Well, there were regulations in place, but due to a technicality, they no longer officially applied once home internet started arriving over cable/dsl/fiber as

Well, there were regulations in place, but due to a technicality, they no longer officially applied once home internet started arriving over cable/dsl/fiber as a networked service instead of dial-up. Lots of people pointed this technicality out, and wanted to update the regulations to account for it. The ISPs, naturally, weren't too keen on that, so they spent a lot of money on lobbyists to say "everything is fine, if you add more regulation you will break the internet". Thing is, they couldn't really do this on the one hand while simultaneously selling the Waltons the keys to the e-commerce kingdom. They had to adhere to the norms established by regulations, mostly. But 20 years later, they can pretend that there never were any regulations, and that these norms magically enforce themselves, so why regulate?