Another example I thought was effective was to compare it to the postal service, and to get political about the picking and choosing. Imagine, for example, if the postal service delivered the Washington Post normally, but charged extra for National Review. (Reverse or substitute them for people with different political leanings.)
I used this when talking to my father recently, who leans fairly right and has been posting some links using the party line "free market" and "less regulation" arguments against net neutrality, and it seemed to make an impression.
> arguments against net neutrality, and it seemed to make an impression.
I'm politically right of center and would like to point out that a non-trivial number of my philosophical peers used to assume "net neutrality" had more to do with a reincarnation of the fairness doctrine than data transit (I'm not even kidding). I'd like to believe that's changing, slowly, but it would take some convincing for me to accept that most of those who argue in favor of free market solutions have any understanding that this is a data ownership--rather than political--issue.
Besides, the issues have become so complex thanks to lobbying efforts by these monopolies that I think your analogy is probably the best approach to help educate the public at large as to the dangers that might arise if this sort of nonsense takes hold further (and sadly, I fear it will--I was afraid of this the day the cable companies were allowed to become ISPs).
I think the postal service isn't the best analogy. Take the case where ISP's want to put high bandwidth content providers (e.g.) in the slow lane.
I see this as the USPS equivalent of charging you by the size and weight of the package (which they do, unless you are using a flat rate envelope). The flat rate envelope being the equivalent of some "package" internet deal a la the OP.
I think it's a sure sign of dysfunction any time a company is trying to discourage use of their product.
A healthy company in a healthy market loves additional demand. Imagine if there's some new kind of fruit that everyone wants to buy. The local supermarkets are flooded. Are they going to say, "this fruit is too popular and causing too much strain on our infrastructure, so we demand additional compensation from the fruit growers"? Hell no. They're going to say, "This is awesome! We're making so much cash! Hire more workers! Build out the stores! Buy more magic fruit!"
Many ISPs have managed to set up their product offerings such that they don't want additional use of their product. That's a major screwup on their part, and one they should fix.
It's interesting to look at cellular carriers, which started out this way but have mostly overcome it. For example, AT&T started out offering "unlimited" plans to iPhone users, and inevitably iPhone users used "too much" and this caused trouble. Now they only offer metered plans, and the attitude is different. Oh, you want to stream video constantly and use dozens of GB per month? Come right this way, we have a plan just for you, and you'll get a nice bulk discount. Contrast with Clear, who I used for a little bit as a home connection. They advertise "unlimited" and say it's suitable for replacing a home broadband connection, but if you actually try to use it that way, they throttle you into the ground and tell you to stop being abusive.
Techies as a whole seem to be really resistant to metered pricing for internet connections, but I think standardizing on that approach would solve a whole bunch of problems.
I used this when talking to my father recently, who leans fairly right and has been posting some links using the party line "free market" and "less regulation" arguments against net neutrality, and it seemed to make an impression.