of course we would be relegated to the slow lane, as we lack the means to purchase preferential data delivery.
it will affect everyone. it's not as much our current bandwidth as it is the massive bandwidth of those who can afford to buy preferential treatment. also, lack of neutrality will discourage potential competitors to the current media delivery services, as startups don't have the money to buy preferential treatment, either. competition is a good thing. removing the ability of others to compete is not.
See, that's the common misconception. People aren't fighting for bandwidth like that. Bandwidth gets sold to telecoms via auctions. That's all who buys bandwidth. There is a finite amount of bandwidth there is no such market where you pay someone to get more. Bandwidth is NOT speed. Which is what you DO pay for. It doesn't work like that. It doesn't just magically appear.
All preferential treatment means is that they move your data at the SAME rate as someone else's. It's a non-sequitur/conspiracy theory anyway, because that's already how it works for 99.9% of all websites and on the flip side of that, bandwidth is not the same everywhere you go. It gets transferred through pipes and pipes and other pipes before it gets to you, but at light speeds. It's constantly moving and barely controllable.
The way I see it, it was the exact opposite of not being able to afford special treatment. It was about not being able to afford proper infrastructure because of the dominance the telecoms have in this area. So, Netflix got the bright idea to demand preferential treatment from Comcast and Verizon so that they didn't HAVE to build up their own pipes and their own infrastructure. Even though, they would be a much better run site if they had invested the money to do so and they would have a better long-term plan. They are a still considered a startup in many circles, but a billion dollar company nonetheless. They were the first ones to initiate any type of tiered structure deal for their services to ISPs. So the notion that startups can't afford it, is baloney. This is why Cardinal didn't want to talk about Netflix. They are the instigators of this whole mess.
Then Comcast was like hold on a minute, you are using more traffic than everyone else. A third of the entire internet in fact belongs to Netflix. So Comcast said, If you don't want to get throttled during peek hours, you have to pony up or build your own network. Netflix
agreed, and continue to this day!!!! That's all NN is!!! NN doesn't affect anyone else besides Facebook and Youtube, and you don't hear them complaining about throttling right? Do you know why?? Facebook and Google each have their own very robust infrastructures. Netflix does not and likely never will and they will continue to hog more and more bandwidth. Regardless of NN or "the rules."
Furthermore, the telecom streaming example is kinda really dumb because the top service telecoms have that is somewhat popular is On Demand video. I don't know anybody who praises FIOS Streaming content or Comcast's. Comcast just agreed to have a Netflix App on their cable boxes so it's not like they don't want that business. These companies are very savvy at what they do and they know this deal was a win-win for them. Trust me the NN is not some rallying cry for the internet revolution and you'll have plenty of streaming options in the future.
I for one have never had any issues with throttling and I use Netflix almost daily. I may not like the way they conduct business but they DO have great content.
