Moreover, they’re variously negotiating with telecablecos to gain “favored nation” or preferred treatment status on their networks.

Holy Turnaround, Batman!

Some writers quickly noted–here, and here–that Google at least is simply caching content closer to customers, just like Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM) and other CDNs do. And that much of the Journal article reflects the kind of sensationalism many feared would appear once Rupert Murdoch (NASDAQ: NWSA) bought the paper.

(As an aside, when I was doing research a year or two ago on Akamai, top management there vehemently denied my suggestions that they would ever be in competition with Google. Heh.)

If any of this is true, it’s a sad development, but hardly unexpected. As competition heats up for everything from ad serving to video downloads to cloud computing, everybody wants an edge. And they’re willing to pay for it.

Those that can afford to will get better services, better access, better distribution. Which means the little guys get shafted again. If you want to buy from Amazon, you get speedy page refreshes (not to mention faster access to things like S3). Google apps will work faster than, say, Zoho.

The rich do, indeed, get richer.

This plays right into telecableco hands. This is what they’ve been lobbying for, after all. (I can almost see the big, fat, spider sitting there in the middle of its web inviting them all in. ) The result will be a vertical model, with only a few players controlling the entire value chain, up and down.

If this was just about commerce, I’d be less concerned. But its also about access to information. And about control of content. Ultimately, it’s about exclusion and higher costs for everyone. As well as a loss of the kind of innovation that has made this country successful.

Imagine if TV stations were free to broadcast good signals from those advertisers (or news programs) that spent more.