Republicans’ “Internet Freedom Act” would wipe out net neutrality.

Well, you can't "compete" with the government because the government makes the rules. Nor can you escape the government if you don't like the rules it makes.

If the government decides it has the power to regulate something, then people with deep pockets and lawyers can lobby the government to regulate it in a way beneficial to them. Or they can sue and bend those regulations around in a way beneficial to them. Either way, they will now have government sanction for their actions, whether they are beneficial to the consumer or not.

If the government does not have control over something, then lobbying/suing has little to no effect since politicians and judges can't effect change as they don't have power to do so.

I'm not saying that issues do not arise because they obviously do. However, they have been handled on a case-by-case basis between the impacted parties and those parties have been able to come to workable solutions on their own without government intervention.

So if anything is anti-competitive, it's involving government because now the government gets to say (after months or years of review/litigation) "this is the solution" whether it's actually good or not. Things on the internet evolve so fast and bureaucracy is so very slow and cumbersome ; do you really want a potentially "good thing" bogged down in red tape or litigation such that it takes years to get to market, if it gets there at all?

Whether you trust the Republicans to keep their mitts out of Comcast's (etc) pockets or not, it shouldn't matter. If the government doesn't have power over the internet, then the power rests in the entirely hands of the consumers and the most effective and immediate "lobbying" is the removal of our money from the ISP's pockets. There are alternative options out in all markets, whether it's a different wired provider (here we have both Century Link and Cox) or wireless via satellite or cell phone provider. I don't pretend they're all equal choices, but consumers pick the winners and if consumers decide they want to get all their internet wirelessly through Verizon or T-Mobile, etc those carriers will build to suit.

/r/arizona Thread Link - arstechnica.com