Except if Netflix provides a bad experience, I can just switch to a different provider.
If my ISP throttles certain "services" - I literally have no other option beyond dial-up which I don't actually consider an option. The barrier to entry for a new ISP is a mountain. The barrier to entry to startup a new video service is minuscule in comparison. I could literally have a new video streaming service up in a week. Granted it wouldn't have nearly the features or content of something like a Netflix in a week, but creating a competitor wouldn't be hard if they started abusing their current market position.
The whole point here is ISPs should be the dumb pipes to carry our traffic. I don't want my ISP owning content (although that ship has sailed) anymore than I want GM to start owning public roads. "Oh, you drive a Ford? Sorry, you can't use the freeway, you'll need to take back roads."
In the same vein, if GM decided to just stop offering air conditioning in their cars, I'd go buy a Ford.
It's funny, the insanity of that in the real world would have people marching on capital hill with shotguns and pitchforks. Yet when it's "the internet" the general populace doesn't even see how badly they're being swindled.
>Except if Netflix provides a bad experience, I can just switch to a different provider.
In this market there are Netflix, Prime Video, and maybe Hulu across the whole planet. It's actually a much more consolidated market than ISPs. It just so happens that in the US the ISP situation is so dire you often only have 1 ISP per area. In Europe for example that's rare.
>The barrier to entry to startup a new video service is minuscule in comparison. I could literally have a new video streaming service up in a week. Granted it wouldn't have nearly the features or content of something like a Netflix in a week, but creating a competitor wouldn't be hard if they started abusing their current market position.
I'd argue the complete opposite. It's much easier to start a new and profitable ISP by installing a small amount of infrastructure in a dense area than to start a streaming service. When you start a new streaming service you have no content and thus can get no clients and thus can get no content licenses. It's a chicken and egg problem that leads to natural monopolies from network effects. When the content is now even being created by those same streaming services it's even worse. Good luck getting a content license from Netflix to be able to stream House of Cards.
But as I stated I fully agree with net neutrality and agree with you that it's a huge issue that the general population doesn't understand the full importance of. I just find it a hypocrisy that the same companies that want to build anti-consumer monopolies in other areas are fighting for net neutrality because it fits their interests.
I think what you'll find is that many, many people in the US live in cities like mine with regulated internet access that would make it practically impossible to "installing a small amount of infrastructure in a dense area".
If Google couldn't muscle their way into breaking Comcast's monopoly in my town, I don't see how some new upstart is going to do it.
Net neutrality won't fix that and that problem seems to be particularly serious in the US and not nearly as much everywhere else. We should fix all these issues, neutrality of networks, neutrality of devices and reasonable competition for ISPs. But saying that because the US has particularly bad competition between ISPs that the problem of the worldwide centralization in 2 or 3 streaming providers forcing lack of choice in devices isn't serious is the typical "the internet = the US" bubble.
If my ISP throttles certain "services" - I literally have no other option beyond dial-up which I don't actually consider an option. The barrier to entry for a new ISP is a mountain. The barrier to entry to startup a new video service is minuscule in comparison. I could literally have a new video streaming service up in a week. Granted it wouldn't have nearly the features or content of something like a Netflix in a week, but creating a competitor wouldn't be hard if they started abusing their current market position.
The whole point here is ISPs should be the dumb pipes to carry our traffic. I don't want my ISP owning content (although that ship has sailed) anymore than I want GM to start owning public roads. "Oh, you drive a Ford? Sorry, you can't use the freeway, you'll need to take back roads."
In the same vein, if GM decided to just stop offering air conditioning in their cars, I'd go buy a Ford.
It's funny, the insanity of that in the real world would have people marching on capital hill with shotguns and pitchforks. Yet when it's "the internet" the general populace doesn't even see how badly they're being swindled.