The internet is not broken. We don't need to "fix" it. Everyone is getting paid. The cable companies don't need to get paid twice. Or three times.

People are dictontinuing their cable TV subscriptions because the cable TV providers are using their local monopoly power to partition shows that people want to watch into multiple different premium packages so that the customers will have to pay extra for each.  So, in the spirit of free competition, customers spent their money elsewhere -- the internet -- where they could pay the content creators directly for individual shows or movies.  If the ISPs are permitted to do the same thing to the internet, then there is no competetive alternative.  Eliminating net neutrality doesn't create a free market, it kills the free market that already exists.

Perhaps people will switch to getting their content on disc, by mail! Everyone in the nation going to the TV at the same time every Thursday to catch the antenna broadcast? That will surely make America look like a high tech super power.

And how will this affect independent sites, like my crusty old homepage hosted on the server in my house? My friends' blogs? My dad's collecting information site? What package are those going to be part of? Free, or you-can't-get-there-from-here?  Are people who create their own web sites and operate them on their own servers going to become second-class citizens, at least in terms of their ability to participate in online commerce?  It seems likely.

Suppose you're researching something on the internet. You find a site you don't currently subscribe to. Do you now have to contact your internet provider and change your internet bundle just to get to that site?

Does that mean that you are going to be paying that site's subscription fee AND paying your ISP for access to that site?

Look, I'm already paying my ISP for a guaranteed data rate, and I'm paying my cellular provider for a certain quota of data each month. It does not make any sense to pay for what the bits say or where the bits originally came from. That's just a made-up distinction intended to give the ISPs an excuse (not even a good one) to charge you extra as part of their government-sanctioned local monopoly.