By definition, a Tier 1 network is an IP network which conducts traffic via settlement-free interconnection
Peering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(That means I route your traffic, you route my traffic, and neither of us pays each other)
As for the rest, there is WAY more to it than that. Ever hear of Apache? SSL? osCommerce? Linux? The amount of free software you're using to write those posts is impossible to list. The way the internet works is that you take what's there and use it to produce something new. Then you try and make money off of the new stuff you've made. In return for free use of all of the free stuff that's out there; all you have to do is release any improvements, bug fixes, etc.. to the preexisting infrastructure.
Am I right in assuming that you're not in a tech field? Because I have never met anyone who's livelihood depended on the internet who thought that it was somehow a good idea to allow the least technically innovative participants in the internet to pick winners and losers based on who they could extort the most money from.
Imagine a world in which Google was launched without net neutrality. A far inferior search engine like Altavista could just go to Comcast and buy priority. Even though the new Google search engine has a better search routine, it would lose because Altavista searches would be far faster. Do you really think that's a good idea? Why would we want to discourage competition?