A new era- A new deffinition of Title II
A large part of this problem, and one that allows American Pai and his predecessor Wheeler-and-Dealer to do as they wish is that we're using laws and authorizations that date back to the "Philly-1416" days, when an actual human operator would take your call and direct it to the appropriate trunk, exchange, switch, etc. Both Wheeler and Pai are simply doing what they're supposed to in interpreting a pre-WWII era law and authorization for a period, almost 90 years later, where technology now exists that was hardly even science-fiction then.
Without a comprehensive reexamination and realignment of modern realities put into law, by congress, and signed by the president, the game of ping-pong will simply continue with the changes in political climate. Up until the era of net neutrality, the FCC was a pretty boring bureau of government, mostly concerned with auctioning off airwaves, taking complaints about radio or TV media, and guiding industry technical standards. It's only been since the rise of the "open" internet that it's become such a political hot potato.
I agree wholly with poster doublelayer- It's none of Verizon's, Comcast's,CenturyLink's, et al business what information service I lawfully choose to connect to. Their responsibility is only to see that I can connect to it to the best of their abilities. That is all I pay for. Once they begin prioritizing or throttling based on who I choose to connect to, they are then editorializing which sites they want or prefer I connect to. This would be no different than the same companies prioritizing or charging me more to call my aunt Dianne, who also happens to be a customer of a competitor, than calling my aunt Kathy, who is a customer of the same company. If, on the other hand my aunt Dianne decides to get a premium rate 1-900 number and charge me $2.00/min to talk to her, that is a different matter.