Once they realized that they had a systematic advantage in petitioning hosting companies to deplatform disfavored content without due process, however, all of the underlying arguments for net neutrality were quietly discarded.
It was an economic issue, not a political one.
The two can't be disentangled. Woke censorship is often justified through economic self-interest nowadays. Do you really believe activists 20 years ago would be placated if ISPs had simply promised to throttle only based on politics rather than economics?
But, of course, it had to be politicized. And few understood the issue, so they made up their own straw men.