I think that's dangerously short-termist. The end of network neutrality will consume far more resources in the long term than the disarray of a resignation that will be forgotten bynext year.
Sure, they can afford the deals with carriers this year, and next. But once they're locked-in the fees will just keep rising. Why wouldn't Comcast, for example, keep raising the preferred-bits delivery fee? They'd be negligent not to do so.
I was hoping that the big Internet content-giants would ignore the pay-for-priority-delivery model that is emerging; if no-one paid for first-class delivery then the pricing model would collapse. However it seems that they'll just fall in line and accept it as a cost of business, increasing the 'cost' to their customers to compensate.
This would mean the barrier of entry goes higher and higher. As long as they are not priced out by Comcast, Netflix will enjoy virtually no competition from smaller players.
Then they'll just make sure all delivery is third-class.
Even getting ISDN installed was an absolute bear and I gave up while another stuck with it. Modems were fortunately getting faster but DSL didn't come to us till after cable did.
We are just as likely to get a regulated nightmare guaranteeing mediocre speeds and service at set costs the prevents anyone from wanting to jump in. Besides I really want to know why we should favor content providers over service providers? If you are going to regulate one then why not the other?
> Hastings didn't outright dismiss net neutrality categorically.
I didn't read the first article as stating that he would.
> Rather, he was forthright in admitting that it's not a priority within the context of Netflix's current goals due to a resignation that it's not a fight worth the resources [...]
"Not worth the resources" is a statement that can have many reasons - one try at an explanation could be that the "worth" is primarily determined by how much use net neutrality would be to Netflix, a theory somewhat backed by Hastings' first quote.
That the Trump FCC is shifting the weights is certainly true, though I don't see how the change is profound enough to justify ceding defeat. The telco lobbyists certainly didn't "give up" under Obama and the FCC's then pro-net-neutrality stance.
Just out of curiosity, what kind of resources are we talking about? Maybe this is an overly naive view, but from my perspective it seems like they could just as easily have kept a nominal pro-NN stance without actually investing any meaningful capital.
In other words, even if they internally decided that this isn't a "fight" worth continuing in terms of the legal battle - it's not really clear why they felt the need to publicly distance themselves from net neutrality like this. Why not simply keep paying it lip service?
This is might be seen as an instance of "pulling the ladder up behind you".
Lots of back-and-forth in 2014, but here are major HN discussions:
Keep in mind that Netflix is somewhere around 40-50% of peak internet traffic volume. Operating without edge caches located physically within the ISPs network was not feasible. It is not reasonable to expect the ISPs to integrate/operate those edge caches for no cost. Netflix always knew they were going to have to pay, the question was "How much?"
Once you start dealing with network architecture for video distribution at the national ISP scale, strict principles of net neutrality don't really make a ton of sense. You need edge caches, you need a place to put them, and it's expensive and complex for ISPs to manage the hundreds (yes, hundreds) of vendors who want to put edge caches in their datacenters. Netflix just wanted a better "volume price" than they were paying before.
I don't get this argument. If it is cheaper than the alternative (buying more IP transit / peering, dealing with customer complaints, churn, etc.) why not?
If you want to not pay, well, that's fine I guess. But nobody is going to take your traffic. And it's been this way since like 1990.
Edit: I'll note that it works differently in other places such as Europe because the telecoms are subsidized and partially owned by the government. That's not going to happen in the US, and there are a lot of entrenched interests and political power supporting this business model.
> The ISPs bear none of the expense of "buying more IP transit".
Yes, they do. Very few ISPs are fully settlement free. Most use IP transit, public and private peering to interconnect with other networks. They may not need to buy more IP transit, but at the very least they will need to pay for the peering and transport infrastructure.
The alternative is obviously not to pay for anything and watch your interconnects saturate. Depending on how much of a (local) monopoly you have, this is either feasible, or not.
> That's always how the transit business has worked in the US -- the sender pays
That's not correct. To familiarize yourself with how transit works, refer to articles on Internet peering, IP transit and 95th percentile billing on Wikipedia. You can also learn some of the basics on DrPeering.
> this is how AWS works, and not by coincidence -- traffic within the AWS network is free in most cases, but leaving the network you pay
Amazon's billing model isn't really related to how IP transit and peering works. It's just how they set up their business.
> If you want to not pay, well, that's fine I guess. But nobody is going to take your traffic.
Plenty of people will take your traffic for free. Even gladly if you are on an Internet Exchange.
> And it's been this way since like 1990.
You've been out of the game for too long, if you think that's how things work.
> Edit: I'll note that it works differently in other places such as Europe because the telecoms are subsidized and partially owned by the government.
That's just factually incorrect. The willingness to peer has nothing to do with government ownership or being European. It's all about market power and what you can get away with. A prime example is Deutsche Telekom, who is notorious for not peering with (almost) anyone due to their strong market position in Germany. This and other similar examples poke holes in your theory.
Furthermore, the European telecoms have been privatized. The government may still own a piece, but they are not subsidized outside of normal universal service obligations.
the other responses on this story are surprising to me. they seem to be on the intellectual level of reddit/facebook.
I read the Recode article this article is citing and watched the conference discussion. Here is what Hastings actually said:
“It’s not narrowly important to us because we’re big enough to get the deals we want,” Hastings said.
This article presents that subtly differently, by omitting the first sentence and shifting around the context (and thereby altering the tone). It also conveniently fails to include the broader discussion in which Hastings made this statement. If you look at the actual conference dialogue, Hastings didn't outright dismiss net neutrality categorically. Rather, he was forthright in admitting that it's not a priority within the context of Netflix's current goals due to a resignation that it's not a fight worth the resources, which is far less cavalier and hypocritical than portrayed. The Recode article continues with more nuanced coverage:
Perhaps another reason Netflix is being a little quieter about fighting to keep current net neutrality rules is that Hastings knows it’s already a lost cause. His best guess at what will happen is exactly what FCC chair Ajit Pai has been hinting at: “It might be that ISPs just accept the principles [of net neutrality] and it’s not enshrined formally,” he said. “I think the FCC is going to unwind Title II,” he added later. And he believes that it’s in the ISPs’ “long term interest” to respect net neutrality principles, so maybe they’ll just do it on their own.
While we're at it, Hastings was also quoted saying, “The Trump FCC is going to unwind the rules no matter what anybody says."
I'm not taking a side on Netflix's course of action here, but I personally feel this article presented the facts in a particularly disingenuous way. There are legitimate arguments that blindly throwing resources at fighting the FCC is an unproductive use of time and money, even if you are pro-net neutrality. You can disagree with those arguments, but it's really unfair to mischaracterize them as sympathy and hypocrisy. For those of you readying hashtags and boycotts, consider that there can be valid opposition to the FCC that looks more nuanced than, for example, Tim Cook's letter to the US government.