The UK extensively regulates and censors Internet access. It's possible you can't get excited about it because you don't have a culture of a free Internet.
British providers have happily performed deep packet inspection in order to "prioritize" traffic with little to no resistance from the public. Britain just doesn't share this principle.
Yes and no. The market works in the UK. If you don't want a "hand holding" ISP that filters and DPIs your connection you have a range of good alternatives e.g. http://aa.net.uk/
The shittiest providers in the UK are usually the vertically integrated players (Sky, Virgin, BT) that optimise their business around selling bundles to consumers (TV, mobile, net and movie subs).
Fortunately, thanks to local loop unbundling providing a relatively level playing field, there are lots of "net only" providers that focus on delivering a technically strong, unadulterated connection to the internet for consumers that value that.
Bonus: VOIP is also really easy in the UK. When I lived there, I ported my landline number to http://www.voiptalk.org (which I still maintain now), had a 4G unlocked SIM from Virgin with virtually unlimited data and an 18MBit ADSL connection from Andrews & Arnold. All monthly contracts, no tie in. Total cost was ~£50/month iirc. Worked beautifully and felt very "free" (as in freedom) to me.
If we accept that neutrality regulation is unnecessary in the UK due to the effectiveness of the market that exists here, we should remember that this market itself exists because of other forms of regulation which have been imposed, including: the ease with which customers can switch ISPs, publishing official figures of the frequency of complaints about ISPs, the incumbent telco being required to provide wholesale internet access (with price controls) which can be resold by any company who wish to set themselves up as an ISP.
It seems to me to have done reasonably well at encouraging suppliers to compete on price, and on customer service quality (provided you don't take the ISP's word for it).
It hasn't been great at hastening the widespread availability of > 20Mbit broadband, and that is probably in part because of a particular technological and financial internet access model becoming somewhat entrenched, due to the very same regulation.
I tend to be of the opinion that net neutrality is a useful tactic where a functioning competitive market doesn't exist, and is beyond hope of being made to exist. Outside of that, I'm much less certain of how valuable it is.
(I'm not going to address the whole UK internet censorship and data logging thing, because it's orthogonal to the structure of the market. And also because it's really fucking depressing.)
Yes, I'd argue that the UK's approach to regulation may as well be network neutrality by another name. It's looser than the FCC's interpretation but the desired end result (from a consumer perspective) is very similar.
Re: UK internet censorship and data logging - agree not connected to this debate (and, yes, it's fucking depressing).
I remember getting a 3 sim card in the UK, going to erowid.org and getting a screen saying the site was blocked. If you wanted the block lifted, you'd have to go to a 3 store and present an ID to show you were over 18 (and I assume that ID would be forever associated with your account).
This is no issue with a VPN. My "real" number is registered with a VOIP provider, and I just buy a new SIM card from a vending machine at the airport with cash every so often. I'm not even trying to be particularly anonymous, it's just easy.
You'd also need to create new accounts for all your services each time, or any basic logging of access will trivially link your SIM, data provider's IP, your VPN, and your endpoint services. You only need to mess up once and your "anonymity" is compromised. In this instance it would be the IMEI of your phone, the tracking data used by advertisers and data miners to fingerprint your devices, and whatever services and accounts you use for email or social networking on your device.
Real anonymity is hard, and takes a level of paranoia not many can sustain without suffering mental health issues.
Can you give me an example of where my experience as an end-user in the UK is different from what it would be in the US? Currently in Thailand where there's noticeable censorship.
British providers have happily performed deep packet inspection in order to "prioritize" traffic with little to no resistance from the public. Britain just doesn't share this principle.