philosophical point here: note the bb ceo's use of language. i hate to get pedantic, but this all goes back to the greek word γινώσκω (gnoscio), which means "to think" or "to know". from this word we get, in the english, words like "decide", "discern" and even "discriminate".

i'll quote mr. chen here, piece by piece: "...policymakers should demand..." --> children demand. policymakers (and i assume he means congress, which is the constitutionally-empowered entity that is able to make law in the united states) make laws. and laws are supported with the power of the state to do two things: tax, and kill (in fact, they are the same power). so what this means is "congress should use its power to use lethal force..."

"... openness not just at the traffic/transport layer, but also at the content/applications layer of the ecosystem..." --> net neutrality is about agnosticism. there goes that word again, 'to think'. here, it's about not thinking -- particularly not thinking about whose data is traveling along your pipes. but once you move from the traffic/transport layer down to the content/applications layer (or heck -- in a chaostheoryesque way, once you move up to the operating systems layer) the medium is the message! this is the equivalent of a declining myspace begging congress to force facebook to allow myspace users to interact with the facebook users. the medium is the message here: facebook exists because it is not myspace. trulia is not redfin. people started companies because they disliked the platforms available and they sought to build better ones.

"...Banning carriers from discriminating but allowing content and applications providers to continue doing so will solve nothing."

there is zero comparability in this last statement. content and application providers are built atop an architecture that is by its nature exclusive and discriminatory. service providers are defined not by what is within them, but what moves through them. which is to say: teraflops (&c.) per second of data moving from various points to another. applications on the other hand are defined by what resides within them. music (spotify: beats needs to allow us to stream music to its listeners!). videos (vimeo: youtube needs to let us share their videos!). games (counterstrike: why can't people play our missions as the master chief?! ¡¡¡net neutrality!!!). the list goes on.

make no mistake: this is one more step down a road that leads nowhere good.