I think a far better analogy would be if toll-roads started requiring the automakers to pay "usage" fees—in addition to the regular tolls drivers already pay—or else cars produced by any automaker unwilling to pay up would be forced to drive at, say, half the speed limit.

The tolls already pay for upkeep to the road (and if they don't, the toll-roads raise the rates), along with a nice tidy profit. Why should GM have to pay in as well? After all, they're just selling me the car—whether I choose to drive it on a toll road, stick to the freeway, or grind it up into sawdust and roll around in it is entirely up to me.

I mean, really. The broadband providers are already being compensated for the user of their lines by the consumer. If I were to purchase broadband, and then legally download live music recordings 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, does it matter whether I'm downloading from Archive.org or my best friend's limited-access FTP server? Either way, I've already paid for the bandwidth to do so (or to do whatever else I might want to, as long as it's legal).

Futhermore, where to the broadband providers plan on drawing the line? Will fees to content producers be based on number of visitors/users? Per amount of bandwidth used? Per how much profit the content producer is making? What about non-for-profit sites? What about personal sites that just happen to get a lot of visitors? What about, say, the often unasked for Slashdot effect?

This ridiculous double-dipping will do nothing to advance our lives or the internet in general. It will effectively shut down new businesses, prospects, ideas, and personal publishing before any get off the ground. Imagine if a company like Flickr had to pay BellSouth bandwidth fees before it became popular, before it was bought by Yahoo!—they'd neve