Let's imagine that some form of shaking down service/content providers in order to achieve certain speeds/priorities becomes some established part of the landsc

Let's imagine that some form of shaking down service/content providers in order to achieve certain speeds/priorities becomes some established part of the landscape before the FCC or Congress changes hands again. If, when that happens, the decision is made that this is not an acceptable state of affairs, it will then look and feel to the ISPs like not a potential way of extracting rent, but a lost revenue stream. They'll yell loudly about lost revenue stream and tell everybody how they will have to charge consumers more in order to make up for it. They'll shout about how the government is taxing the internet. They'll go to court and see if the lost revenue gives them a better case under the law. And because it'll be the status quo -- but one in which most of the rents they're extracting are invisible to consumers -- they'll be more successful at persuading people than they already have been.