'Netflix and Alphabet Will Need To Become ISPs, Fast' (techcrunch.com) 328
Following the recent official repeal of net neutrality and approval of AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner, an anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via TechCrunch, written by Danny Crichton. Crichton discusses the options Alphabet, Netflix and other video streaming services have on how to respond: For Alphabet, that will likely mean a redoubling of its commitment to Google Fiber. That service has been trumpeted since its debut, but has faced cutbacks in recent years in order to scale back its original ambitions. That has meant that cities like Atlanta, which have held out for the promise of cheap and reliable gigabit bandwidth, have been left in something of a lurch. Ultimately, Alphabet's strategic advantage against Comcast, AT&T and other massive ISPs is going to rest on a sort of mutually assured destruction. If Comcast throttles YouTube, then Alphabet can propose launching in a critical (read: lucrative) Comcast market. Further investment in Fiber, Project Fi or perhaps a 5G-centered wireless strategy will be required to give it to the leverage to bring those negotiations to a better outcome.
For Netflix, it is going to have to get into the connectivity game one way or the other. Contracts with carriers like Comcast and AT&T are going to be more challenging to negotiate in light of today's ruling and the additional power they have over throttling. Netflix does have some must-see shows, which gives it a bit of leverage, but so do the ISPs. They are going to have to do an end-run around the distributors to give them similar leverage to what Alphabet has up its sleeve. One interesting dynamic I could see forthcoming would be Alphabet creating strategic partnerships with companies like Netflix, Twitch and others to negotiate as a collective against ISPs. While all these services are at some level competitors, they also face an existential threat from these new, vertically merged ISPs. That might be the best of all worlds given the shit sandwich we have all been handed this week.
For Netflix, it is going to have to get into the connectivity game one way or the other. Contracts with carriers like Comcast and AT&T are going to be more challenging to negotiate in light of today's ruling and the additional power they have over throttling. Netflix does have some must-see shows, which gives it a bit of leverage, but so do the ISPs. They are going to have to do an end-run around the distributors to give them similar leverage to what Alphabet has up its sleeve. One interesting dynamic I could see forthcoming would be Alphabet creating strategic partnerships with companies like Netflix, Twitch and others to negotiate as a collective against ISPs. While all these services are at some level competitors, they also face an existential threat from these new, vertically merged ISPs. That might be the best of all worlds given the shit sandwich we have all been handed this week.
Greed will find a way... (Score:2)
[Cue the Jurassic Park Music]
Greed will find a way.
Despite almost every person in the world now having a common benefit for accessing a world-wide open information network - greed always find a way to add in barrier and costs wherever it can.
Greed finds a way to play groups against groups - so that large numbers in effect demand that everything become more expensive for little real benefit, other than some easily disprove set of things their leaders are saying unbacked by any science or reasoning.
Greed find
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Despite almost every person in the world now having a common benefit for accessing a world-wide open information network - greed always find a way to add in barrier and costs wherever it can.
Meanwhile here in Norway:
Mean download: 94.0 Mbps (+58.0% YoY)
Median download: 45.8 Mbps (+45.4% YoY)
Broadband (>128 kbps): 85.3% of households
Over 40% fiber and climbing fast
And we are more sparsely populated with way smaller cities than the US. The generation growing up now won't know what bandwidth scarcity is, everybody can watch their own UHD Netflix stream...
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Indeed - that's the 'wherever it can' part.
Societies can sometimes push back against greed - as outrageous as it might seem to some here in the States.
We're missing half of the entire equation here - the whole 'wow, we should really give the public interest some weight in our policy debate' side of the equation.
Ryan Fenton
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I used to when I was on dialup, then the speedtest sites started taking too long to load.
Of interest in your link is that at least 2 sparsely populated large countries (Australia and Canada) are in the top 10.
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When Norway privatized the national telephone company back in 1999 or something like that, part of the agreement was that any service they provide to one Norwegian house they have to provide to 95% of Norwegian households. So there are 5% which were a little screwed. Then companies in those areas popped up pretty quick. So, compan
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Question: What are your upload speeds like?
Also, Gigabit major cities are clearly coming to the US. But while you may be sparsely populated compared to NYC, you're not compared to Wyoming.
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Your population density overall is lower because there's a lot of unpopulated land, but 75% of your population lives in areas with more than 1000 people per square kilometer :P.
The US has telecom problems beyond the population density one, but the bad thing is intermediate population densities. Sparsely populated areas don't matter because no one lives there. Densely populated areas are easier to service. Sprawling, intermediate areas, where lots of people live but the economics of providing service suck
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Norway thrives because Norway is a country about the size of California or maybe the American west coast states and also has a manageable population size. In America, it's possible to manage states the size of California without too much difficulty because the people of the state are all somewhat similar and carry common interests. If California were in charge of their own national budget, they could maybe manage to resolve water problems for example. But as part of a much lar
Dumbasses (Score:5, Insightful)
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No we don't.
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No we don't.
Write in complete sentences, please.
That was a complete sentence. "We" is the subject. "Don't", a contract of "do not", is the predicate. That's a sentence. "No" is an interjection, sentence word, or sentence-modifying adverb, depending on who you ask. Depending on how you count it, that was either one or two complete sentences.
This has been your Grammar Nazi service announcement for the evening.
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That was a perfect response. Very well done.
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At this point, they don't even have to buy politicians, they just need to promote the political party that isn't batshit crazy to the people that seem to think batshit crazy is a sensible position.
Re:Dumbasses (Score:5, Insightful)
You meant Socialism. Geez you kids today don't know words.
No Socialism is people getting together and starting a co-op ISP.
Crony Capitalism is when the Capitalists own the government.
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Not one mention of the FTC? (Score:4, Interesting)
Net Neutrality isn't dead, its just not being reinforced by the FCC, the FTC now owns it.
FTC will have to handle bad throttling practices by mega corps of Comcast and ATT.
Comcast offers unlimited for 50 extra a month, so they can cover that loss in the NFL/ESPN sports ball licenses...
Binge netflix all you want. I'm too busy watching twitch.
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Net Neutrality isn't dead, its just not being reinforced by the FCC, the FTC now owns it.
Only if you are deluded enough to buy that argument, which nobody at the FTC, FCC or anyone in the entire US judiciary actually has bought into.
Re: Not one mention of the FTC? (Score:5, Informative)
The FTC will only be able to enforce deceptive practices. If Comcast buries in their TOS that they can slow down connections as they please, it wonâ(TM)t be a violation.
More realistically... (Score:2)
Netflix and Alphabet will need to get involved with political campaigns fast!
Seriously, it's not a complex equation: promote the people that benefit you and bad mouth the ones that don't. While it may benefit me in this particular case, corporate involvement in politics still something that needs to be stopped.
One small problem to start with: (Score:2)
Scorched earth can really burn! (Score:5, Interesting)
If Comcast throttles YouTube, then Alphabet can propose launching in a critical (read: lucrative) Comcast market.
You mean like Google did to Microsoft Office with Google Docs? Years later, that's still costing MS big-time.. way more than they'll ever make from Bing. Didn't cost Google much, but it sure put MS on notice.
There's lots more where that came from.
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Welcome to HackerNews (Score:2)
Slashdot is now apparently just siphoning off HN's front page, just about half a day late.
Might as well read HN (but never comment there, because their moderation system blows more goats than Reddit and Voat combined.)
That's not really how it works though (Score:2)
It is more likely you would get a situation like this;
Step 1
Alphabet threatens Comcast. Comcast board sees it's profits/share price going down which impacts their bonus. Board tells Alphabet to jump and charges them the maximum they can legally get away with then they take part of that money and hire lawyers(eg;community groups) to object to everything Alphabet does.
Step 2
After five or six more years (maybe ten) Alphabet looks like it is going to get somewhere so, before the profits go down, the old b
Wishful thinking (Score:2)
Google Fiber is not coming to your neighborhood no matter how much you might wish it to be true, Danny Crichton.
Here we go... (Score:5, Interesting)
We know how AT&T handles this sort of thing with TV networks.
Next week, you'll go to Netflix.com and they'll start showing modal popups saying AT&T has decided to deny access to Netflix in a few weeks, and to call AT&T and let them know how you feel.
Three weeks later, you'll go to Netflix.com and get a certificate error: bad CNAME. Users who are idiots enough to click through the errors will see a marketing-crafted propaganda video about how Netflix has chosen not to share their content anymore with AT&T subscribers, and to call Netflix and let them know how you feel.
Invariably, this will occur right when some major season finale is supposed to air.
The Internet should be a utility. It should just be metered and paid for by the consumers, who should be able to freely change their caps. Who cares how they use the bandwidth they pay for?
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Thats what federal NN rules attempted to demand of networks all over the USA.
That every part of a network had to be upgraded to some standard and offered to all.
So all networks stayed slow as no investment would get covered if every poor community for "free" new networking.
With NN rules removed the federal side is now more relaxed.
A community with some ability to pay for new networking can try community networking, have a telco invest in a new ne
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Bullshit.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171005/09400638350/anybody-claiming-net-neutrality-rules-killed-broadband-investment-is-lying-to-you.shtml
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That ain't gonna happen because the last mile is still way too expensive to make investing in a new network a risk investors are willing to take.
The only way to fix this is local loop unbundling with mandatory minimum speeds. Split up the companies that own the last mile, with the last mile owner offering access to any ISP who wants it and charging enough to cover the upgrades required. Also mandate that all new installations are fibre.
Due to broadband being a natural monopoly there is no other way. It has
dateline 2019 Winter is coming but not for comcast (Score:2)
dateline 2019 Winter is coming but not for Comcast subs. Game of thrones season 8 is starting but comcast subs are unable to watch on tv or on hbo now and on comcast network going HBO.com just get pushed to some ATT website. ATT says it's about playing fair and that Comcast has been offered a deal.
Comcast says ATT is wants to have other NBC owned stuff as part of the HBO deal and We just want the deal to be about HBO like how it's been since 1972
Netflix and Youtube ... (Score:2)
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The next administration might just throw out Tweedie Pai and reverse his policies if enough people get pissed off.
Nope and nope. With NN gone and nothing taking it's place, the conglomerates will move very fast to make reversing NN's current status of gone exceedingly difficult.
We had our chance, it's passed us now. NN is dead, and the big guys will move swiftly to ensure it can NEVER be revived.
In this world, a dollar speaks much louder than a thousand people. Just how it is. People can scream until they're blue in the face, the dollar wins every time.
And there is a lot of easy money to be made by bilking all thes
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With NN gone and nothing taking it's place
But that's my point. With no net neutrality, the big ISPs will look for any club they can to beat down their competition. And the biggest one they have is to turn of the spigot on their competitor's content. They are collecting eyeballs and the best way they can do that is to offer the best package of content to those eyeballs. That means their own studio's content plus the third party stuff (Netflix, etc.). Since everyone can deliver Netflix there is no upside to screwing with it. They can throttle competi
Re:Netflix and Youtube ... (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, there might be a battle between AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and other carriers to convince customers that they are better ISPs, by not screwing with third party content.
No.
What will happen is AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and Mediacomm will collude to ensure that everyone gets the same shitty Netflix experience across the board. We'll have nowhere to go, so we'll give up and keep paying for shitty service.
The Low Earth Orbit satellite companies (StarLink, Boeing, and I think one other) will likely be our only hope of getting decent Internet service on a broad scale. Alphabet seems to have already given up on being a terrestrial ISP, and no one else seems to care to fill the gap.
Ah America (Score:2)
Netflix should flip the script (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Netflix should flip the script (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh... "move to another ISP".... good one...
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RIP Internet (Score:4, Insightful)
This merger is only the beginning of the end. Between this, Net Neutrality getting canned and the EU's broken mandates regarding the internet......
Yeah, it was fun while it lasted.
Now we'll have AT&T Net, Comcast Net, Verizon Net, and you can bet they absolutely do not want to talk to each other, or have their customers streaming content from their competitors.
Wish I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not, the ground work began for this with NN getting kicked to the curb. Now that the gloves are off, these big conglomerates can strangle the internet however they please.
Or they can not (Score:3, Insightful)
Look, Net Neutrality is the Law of the Land in CA, OR, WA, and a few other states.
They can just walk away from the unprofitable other states and let you freeze in the net dark.
All the profit is in the West.
Will Disney & Comcast reconsider? (Score:2)
Everyone seems to just whine about Comcast (Score:2)
I swear 95% of the arguments and complaints and "let's mess with the business model!" movements are complaints from Comcast customers about Comcast.
As a former ISP employee who doesn't live in a Comcast area, complaints about how your ISP's service sucks is not a persuasive argument for how the rest of the industry has to function. I'm really sorry, but if you have a problem with your cable monopoly, take it up with your local representatives to find a solution. Or switch services to something else.
Plenty o
Re:How is this a shit sandwich? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because not every company that will get shafted by greedy ISPs will be able to just roll out their own nation-wide fiber network. Christ, spend 3 seconds thinking before you type.
Re:How is this a shit sandwich? (Score:5, Insightful)
And if it weren't for regulatory capture at the local level eliminating competition that wouldn't even be an issue.
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Except for the part where last-mile cabling is a natural monopoly. Fix that, and then I'd agree with you.
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If it's a natural monopoly, how come I have four different hard-wired ISP options (Cable, two fiber offerings, one DSL) at my suburban house? Did someone forget to send them all the memo?
It's typically only a monopoly if at some point the government prevented any competition to allow their favored choice to have all the customers. Nothing "natural" about that.
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To respond in kind: if it's not a natural monopoly, how do you not have dozens of choices? I have a choice of something like 50 ISPs.
Perhaps calling it a "naturally monopolistic market", or a "natural oligopoly" would be more to your taste. The point is that there's a high barrier to entry due to the costs of physically sticking cables in the ground, and getting rid of anti-competition regulation doesn't make those costs go away.
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A monopoly literally means one single option, hence "mono" in the word.
Every business has barriers to entry. Typically, regulatory capture by industry incumbents (which is what happens when a regulator like the FCC micro-manages what's allowed) increases barriers to entry in that industry. Comcast or whatever can afford to comply with whatever paperwork/weird rules the FCC comes up with. A single-guy sharing bandwidth with his neighbors can't hope to.
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Libertarian whackjobbery (Score:3)
Last Mile isn't a hard situation to understand. If Crapcast already has your area wired for cable, it means it has a huge edge over any would-be competitor as they can go on making money with their own wires while the competitor has to m
Russian-Comcast tie? (Score:2)
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However some people might prefer cheaper but more restricted pipes, like the "social media package + wikipedia" for $20/mo instead of $60 for totally unrestricted internet.
Have you ever tried to use social media without being able to follow off-site links? Nobody wants this except the social media sites.
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okay, say Alphabet does built out fiber. Now there's 3 big ISPs. What does Netflix do, if Alphabet doesn't partner with them? What does Hulu do? Crunchyroll? The next streaming startup, who didn't exist when Alphabet was signing up partners?
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Oh please. Any ISP that does not deliver Netflix well will continue to blame it on Netflix and comfortably expect 99% of their customers to believe it without so much as blinking an eye.
Re:Actions are all that matters (Score:5, Insightful)
Move?
I typically refrain from using explicatives and ad hominems on Slashdot but how fucking stupid are you? Are you literally a Russian troll or just acting like one? If moving was an option for everyone, we wouldn't be in this shit sandwich because people would just congregate in areas with more than one ISP choice and ISPs would have recognized years ago monopolies don't work.
And yet, monopolies do work, you shmuck, and here we are.
No, moving is not an option. Most people don't want to pick up and move just because their ISP is being a shitstain. There are typically bigger priorities than that. No, we will not guaranteed get a third ISP. And even if we did, the effect is making the entry to market for websites that much higher. Startups now have to start or join an ISP? Are you fucking kidding me?
AT&T buying Time Warner is one of the biggest shit sandwiches in the history of the Internet, aside from losing the battle on Net Neutrality. We're going from 2 ISPs in some areas to 1. At best we'll go back to 2. At worst, everyone involved, actors good and bad, now recognizes the cost of business in the new age: buddy up with an ISP or don't fucking bother trying.
If the Department of Justice was in any sort of functional order right now, this deal would have been laughed at on day 1 or the two companies involved would never have tried.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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What Netflix DOES, my dear child, is play the three off against each other since it has the most desirable online resource in America, and any ISP that does not deliver it well is open to customers being poached by other ISP's (or even wireless carriers if they can deliver a decent base video quality).
Netflix might have the power to do this... smaller companies do NOT.
It's also a pretty big assumption that Alphabet/Google would compete with Comcast or Verizon everywhere. More likely they'll start gradually adding a market here and a market there like they were before. There will likely still be a large portion of Americans with only one "choice" of realistic ISP for a long time to come.
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Socialism is not forcing competition or having reasonable rules such as getting what you pay for.
I live in a country with net neutrality, it means I pay for X amount of data, 250 GBs in my case. How I use that data is up to me. I can watch cat videos all day from joes_cat_video.com or Netflix. Either way costs the same for both me and my ISP.
Why does it cost Americans more to stream 720 Netflix then the 8k video from joes?
Re: What Netflix does is drink from the skulls of (Score:2)
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Well the post I responded to said, "What I DO NOT want is a socialist system which FORCES ME to pay for their business model. " in reference to Netflix, which seems to be a common idea that they're subsidizing Netflix.
As for the future, favouritism is very likely.
"Quality of this video degraded by Comcast" (Score:2)
TFS says:
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If Comcast throttles YouTube, then Alphabet can propose launching in a critical.
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Alternatively, YouTube could display that fact, honestly, with text such as:
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Comcast is degrading the quality of this video.
To speak to Comcast about that, call them at Call (866) 828-4407
For full quality YouTube videos, you can switch to LocalISP.net
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Most of Comcast's customers use YouTube, so they'd get calls from a million customers within hours.
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Would Comcast bother answering the phone or put the callers on hold for hours? And what makes you think there is a LocalISP.net.
Re:How is this a shit sandwich? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, you sweet summer child. Bless your heart.
Re:How is this a shit sandwich? (Score:5, Insightful)
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So, in other words, NN is gone and none of the bad things people were predicting have come to pass yet.
Wake me up when this isn't all much ado about nothing.
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It's a disaster for consumers. You want to watch Netflix... ok get your service from this provider. You want to watch TV... get an extra service from that other provider. If you love TV bundles and having to buy a bunch of extra crap to see what you want, you're going to love this.
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The most effective option giving the longest benefits would actually be eliminating regulatory capture at the state level.
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Because in many places there is ONLY 1 ISP and they can do whatever they want. They will now double the price and half the speed, and then ask you for even more to get back what you already had.
Many areas? Probably. It's a big country. But here's the kicker: 4G Wireless is "good enough" in many cases for a good video/OTT phone internet experience (and, let's face it, video is what consumers want here...). The vast majority of America that's not completely rural has reasonable competition for internet service when you add in wireless providers and maybe a MiFi device.
Is it as good as the cable vs DSL competition at par we had in the dot-com era? No, it's not. Is it good enough? Pretty much.
Re: netflix and alphabet will be fine (Score:5, Informative)
Comcast was throttling BitTorrent and lying about it to its customers before the FCC regulations. Comcast also intentionally let their interconnections get saturated to slow down Netflix to get more money. Weâ(TM)ve seen it happen before, it will happen again.
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Comcast was throttling BitTorrent and lying about it to its customers before the FCC regulations. Comcast also intentionally let their interconnections get saturated
I know we're talking about Comcast, but for some things we need to take the approach of what is reasonable for a mom & pop ISP and then apply the same answer to any ISP (including the bad ones).
Throttling is one thing and I agree against NN.
Allowing a pipe to become saturated and not upgrading it on the other hand is a completely different argument. Adding new interconnects, or growing existing ones can be a costly exercise. A router may simply not have additional ports. It might not be as simple as
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1) As you mention yourself, a congested pipe is not the same as throttling. The idea that a startup will have the same access to a consumer as Youtube under NN is simply not true.
This is a double edged sword and why throttling is very different from a congested pipe. As an ISP such as Comcast grows it's likely to have pipes that fit into one of three categories.
Re: netflix and alphabet will be fine (Score:5, Insightful)
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Um...they were totally NOT fine guy who apparently shills for the cable industry. How do you imagine this neutrality bill got passed to begin with? Multiple carriers were fined for throttling and Netflix paid an "undisclosed amount" to Comcast and their internet magically wasn't crippled anymore. Please go die in a lake of fire.
Google 2017 net income: $12+ billion
Netflix 2017 net income: $500 million
I'm pretty sure they will manage
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While Disney arguably has a right to fees (very arguably with their quest for permanent copyright extensions) Comcast only owns the pipes....but not paying them off would have destroyed their business so Netflix paid up. That's why your monthly fee is $14 and not $11 like it was prior to this.
Re: netflix and alphabet will be fine (Score:3)
I gave you net income numbers.
By definition a positive net income is a profit, and these two companies are reporting large profits.
Re:netflix and alphabet will be fine (Score:5, Insightful)
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Net neutrality isnt about Netflix and Alphabet. Bandwidth throttling and companies having to pay for a "premium channel" to their customers doesn't hurt them, they will pay and carry on: this extra fee is an annoyance, but it actually helps protect them from competing startups without deep pockets. Good luck launching your music or video streaming service if the connection to your customers is going to be shit by design.
The thread you are commenting on is called "Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast".
It sounds like you agree this is nonsense. They are major players with deep pockets.
As for becoming ISP's, Google has already gone down that road and found out it's not so cheap or easy
https://gizmodo.com/what-happe... [gizmodo.com]
"Part of the problem is simply that expanding fiber broadband was always going to be a massive undertaking, and was always going to face some big hurdles. Laying miles and miles of cables takes ti
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They are major players with deep pockets.
As for becoming ISP's, Google has already gone down that road and found out it's not so cheap or easy https://gizmodo.com/what-happe... [gizmodo.com]
"Part of the problem is simply that expanding fiber broadband was always going to be a massive undertaking, and was always going to face some big hurdles. Laying miles and miles of cables takes time and money—and as one Alphabet employee told the Wall Street Journal last year, “Everyone who has done fiber to the home has given up because it costs way too much money and takes way too much time.”
It was expensive when they were trying to make a new profitable business. Now however, they are protecting one of the most profitable businesses the world has ever seen. Now what is expensive before is now cheap.
Something tells me that someday, we will look back on this and say how much the ISPs fucked up by inviting (almost forcing) Alphabet and the other mega-cap tech companies to compete with them. Alphabet has more cash on hand than AT&T's market cap. Its like me picking a fight with a profess
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“Everyone who has done fiber to the home has given up because it costs way too much money and takes way too much time.”
When did CenturyLink give it up? They just installed my GPON gateway last month. Fiber straight through my wall.
comcast can pull an ATT and block stearming on pla (Score:2)
comcast can pull an ATT and block steaming on some plans just like how ATT blocked facetime on some data plans.
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But it's true. The ISPs might extort a little money out of Netflix, but nothing major because customers will revolt if Netflix doesn't work. The same is even more true for Google.
New services that don't have a huge customer following will be over the barrel though.
Re:netflix and alphabet will be fine (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean the customers will *complain*. Revolting would probably mean something like cancel their service. But with most places in the US with just 1 or 2 options for high-bandwidth ISPs, actually hitting these ISPs where it hurts (cancel service and monthly bills) means Denial of Service to the customer.
Hence why Title II regulations really ought to still apply, and vertical integration should NOT be allowed. (You can either sell an internet pipe, content/services, but NOT BOTH). It's such a blatent conflict of interest.
(Also note historically, like 20 years ago, Net Neutrality rules didn't have to have as much meat in them because most ISPs didn't own the last mile, the phone company did, so ISPs could compete, and the phone company played it's TitleII card (we just pass bits, so we don't look at the traffic at all, and also not liable!).
Now the ISPs, telcos, content providers and distribution systems are all owned by the same entity.... how is this good for the consumer and where does "market forces" actually play when dealing with companies with federally granted monopoly power (and using that power to extend their influence in other markets... vertically).
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I don't know how this is all going to play out in the long run, there are too many variables involved, and too many upheavals both here in the U.S. and around the world right now. The entire spectrum of outcomes is in play: all the way from 'nothing bad happens and everything works out fine' all the way to 'the Internet becomes an unusable disaster and everyone just stops bothering with it and it dies off' and maybe even 'the Internet as we know it gets chopped up
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New services that don't have a huge customer following will be over the barrel though.
Therein lies the problem. Ending NN won't hurt the current Internet behemeths much, if at all... it's the smaller players and future start-ups that won't stand a chance.
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One can dream.
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We the consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
People act like YouTube and Netflix don't already pay ludicrous amounts for their hosting. Any deals between them and an ISP is double dipping.
Seems to me that we, the consumer suckers, are the ones getting double-dipped. I was pretty clearly under the impression that I already pay for high-speed internet access, including YouTube, Netflix, ...
Re:We the consumers (Score:5, Funny)
under the impression that I already pay for high-speed internet access,
Ahhh yes, there's the fallacy again. You pay your ISP for high-speed access to their network, and then the bill also includes egress access to the general internet.
For normal ISPs, their network connects you to the outgoing peer that connects you to the actual internet. Those peons don't have enough resources invested to make you stay around their network, so you have to access elsewhere.
For great ISPs like Comast, Verizon, and the defunct AOL, your high-speed access is simply your window into to our glorious on-line world. Why on Earth would you want to go elsewhere. (No really, WHY? STOP it.) Our network contains glorious, copious amounts of never-ending entertainment that we tie back to your bill, and the best part is that it's free! At least to us that is; we've got all of the already servers sitting on our networks and pay for the content anyway, so the more we can makeXXXX ahem, let you stay within our network the better for us.
For that small eventuality when you need to access the general internet to, say, connect to your bank to pay our bill, we graciously provide an egress to the general overall internet where "everyone else" lives. But don't dally outside too long, because there's GREAT stuff already located on our network where we also store your bill, and after all, we have to pay for internet egress access, y'know? That stuff gets expensive. The text and few graphics your bank has? Fine. Audio, and then video streaming? To the outside world?? STOP it, that stuff's bothersome, our 1200 baud modem to the outside world gets really hot sometimes, y'know? Our 10G and experimental 100G blades interconnect just fine, but do you know how hard it is to FIND a modem now-a-days? US Robotics isn't making them anymore and eBay seems to have supply problems as well. So just say on OUR side of the network and everyone'll be much happier.
So in conclusion, connect to your ISP and just stay there. We might or might not bill your for bytes, but if you egress then WE'LL ALSO be billed for them. Friends don't make other friends incur extra costs. Just hang around our network and billing services, we'll all be much happier if you do. That's a nice internet you've got there, shame if something were to happen to it.
-- Your loving ISPs: Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, CenturyLink, CoX.
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Youtube is Google. Google has deals with service providers around the world to scra
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No more having to stay on federal NN paper insulated wireline networks.
Communities all over the USA can now build their own networks. No more having to stay on a monopoly telco network due to NN federal rules.
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and soon you will need an TV package to get ANY Netflix on Comcast.