Why Netflix Was Less Outspoken on Net Neutrality This Time

[brooklynite]

Bloomberg:

Netflix Inc., a champion for net neutrality regulations three years ago during Washington’s last big battle on the topic, has been less outspoken this year as the rules head for the chopping block.

One reason: the Los Gatos, California-based company that started out lending movie DVDs by mail has grown into a $12 billion online video provider that doesn’t need the rules as much as it once did. And broadband providers need its 53 million U.S. subscribers and exclusive movies and TV series such as “The Crown” and “Stranger Things” in order to meet consumers’ expectations.

Other web companies, too, have grown bigger since Washington last ran through the net neutrality debate in 2014. Their newfound strength insulates them from any negative effects of Thursday’s near-certain vote by the Federal Communications Commission to gut the regulations put in place during the Obama administration.

“I’m not sure that Google, Netflix and Facebook need the protection of the open internet order any more,” Cowen & Co. analyst Paul Gallant said in an interview. “They have a lot more power than they used to.”

[PoliticAverse]

1. Netflix gave in to reality which is that on the Internet, content providers must pay for bandwidth

to carry their content, and if your content is over roughly 36% of total Internet traffic and needs 'fast lanes', you're gonna have to pay for them instead of trying to get other people to do so. The problem Netflix had simply wasn't about "net neutrality" but rather guaranteed bandwidth.

They've even got a webpage that explains what they're doing now:
https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/how-netflix-works-with-isps-around-the-globe-to-deliver-a-great-viewing-experience

If you are a small startup company and think you're going to start competing with Netflix or youtube without building a high-speed internet network (or renting someone else's) to carry your traffic volume you are going to be in for a surprise.

[msongs]

2. internet companies will stifle and destroy competition? how un-american LOL nt

[hunter]

3. Key point here is that Netflix is now using Amazon's infrastructure, Amazon's "cloud."

Netflix used to have their own infrastructure, but they couldn't keep up.

It's an odd relationship, since Amazon is a competitor in some ways. For now Amazon Web Services seems willing to sell capacity to anyone, including the Department of Defense and the CIA.

Maybe what Netflix is saying amidst all that techno-blather is that it's up to Amazon now to defend the pipelines, that's one of the things Netflix pays them for.

At times I think the telcoms know their business models are obsolete and they are buying every clueless and corrupt politician they can to gain leverage as they negotiate their surrender to the new rulers of the land: Amazon-Apple-Google-Microsoft.

[herding cats]

6. This is my understanding as well.

They punted to a higher power. Might I add, wisely so.

[mythology]

4. Except Netflix isn't the ISPs customer.

We are. If they promise me X megabytes per second, then I should be able to use X mbps to do exactly whatever I want with it. Not whatever my ISP wants me to do, especially if they have a vested interest such as Comcast to have me pay for their content, or like the ISP that was also a phone company who blocked voice over IP. If the ISP refuses to live up to their advertised service, they should start getting the corporate death penalty. They offer a service that only lives up to the promise if you download at 3 am on a Tuesday. There is no valid technological reason to limit bandwidth. If you want to charge more for higher speeds, fine, but they don't even begin to provide the service level promised. Oh and blatantly took public money to expand service and told the public to fuck off afterward. Netflix shouldn't need a fast lane. For standard definition, you need 3 mbps, for high definition you need 5 mbps.

Sure Netflix has a page that doesn't say they paid blackmail, but that's exactly what it is. ISPs who refuse to provide the service which we contract with them to provide (and on average have exactly zero other options). Netflix pays Level 3 and Cogent for their bandwidth. Comcast and Verizon intentionally congested and slowed Netflix because they wanted more money. Period. Anything else is a lie. If it wasn't true, users wouldn't have seen faster speeds for Netflix when using VPNs. That alone proves that it wasn't about a technical constraint.

There is a reason Ajit Pai and his corporate overlords had to blatantly lie to the public. In FTC filings to investors (where lying to investors is a crime) ISPs such as Comcast said that net neutrality had zero impact on their ability to provide service. Ajit Pai and the ISPs claimed that it did, because there was no obligation to tell the truth. There's a reason that a substantial percentage of anti-net neutrality comments were clearly fake.

We live in an increasingly internet reliant world. And given that 50% of Americans have exactly 1 broadband choice, and over 90% have 2 choices, there is no market. This is the functional equivalent of water and electricity not being regulated in terms of how important it is to the modern world. ISPs regularly sue to block competition like Google Fiber and municipal broadband. In areas where Google Fiber exists, suddenly incumbent ISPs manage to offer much faster speeds at better prices than they do in other cities.

There is absolutely no valid ethical or technological reason to oppose net neutrality. Anybody who does either has an economic interest in it, or frankly doesn't actually understand the subject.

[PoliticAverse]

5. The problem is the promise of "X megabytes per second". Just because you have Xmbps to your ISP...

says nothing about the Internet connection bandwidth upstream. A small ISP may sell 1,000 people Xmpbs connections
but have only enough upstream bandwidth for 200 simultaneous full bandwidth sessions. Telcom services are oversold
to consumers. Every consumer can't use their full bandwidth at once because there isn't the network capacity. Sure
they'll sell you Xmbps but they won't tell you that at peak times you might only get Xmbps/2 and if everyone wanted to use
their full bandwidth at the same time they might be getting Xmbps/10.

I'm not sure the issue with Comcast and Verizon were intentionally slowing Netflix traffic, there's evidence that
the problem was bottlenecks at peering points (see: https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to-end-slowdown/ ). Differences between the speeds of direct and VPN netflix connections could be because the traffic was taking
different routes. Netflix traffic was extreme accounting for about 37% of all Internet traffic at peak times.

Netflix needs a 'fast lane' because they need to guarantee their huge real-time streaming traffic gets to your ISP uncongested.

The last part of your post outlines the problem. Lack of competition at the last mile. If you have only 1 ISP choice
and it is too expensive or if the connection is too slow net neutrality isn't the issue.