, I'm somewhat sympathetic to concerns about this, insofar as the open, end-to-end structure of the Internet has played a large role in allowing innovation to flourish. But it's precisely for that reason that I'm not all that worried: Consumers accustomed to the Net as they know it aren't going to sit still for an architecture that contravenes the end-to-end principle by requiring centralized approval for new applications. And it's more than a little amusing to see precisely the same people who carp the loudest about a supposed "digital divide" get just as hot and bothered about a form of price discrimination that could help to close the (already fast-closing) gap by offering tiered access.