I admire, but don't share, your optimism. The trend from my perspective appears to be one of protecting incumbent interests at the expense of the public good and, frankly, common sense. One doesn't need a crystal ball to see the future. J. Scalia characterized well the current situation when he said in his BrandX dissent: "This is a wonderful illustration of how an experienced agency [the FCC] can (with some assistance from credulous courts) turn statutory constraints into bureaucratic discretions. . . . not by changing the law . . . but by reserving the right to change the facts." or, in other words, "Badges? We don' need no stinkin' badges!" In a world where courts facilitate such agency discretion and the self-same agency sets itself the task of weakening an already atrophied Fourth estate by proposing to allow further media consolidation . . . well, I'd say the writing was on the wall, but finding walls to write on is only getting harder. Moreover, I'd hazard to guess we'll try to export our models before we ever get around to adopting models from abroad. Like climate change, it won't be a question of mitigating the loss of our broadband competitiveness, but adapting to our deficient position . . . after all, isn't that exactly what tiering "services" IS? i.e. isn't that exactly what telcos are proposing? The OECD puts us right behind Belgium in terms of broadband penetration (those Jacques Brel MP3s are moving fast, well, at least fast-er) and one look at FTTH penetration ought to make even the most optimistic among us falter.