The DC Court of Appeals has struck down the 2010 FCC order that established network neutrality on the specious and laughable grounds that consumers have a choice in their provider.

Before this ruling, these monopoly common-carriers were obliged to treat all paid traffic equally. In particular, they weren’t allowed to privilege their own traffic over others. This was partly to preserve the commons that is the internet, but also because the quasi-monopolies enjoyed by the telcos were built on the back of public investment, so expecting them to play nicely was a reasonable expectation.

Look now to see the Verizons and AT&Ts of the world aggressively fuck us all even more than they already do. AT&T may degrade traffic it sees as carrying information that competes with its own providers (like, say, YouTube). Look for them to try to charge competitors like Google more to allow us, the paying customers, to reach them.

If this isn’t overturned at the SCOTUS level, the Internet as we have enjoyed it — a huge engine of wealth-creation and connectivity — will be destroyed.