When their throttling they are not changing the bits, however... they're simply changing the how and when those bits are delivered. So by your logic, they should have the right throttle traffic however they want?
My argument: Comcast operates as basically a public utility. They don't completely own those cables. They dug them in public right of ways with a lot of help and subsidies from all levels of government. The people have a legitimate claim to ownership, and thus they have a legitimate claim to not be screwed by Comcast. They're abusing what is effectively a monopoly and should be regulated as such.
throttling is effectively slowing the bits down. in comcast's case, they have been shown to block p2p transfers entirely via packet forgery (comcast pays sandvine to do this).
My argument: Comcast operates as basically a public utility. They don't completely own those cables. They dug them in public right of ways with a lot of help and subsidies from all levels of government. The people have a legitimate claim to ownership, and thus they have a legitimate claim to not be screwed by Comcast. They're abusing what is effectively a monopoly and should be regulated as such.