I think the obvious conclusion is that none of our analogies are all that applicable. :)
Sometimes new technologies just don’t fit very well into existing boxes.
...and that's the problem. The government wants to grab all the control and revenue they can, and some suck-up corporations are glad to market the grey areas to whoever will pay them for it, be it unsecured private WiFi or valid lists of email addresses.
I certainly don't like the way the Obama FCC is trying to grab power over the Internet.