Today, the internet is as important as public roads
The FCC recently announced it plans to get rid of "net neutrality"; rules that require internet service providers (ISPs) to act as a common carrier. Net neutrality means that AT&T can't discriminate against certain websites and throttle their content (or block it altogether), while promoting other websites by not throttling them. On a neutral network, all traffic is created equal. The FCC wants to get rid of net neutrality because the FCC (and all their lobbyists) say it will be good for business, using the standard conservative argument that less regulation is always better.
First off, I'm rather conservative myself, and I detest unnecessary regulation. For example, I think deregulating the airline industry in the 1978 was a good thing. There's no need for the federal government to say which airlines can fly which routes. On the other hand, I am a proponent of the EPA, because I know that in practice cold-blooded capitalism is only concerned with the next few quarters, and when the hammer falls 20 years from now, the board of directors which covered up the toxic spill will be comfortably retired or dead. The cover up is good for their bottom line.
I'm a proponent of net neutrality because, in the modern world, the internet is just as important as roads. It would be unreasonable for people to expect city government to ensure that there's a Walmart in their town, but it's quite reasonable to expect that the city will maintain the road that leads to the neighboring city that has the Walmart. Now, there's no constitutional principle which says that the people have a right to public roads. But I think we can all agree that it is best to keep critical infrastructure in the public trust. Of course, one might argue that public roadways are not enough, you also need a car. But in our metaphor where the internet is roads, then laptops and smartphone are the cars — most people already own a car (if not five).
Anonymized internet traffic reinstates net neutrality
Here's how I predict the repeal of net neutrality will backfire. Big shots at Google, Facebook and Apple don't like the idea. They like to believe they act ethically (whether this is true or not), so they will use their impressive influence to anonymize internet communication. If your ISP can't tell where your packets came from, they can't throttle the one's from the sites they wish to "un-promote". Of course, the ISPs can tell when traffic is anonymized, so they will retaliate by blocking anonymized traffic altogether. But the big tech companies have the upper hand; they will require anonymized traffic (i.e. they won't communicate with you unless you're anonymized). Hence, any ISP which blocks anonymized content will also be blocking Google, Facebook, etc. And when the angry mob shows up at the door, the ISPs will be forced to unblock.
If you don't believe that big tech companies could require anonymized traffic, look no further than HTTPS. Ten years ago, all of our internet traffic was floating around mostly unencrypted. If someone intercepted my communication with Wikipedia, they could see what I was looking at. Now they can't, because Wikipedia uses encrypted traffic by default. And if you browse with Google Chrome, it actually warns you when a website isn't using HTTPS — with big red letters.
Expanding upon that real-world example, let me construct a hypothetical anonymization scenario. In 2018, Google releases a new version of Chrome which has the capability to automatically anonymize traffic (just like HTTPS, the user doesn't have to do anything to get it to work). Then they require that if you're talking to Google servers using anonymized Chrome, you must use anonymized content. Of course, to use your Gmail you'll still have to give Google your identity, but this identity will be buried deep within your anonymized, encrypted traffic; a generic eavesdropper won't be able to tell who you're talking to or who you are. Your ISP will know who you are, but not who you're talking to.
The fallout
And here's how this all backfires for big business. If everyone is anonymized online, they can't sell us targeted advertisement. Period. If people have the option of being anonymous, no one will want to "opt in" to reveal their identities to the websites they're visiting. And we all know that targeted ads are a lot more effective than random ones.
Ironically, Google will still be able to track us (given this Chrome example) because Chrome will still know exactly where we visit and Google servers will still read our Gmails. But as usual, Google won't sell that data externally. They'll use the data internally to make sure that only people interested in buying cars see car ads, forcing car dealers and manufacturers to buy ads through Google, instead of implementing their own. Given that fat incentive, I'd be surprised if Google isn't burning the midnight oil to launch anonymized Chrome in 2018.
Of course, there will be criminals who aren't using Chrome, and instead are using a free, "totally anonymous" browser. And try tracking down hackers and child predators once the entire internet is anonymous. It may have been possible to defeat anonymization when the traffic analysis could restrict itself to the tiny fraction of traffic which was actually anonymized. But if everything is anonymized, good luck.
Now, this is all hypothetical, based upon a very limited understanding of how anonymization actually works, and a lot of assumptions. But it seems plausible to me. So, if big business really had their own interests at heart, they might try supporting net neutrality. But as usual, they're mostly concerned with trying to boost growth in Q1, so they can't see the bigger picture. I guess that's one of the perks of being a wallflower.