Net neutrality is complicated and possibly boring to talk about, which is why it was nixed Thursday without all that much of a fight. Yes, there were 22 million public comments to the FCC—2 million of which were discovered to have been filed under stolen identities by the New York attorney general—but there wasn't exactly a Repeal and Go Fuck Yourself-level reaction from the public. Stephen Colbert noticed the goings-on, however, and pointed to a key detail surrounding the behavior of the telecomm companies that actually wanted this thing to happen:

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While it helps to understand the technical background of the net neutrality debate, all you really need to know is this: Some of the most massive, unaccountable corporations in the history of the world fought hard for the right to scrap it. They will now have the ability to, as Colbert highlighted, "block, slow down, or prioritize" web traffic based on what people are willing to pay to go different places on the web. Do you think these giant corporations invested all this time and money but won't be looking to capitalize?

The other thing you need to know is the person largely responsible for this mess, Ajit Pai, is this guy:

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Just, you know, FCC Chair Ajit Pai doing video at Daily Caller with repeat plagiarist Benny Johnson and a Pizzagate propagandist in mocking opposition to erasing net neutrality regs https://t.co/6alr4k4vgU — David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) December 14, 2017

If you have lost the will to live, you're processing this correctly. Pai is a former Verizon attorney who "joked" about a week ago about being a shill for the telecomm giant. He was appointed by Barack Obama to the FCC, and elevated to chairman by President Trump. He oversaw this process, and handed this power to an outfit like Time Warner Cable—I mean Spectrum.

Elsewhere, Jimmy Kimmel was playing the same tune:

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Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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