I’ve been following the Comcast stuff but I just haven’t had the heart to do much with it – so I’m thankful to Steve Borsch for his fortitude and/or endurance.

The quick tick: Comcast is throttling bandwidth by limiting the traffic you can consume each month. They are cutting back service contracts to shake off their heaviest users (aka bandwidth hogs).

So if you are a bandwidth hog, it stinks to be you. If you aren’t well – maybe those bandwidth hogs should get off online and enjoy the sunshine, right? Well one problem is that they’re cutting back a lot – just when more and more functions require ultra high speed. It’s an approach straight out of 1984; when the demand grows, tell people it isn’t growing and ask them to cut back.

Another big problem, which Steve outlines eloquently, is that squashing bandwidth also squashes innovation. Right now I think that America is still pretty innovative – but we’ll be slipping down that ranking soon enough if we start putting artificial barriers in our way.