Eh?
I wanted MS to be broken up. E.g. http://forum.iwethey.org/forum/post/148167/
As RareSanity pointed out up-thread, Netflix pays for its pipes like everyone else. Comcast wants Netflix to pay more so that its customers will find Netflix to be too expensive compared to its own offerings (which obviously will also be bandwidth intensive). If Google Fiber can find a Net Neutral way of doing colocation with Netflix (which obviously competes with Google Play movies and YouTube), then Verizon and Comcast can as well.
I've thought for a long time, as you know, that ISPs shouldn't be in the content business. There are too many temptations to use ownership of the pipes as a way to constrain competition. ISPs should be boring utilities. If they want to be in the movie business, spin it off and be a movie business.
There are some later comments on that Balloon-Juice thread, by gene108 (sp?) I think, that one has to be careful about regulating ISPs as a utility because we don't want to lock-in a system that doesn't improve or that crumbles due to lack of investment. It would have to be done carefully. But it's not an unsolvable problem, and it's a better system than letting Comcast and Verizon put up toll-booths for content that they want to earn extra on.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
As RareSanity pointed out up-thread, Netflix pays for its pipes like everyone else. Comcast wants Netflix to pay more so that its customers will find Netflix to be too expensive compared to its own offerings (which obviously will also be bandwidth intensive). If Google Fiber can find a Net Neutral way of doing colocation with Netflix (which obviously competes with Google Play movies and YouTube), then Verizon and Comcast can as well.
I've thought for a long time, as you know, that ISPs shouldn't be in the content business. There are too many temptations to use ownership of the pipes as a way to constrain competition. ISPs should be boring utilities. If they want to be in the movie business, spin it off and be a movie business.
There are some later comments on that Balloon-Juice thread, by gene108 (sp?) I think, that one has to be careful about regulating ISPs as a utility because we don't want to lock-in a system that doesn't improve or that crumbles due to lack of investment. It would have to be done carefully. But it's not an unsolvable problem, and it's a better system than letting Comcast and Verizon put up toll-booths for content that they want to earn extra on.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.