You may have heard that, according to the Wall Street Journal, it appears as though the FCC will advance new rules more or less abandoning the concept of Net Neutrality. Or, as President Candidate Obama said in 2008:

“The most important thing we can probably do is to preserve the diversity that’s emerging through the Internet…something called net neutrality. I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality.”

Hah! Good one. We didn’t realize what a terrific sense of humor then-Senator Obama had back then, though he’s certainly gone on to demonstrate it in the years since (nothing funnier than an Afghani wedding reception, after all).

Basically, the FCC is going to give Intertube providers the ability to charge a “premium” for fast transport across their networks. But I’m sure they’ll go out of their way to continue to make improvements to the non-premium parts of their networks. Uh-huh.

So if Netflix is willing to pay Comcast a fee to not have their traffic throttled (which, of course, they already are) and Amazon Instant Video (or HBOGO, or SHowtime OnDemand, or Hulu, or…) isn’t, well, guess what. You can either pay out the ass for Netflix or sit and watch Amazon buffer all night long.

Of course Netflix will also have to pay off every other carrier out there, too. Not much good having an agreement with Comcast if AT&T, Verizon, et al are just gonna throttle you down until you agree to the extortion (or course, the FTC and DOJ are doing their best to make sure the Comcast will soon be the only company that owns all the Intertubes and the media, so that should simplify the payoffs). And as a consumer, not only will you be paying more for access to video streaming sites, or VOIP services, news sites, or, dare I say, blogs, but I can pretty much guarantee you that the price for your crippled Internet service won’t be going down, either.

It’s a lose-lose situation.

So thanks, Mr. Preznit. We can always count on you to do what’s right – for the Telecom companies, and the big banks, and your pals at Goldman Sachs.