The Internet as we know it died Tuesday (1/14) and nobody even noticed. Thanks to the U.S. Court of Appeals decision, Internet Service Providers can now decide which websites work faster, which ones to charge you for and even which ones to block you from.

Up until now, the Internet has basically been a free-for-all. You pay for your service and you get to do whatever you want -- whether that's watching Netflix, trading stocks or downloading porn -- at the speed you pay for. A Verizon Communications appeals case against the FCC over their "net-neutrality rules" has just changed the entire game... and likely not for the better.

The U.S. Court of Appeals threw out those FCC rules on how ISP's manage the delivery of their service yesterday, giving a terrifying amount of control back to those companies. What does all of this mean for you? Well, let's run a worst case scenario for you:

You spend most of your time streaming movies on Netflix. However, your ISP owns a service that competes with Netflix, so they can slow down the speed  at which Netflix is delivered to you (making your viewing experience horribly laggy)... or they could just block the service from you entirely.

Sounds fun, right? What about this:

Your favorite website is Huffington Post. You went there every day prior to your ISP's new tiered internet packaging. You couldn't afford the Unlimited Package and the more reasonably-priced Basic Internet Package doesn't include access to certain "premium websites" like Huffington Post.

Yeah, they might be able to turn the Internet into a "Pay Cable" system now. We're not saying it's going to happen, but when was the last time you remember a corporation giving you something for free when they could just as easily make you pay through the nose for it?

There is still a glimmer of hope though. According to the video above, a policy like the FCC's now-debunked one is not completely dead, somebody just needs to get one reworked and put into place. They better do it quick or we might all be screwed.

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