Myself, I think it's far more likely that ISPs are about to successfully run out the clock on all this, kill net neutrality, and then they won't have to ever worry about this or any "transparency" efforts again. Everyone can just pay more for ever-crappier service, and there will be no relevant data to examine, because there will be no "standard" level of service anyone has access to, and therefore no way to compare one level of service to any other level of service at another time or via someone else's product...or at least, no way to do anything about it other than impotently gripe.
Companies like Verizon don't casually threaten legal action, this is really getting to them.
(Perhaps because one of Verizon's unique selling propositions is the quality of their networks, this has the potential for broad damage to their brand.)
Why would you say this is a "demonstrably successful" action, btw? Has Verizon actually changed any of their business practices for the better? So far, all I can see is that they are tossing around legal threats. That's not progress; that's Verizon's gigantic legal team gearing up to make sure Verizon can continue to do Absolutely Nothing Positive about the issues in question.
Right now I don't read that threat as credible, but, let's say, how about after the first few Congresscritters are sent home to spend more time with their families after an election? We gun owners, probably less numerous than voting Internet users (don't believe gun ownership self-reporting in surveys, for obvious reasons), with nothing more than our organized votes, have moved mountains at every level of government over the last three decades. Ask ex-Speaker of the House Tom Foley about our power (first Speaker to be turned out of office since the Civil War in 1862).
As the Internet, and good Internet service, gets every more important, the potential is there. Getting back to my analogy, the gun grabbers had a fantastic run for a couple of decades (or more than a century, depending on how you count this and gun control starting to really bite non-minorities), before politically effective resistance started showing results.
Are you sure? As someone who has dealt with more than 40 different threats of legal action from major companies, I would have guessed that this is more or less their default response.
It also depends on the domain, e.g. Disney protecting IP or ASCAP uncompensated public performances is one thing, and the latter's model can run into PR buzz saws, e.g. Boy and Girl Scouts sings at camps.
Whereas this is part of a big fight that goes right to the heart of a significant part of Verizon's business, and an even more significant part of their potential future business. When Disney threatens a day care center for having an unlicensed depiction of one of their characters, it's routine. Whereas I expect this threatening letter to Netflix was run way up the flagpole; Verizon hasn't typically been that maladroit with PR, have they?
In what domains have you received threats of legal action?
However, TV networks cut off access to cable provider customers when they can't reach a deal on price... so why can't Netflix do the same? I mean, if ISPs really want to turn the Internet into a cable-like place, they should expect that similar disputes are going to happen.
Or, maybe Netflix should intentionally limit the number of people that could access their service from a given ISP so that the overall quality is maintained? If you try to access the service and you get denied for ISP capacity reasons, then you'd get that day refunded.
They need to do something to make sure that the customer knows where the problem is. But, instead of playing too rough, I think publicly shaming the ISPs is the best approach. At least for now.
Some of the things you suggest will affect politicians, but the ultimate one is a credible threat of sending them home to spend more time with their families after an election. It's how gun owners have moved mountains starting in the mid-80s or so (the area I'm most familiar with), and if Netflix is playing the long game, it's how they're going to win ... and overall help us win the net neutrality battle.
They'd be shooting themselves in the foot. That will just make Verizon subscribers mad.
They should just flash up messages every so often when the network is congested to get people to call their congresspeople and ask them to support net neutrality and firing ex-comcast lobbyists from the FCC.
Viacom is now blocking CableOne customers from accessing videos (e.g. Comedy Central) online.
I've heard Viacom is encouraging customers to contact CableOne about the problem.
When you have a popular product, you have customers on your side, and that's a huge boon for Netflix.
We're in a country where we pay $50/month for 150GB quota on ADSL2+ which connects at 5Mbps.
There's a $10/50GB overage charge. So if we were to hit the quota you have, we'd be paying roughly the same ($70/month). Note that the price listed does not include taxes and fees, which bump it up to within a few dollars of your $79 price point.
"We are testing this type of messaging across the U.S. with multiple providers" [end of 1st paragraph]
and
"The current transparency test ... is scheduled to end June 16 and we are evaluating rolling it out more broadly. Regardless of this specific test, we will continue to work on ways to communicate network conditions to our customers." [last paragraph]
Unfortunately, all the transparency in the world can't effect change when the consumer lacks choice in the marketplace.
ISPs need to be classified as common carriers.
I'll admit I don't see much change coming from this individual spat, but I find it reassuring that there's at least this means of "recourse" for content providers.
NetFlix isn't exactly being honest here either. They could easily delay the start of video playback to allow for more caching on congested networks to offer their customers a better experience. They could also allow customers to queue videos to be downloaded/cached locally in advance. These things would provide a better experience to NetFlix's customers so why aren't they doing them? I suppose they cost too much to develop or would increase NetFlix's costs with content providers. In other words NetFlix is trying to maximize their own profits and throwing a fit that ISPs are doing the exact same thing.
(FWIW, I've worked for a streaming company and one of my projects there involved bandwidth measurement.)
This sort of visibility into the real problems means the ISPs can't hide behind their lies.