20 years ago it was a different world. The Internet was new. ISPs were new and there were more of them, with many being local and regional businesses. Technology for deep packet inspection and micro-prioritization of IP flows was non-existent or very inconvenient to deploy.

Today ISPs have already deployed technology to allow them to micro-prioritize and inspect all Internet traffic and are chomping at the bit to use it, and significantly more money is on the line. Today if ISPs are allowed to use this technology to pick winners and tax Internet companies they will do it.

My real long term concern is that this could lead to the effective blocking of peer-to-peer network capability on the consumer Internet. It would no longer even be possible for an edge to reach another edge with good performance.

Walmart couldn't have done this 20 years ago because they didn't realise how big or important the web could be at that time. Very few people did.