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Comment by doktrin | Hacker News Reader

> 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

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?

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Pure conspiracy theory but it is to Netflix's advantage to hinder upstarts from entering the market by not supporting net neutrality.

This isn't a conspiracy theory; it's exactly what the article is arguing. Now that net neutrality might hurt Netflix rather than benefit them, not only are they not motivated to advocate for it (which, as the above comment pointed out, would not require any significant effort), but they are probably more inclined to advocate against it.

This is might be seen as an instance of "pulling the ladder up behind you".

They went through a lot of effort to make e.g. Verizon look bad if they didn't oppose NN.

Lots of back-and-forth in 2014, but here are major HN discussions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7872168

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8016055

That's not really a conspiracy theory, other than the current lack of evidence. That is just business as usual in most areas of business. It is just rare on the Internet, for reasons I don't completely understand.

I think for Netflix it was more pragmatic than that. I don't think they were ever really committed to Net Neutrality -- it was just a negotiating tactic to get lower rates for the interconnects that they would inevitably need once they saw their transit rates going through the roof.

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.

> It is not reasonable to expect the ISPs to integrate/operate those edge caches for no cost.

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?

The ISPs bear none of the expense of "buying more IP transit". The end services (i.e. Netflix) do. That's always how the transit business has worked in the US -- the sender pays (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).

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.

I'm afraid that's not how the internet works. Very few ISPs have enough market power to demand paid peering from other networks. Comcast is one of them, but most others would be laughed out of the room for trying to pull a stunt like that.

> 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.

It's passive that Comcast et all already made some deals with Netflix and others.

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