In a new Progress Snapshot released by The Progress & Freedom Foundation, Alfred Kahn addresses the issue of net neutrality, arguing that "competition is a far better protector of the interest of both consumers and content providers... than government ownership or regulation."

Discussing concern of multiple tiers of service, Kahn writes:

As for the fear that those companies will, as one net-net advocate predicted, “create different tiers of online service selling access to the express lane to deeppocketed corporations and relegating everyone else to the digital equivalent of the winding dirt road,” it is difficult to understand why if, as a New Republic editorial supporting a Congressional mandate of network neutrality points out without apparent disapproval, “content providers from Google and Amazon to Daily Kos…currently pay web-hosting companies to put their content on the Internet [and] still make money,” its editors should consider it objectionable that the providers of broadband Internet access “will be able to charge content providers a fee to deliver their content to consumers and, in particular, an additional surcharge to deliver their content…more quickly….” Newspapers charge advertisers for access to their readers – more for big ads than small ones – television broadcasters charge similarly for access to their audiences; and the charges vary widely depending upon the anticipated size of the audience. Why is that any different from the proposed additional fees for guarantees of the unusually rapid rates of transmission required for some content, with its greater claim on the broadband facilities?

Alfred E. Kahn is the Robert Julius Thorne Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus, at Cornell University and Special Consultant to National Economic Research Associates (NERA). Dr. Kahn played a leadership role in deregulating heavily regulated industries such as the airline industry as a key part of the Carter Administration, and is the author of The Economics of Regulation: Principles and Institutions.

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