For every great communication technology, there have been people who control it. Newspapers like the Justice rely on editors to judge which stories should be featured in each issue, and determine how much space each story earns. Radio is similarly edited for time and focus, as are television and film. Engaging with this media is engaging with what someone else has decided is most worthy of your attention, and more and more frequently, what someone else thinks you will buy.

In great part, this is what has made the Internet such a revolutionary space. It is a media of the most massive type, accessible to anyone with a modem, and is completely created and distributed by the people. Online, you choose what to read about, watch, listen to or interact with. The web has become a bastion of free speech, connecting like-minded people across the globe, and has served as a truly new method for the human race to interrelate.

All of that, though, is now subject to change.

Last Tuesday, the District of Columbia's Court of Appeals struck down a Federal Communications Commission law put in place in 2010 commonly known as the Open Internet Order. The Open Internet Order contained the last 10 years of laws defending a practice known as net neutrality, which is the idea that Internet service providers-the Verizons, AT&Ts and Comcasts of the world-must give all websites equal treatment. Netflix has to load as fast as Hulu, regardless of which Comcast has signed a deal. 

Verizon argued in court that this restriction overstepped the FCC's boundaries, citing that the FCC had previously classified Internet service as different from phone service, which is similarly unregulated. The court found the argument convincing. Now that net neutrality has been struck down, however, there is nothing that stands in the way of companies artificially capping how much bandwidth a given website will receive.

To translate the implications of this court ruling into English, your Internet provider now has the right to determine how fast a given website will load on your computer. If it is a site that has paid its dues to the provider, the site will load as fast as it did before the ruling, if not faster. If it is a site that the provider holds a grudge against, or simply a site that the provider has no reason to care about, speeds can become as sluggish as the provider desires. All of this is meant to determine a specific group-or rather, groups-as the ones "in charge" of the Internet: the ISPs, the people who you have to pay to get access. 

While it remains unclear what exactly ISPs will do with their newfound power, the open exchange of ideas that made the net so revolutionary is now thrown into a flux. Many experts and analysts predict that the Internet's next stage will resemble a media outlet which most ISP's have been providing for decades, and which they are much more familiar controlling: television. 

A user who likes to access social networking sites will need to pay for the social network package if they want to access the network in a reasonable amount of time. Those who like getting news online will need to buy the news package, online film watchers will need the movie package, and so on in ever more specific groupings designed to monetize a space that once valued independence and freedom above all other qualities. 

Net neutrality had many flaws, one of the most public being that it made pirating and illegally uploading intellectual property commonplace.This is an issue that still must be addressed, but restriction of the free flow of ideas, confining Internet users to the few approved websites that they can afford, is not a solution that allows this network to be the revolutionary innovation it is supposed to be. 

Many philosophers and skeptics say that the Internet's constant connections have destroyed our ability to focus on topics, as we would rather click through to the next idea than study the one we were on long enough to really understand. Would a model like television, that most time-wasting of vices, improve our ability to focus? Would boxing up the sites that do provide in-depth analysis on any given idea into their own package allow for any thoughtful analysis, when users can instead spend their hard-earned cash on other distractions?

The ones with the most to lose after this decision, though, are the start-ups, the group of friends in a dingy apartment trying to turn their idea into a cool, new website. Sites used to be able to be pet projects, something which didn't have to pay the bills but was a purely creative expression. Web designers may now have to struggle with a question that artists of other bents-filmmakers, novelists-have fought with for years: whether to "sell out" and put their talents toward filling the pockets of their providers. Sites that people build for fun will now no longer be seen: why would one spend their time and money on a site that doesn't have a point? This stagnates the growth of the web as a creative space and society, and all in the name of making rich corporations a bit richer.

One of the most amazing things about the Internet has always been that it cannot be defined: it constantly reinvents itself, and serves a number of purposes to every one of the millions that use it daily. It provides news, education and culture and is a truly unrestricted space for creativity. It constantly begs the user to click through to another site, another idea and another corner of the world that before they knew nothing about.
Now, the wealth of knowledge the Internet provides will be limited by a very real, very concrete factor: your bank account. This decision marks a tremendous step backward, and is further proof that companies, not the people, are the ones in control of free speech.