It's been fun, guys

But the telecoms are now free to kick you all off the internet. A federal appeals court says so.

The decision holds tremendous portent for the future of the Internet.

Net neutrality advocates fear that without rules in place, big companies like Netflix, Disney, and ESPN could gain advantage over competitors by paying ISPs to provide preferential treatment to their company's data. For example, YouTube might pay extra so that its videos load faster than Hulu's on the ISP's network.

We've already seen shades of What Could Happen in AT&T's Sponsored Data and Comcast's decision to have the Xfinity TV streaming app for the Xbox 360 not count against Comcast subscribers' data caps.

Instant Update:

Yesterday, I linked you over to this very important Gawker essay about how this is all going to go down.  Here's a critical passage.

The plutocrats are haunted, as all smarmers are haunted, by the lack of respect. Nothing is stopping anyone—any nobody—from going on a blog or on Twitter and expressing their opinion of you, no matter who you think you are. New media and social media have an immense and cruel leveling power, for people accustomed to old systems of status and prestige. On Twitter, the only answer to "Do you know who I am?" is "One more person with 140 characters to use."

Without Net Neutrality, this is no longer the case.  The plutocrats are now back in charge and they are free to shame and shout down the impudent... wherever they find them.