You're looking at this all wrong. It's not that Netflix is taking up 35% of all bandwidth. It's that CONSUMERS are choosing to spend 35% of their consumption on Netflix.
The ISPs are punishing consumers for their choices - it's just ridiculous.
On the other hand, can you swear that Netflix is doing all that it can to minimize bandwidth?
There's a conflict of interest: Netflix has a vested interested in provided lightly-compressed, very-high-resolution, bandwidth-hungry movies to its subscribers, especially if it obtains 100% free peering that it demands, as bandwidth would be free for them. On the other hand, ISPs are forced to upgrade network any time Netflix unilaterally decides to increase the bitrate of the movies, without this bringing any benefit to their bottom line.
For instance, if Netflix halved the bitrate of all their movies, subscribers will complain, but surely they would be able to deliver them without any buffering to everybody, and at the same time to keep free peering agreement and whatnot; they would go from 35% of total US bandwidth to 17%, and ISPs would be satisfying their customers' choice.
So where do you draw the line? Surely Netflix can increase the bitrate at will, at any time; should they be "allowed" to do it any time they want, while keeping a free peering agreement? Should the ISPs be forced to upgrade their network every time?
> can you swear that Netflix is doing all that it can to minimize bandwidth?
This is an excellent point. Why doesn't NetFlix at very least offer the ability for their users to queue content for download / local caching? If customers had a slow Internet connection at least they could plan ahead to avoid suffering streaming problems.
Ironically isn't streaming-only perhaps a violation of net neutrality? NetFlix artificially limits the speeds my ISP can deliver by only offering streaming. I have a 100Mbit/sec connection yet NetFlix chooses to limit me to streaming speeds.
It isn't Netflix's job to minimize their bandwidth usage for the sake of the ISPs. If I pay for 500GB/month at 20Mb down, that's what I should get. If Netflix does decide to increase the bitrate of their videos, than I'm the one that will have to deal with potential buffering issues and/or going over my cap.
As others have mentioned, the ISPs woefully miscalculated the growth of the internet and consumer bandwidth usage and as is the case with capitalism, those mistakes should cost them.
> Should the ISPs be forced to upgrade their network every time?
Forced to upgrade? Maybe not.
OTOH, should people be made aware that the ISPs failure to do so is a contributing factor to the unsatisfactory results they are getting so that they can make informed market (and political, insofar as government policy impacts the competitive landscape) decisions? Absolutely.
> Should the ISPs be forced to upgrade their network every time?
Come on, they have been doing this since the internet started. And in the beginning of internet some services were hugely popular as well. Keep in mind that upgrading the network costs money, but once the infrastructure is in place, moving bits is really cheap.
The difference is that now there is a single commercial player, with the ability of filling up whatever bandwidth the ISPs allocate for their customer base, with a single switch, and a commercial interest in increasing bandwidth (to improve quality to its subscribers).
If Verizon tripled its total bandwidth today, how long before Netflix begins raising the bitrate because "the Internet has evolved and we can now deliver bluray-quality streaming at the same $9/mo?". And then they fill up pipes again.
The whole issue here is cause by the impedance between the cost structure (pay by the gig transferred) and the price structure (pay by the peak speed, and I approximate the average gig transferred).
In a perfect utopic world where everybody was willing to pay by the gig transferred as that is the real cost factor, we wouldn't be here having this discussion.
> moving bits is really cheap.
Moving bits is cheap WITHIN the ISP network, but once you go outside they have a cost (depending on the peering agreements).
The ISPs are punishing consumers for their choices - it's just ridiculous.