S.Korea broadband firm sues Netflix after traffic surge from 'Squid Game'
reuters.com
reuters.com
It's impressive how this framing has gotten so much acceptance. The content providers are not generating the traffic, the users are, and they are paying their ISPs to be able to do so.
If I could make one simple change to the home broadband market, it would be insisting on a standardized big number consumer level SLA. I certainly don't expect residential rates to cover the same 99.97% or worst case minimum that business class does, that's a major part of what higher end connections are paying for. But whatever they do offer should be transparent, fixed for contract period and measurable. ISPs should by law be required to spell out not just the top line bandwidth level, but also 75%/95% guarantees over a standard time (day/month maybe) and what the worst case guaranteed minimum is. This wouldn't be some big centralized bureaucratic decision about implementations or what numbers have to be hit, but rather merely make sure the market has clear information so customers can compare and ISPs could be held to their promises. Energy Star consumer information might be some guide to layout, but I think something like that would be low hanging fruit.
Also to be clear, a distinction can and should be made for intra-network vs inter-network, and both should be accounted for. Obviously an ISP has the most control and is the most responsible for how traffic traverses their own network to their edges, but ISPs do have some responsibility (affected by size/location) for their peering agreements too. If they're purposefully choking that it's on them, though small/remote ISPs may be at a disadvantage in negotiations there which should ideally have some eyes on it.
I have a gigabit connection and the contract specifically states that they guarantee a maximum throughput of 400Mbit at peak times.
It says nothing, there are two weasel word exceptions in there.
So it could save you nothing, or it could save you 15%, or even more. Basically we have no idea what it'll save you, if anything.
Otherwise 0Mbit is consistent with the terms of the contract, which is probably exactly what the ISP was going for.
It does highlight a philosophical question I raised in another comment. What exactly are consumers purchasing from last mile ISPs? Is it 1Gb to anywhere on the providers network? 1Gb to the nearest CDN/Internet exchange?
I don't think there is a good answer for this. But it's important to think about when we talk about ISPs reaching their hand towards large content providers.
this is beyond flawed, unless you consider all possible bandwidth, not just Netflix being slow. The latter can be entirely an issue on Netflix side.
I guess that's the thing with Netflix though, it's torrent-like traffic, but legal, so there's no excuse to stop it and they have to come up with something. "oh they're generating explosive traffic that's not good"
I'm not sure if the lawmakers are ignorant, bought and paid for, or a little of both but it would be refreshing if one of them took 30 seconds and applied a little critical thinking to the situation.
Wouldn't that require them to MITM the Netflix traffic, which I would hope is under TLS?
I believe YouTube has the same type of program.
Netflix calls it their Open Connect Appliance: https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/appliances/
That server would, of course, have a connection to the Internet, they push logs to AWS and get updates from Netflix's authoritative servers in Netflix's other datacenters, but they also serve HTTPS connections to thousands of ISP users; the upstream traffic would be minimal.
This problem might also be an interesting use case for Signed HTTP Exchanges. Sign the video files, then push them to the caching server. The caching server then never possesses the private keys for the connection and also cannot modify the content.
What are you going to achieve by stealing the certificate for edge0.sktelecom.geo.netflixcdn.com from the box you already have access to?
There’s no reason to put *.netflix.com certs on the edge caches.
Versus, what's the attack? The ISP with physical access to the box can pull can screw with the cached video data somehow? Or MitM and know what Netflix videos their users are watching?
Also, the less said about SK's neighbors (Japan, for instance) the better.
"But SK Broadband demanded that Netflix pay network usage fees on top of installing those caches. The streaming service sued the telco, and that case is pending — Netflix told us that it would continue negotiations even as it made its case in court."
Alternatively, they would peer with SK Telecom but "SK was demanding large content providers money for peering with them."
https://www.medianama.com/2020/08/223-net-neutrality-south-k...
There is nothing illegal about torrent traffic any more than any other form of traffic. "It's streaming-like, but legal." "It's VPN-like, but legal." "It's cyptolocker-like, but legal." "It's SSL-like, but legal." "It's Tor-like, but legal."
I am surprised that ISPs haven’t started cracking down on WfH, and start saying it violates their TOC because this is a business use. Public uproar would be immense.
You listed the reason why yourself, you shouldn't be surprised. Maybe -after- the pandemic, when WfH people can be painted as "tech elite" or something, but not while everyone wants to WfH and it's a mixed bag who can.
Actual, I might be wrong here with how contact law is handled ... anyone?
A related consideration: when we moved into our terraced house the land was under leasehold and the lease specified 'no business use'. We bought the freehold some time back, but I've often wondered what my position might otherwise have been. Presumably breech of the lease conditions would be a tort against the landlord and so I'd have been fine as long as they didn't sue.
No, it's not unreasonable. They sell consumers unlimited high bandwidth connections and at no point are they told they can't actually use the service they're paying for. What's unreasonable is cutting off paying consumers and suing streaming services when the company's dumb business model starts failing because of their own invalid assumptions. If oversubscribing is such a problem, they should stop doing it instead of blaming consumers for overusing their low capacity network.
Lashing out at Netflix and bringing them to court for their own failings is such an absurd course of action. They should try upgrading their networks instead so that their service stops sucking.
Since when is ANY traffic illegal on the Net? Is the idea of an open (for everyone) data "highway" already death in our heads?
Now Netflix blocks Hurricane Electric endpoints and FiOS still doesn't support IPv6. We're nearing the 10 year anniversary of that "coming soon" FAQ entry on their webpage.
Online ads and data vacuuming is often presented in a similar fashion. Your browser goes to the advertiser and requests the ad. The advertiser asks for your data. Your browser sends the data to the advertiser. And the way we frame this is that advertisers are stealing our data.
Once a system is opaque and automated enough it doesn't seem to matter how it really works. Netflix is a big entity, therefore we blame Netflix. If Netflix didn't exist then the traffic surge wouldn't exist, therefore Netflix should pay.
Netflix/youtube cases it's the content providers that server the traffic, so most of it is generated by them. The client requests are tiny in comparison.
/You pay datacenter for bandwith etc.
Person pulls your website
/Person pays cablecompany Z for bandwith
Now you have to pay Cablecompany Z for the data.
Admittedly the article is light on the details, yet I'd presume the line has been created exclusively for Netflix, there is no info if there was an agreement between the parties. There is no reference to the Seoul District Court decision, either.
"Internet"/data between major tube providers (ISP) is very different than paying cable company X for end user access. Some just have agreements to carry each other traffics and some pay to carry their traffic[0]:
When there are alternatives, ISPs would bend over backwards for what customers want.
That are not colluding like a cartel, of course.
Huh?? I am not serving terabytes of movies from my home connection. Netflix is.
Is the ISP mad that more users are using more of their promised service allowance? Too bad, maybe they shouldn't oversell their networks.
https://www.streamingmediablog.com/2014/02/heres-comcast-net...
South Korea is well known for having fast internet, but the internet is only fast within the small country. International connectivity has always been crappy, and getting crappier every year as telcos focus on legal avenues instead of actually laying enough undersea cables to meet the demand. In the past, most Koreans only visited Korean sites because of the language barrier; that's no longer true. But it's going to take a lot of time and money to remedy years of neglect in international connectivity. Especially SK Broadband, who IMO has been the most complacent in this department among the Big 3 telcos, precisely because of their huge domestic market share. Where is the money going to come from? Obviously not by cutting executive bonuses. SK Broadband seems to think that they can extort it out of Google and Netflix who, despite their global prominence, are relatively defenseless in Korean courts.
IIRC there were some companies that got a slap on the wrist (it was something like Uber or a food delivery company) for charging both consumers and producers a commission, which is illegal (I don't remember the legalese term).
In other words, they will ship some Open Connect Appliance boxes to the ISP.
https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/
And that’s nice for everyone.
Some think it’s unfair that big players like Netflix can do so. But I think them doing that is far far better than the idea of ISPs charging content providers for the bandwidth.
Like other said, the customers of the ISPs are already paying for the bandwidth. Having the ISPs charging Netflix for the bandwidth too, that’s no bueno.
But it's your customers (the end users) generating traffic by watching content on my network (Netflix shows). If your customers can generate more traffic than you can handle, regardless of its a single entity or multiple entities, then that's a contract issue between you and your customers.
So the philosophical question really becomes, what exactly is the end user buying from their ISP?
Wouldn't that also include the bandwidth? Meaning, if the customer is already paying for the bandwidth they will consume, why wouldn't that cover bandwidth usage of Netflix content?
Besides, physical access alone is useless. Unless you're claiming that ISP's have been selling physical access but giving away usage for free? I don't know if that's the intent of your comment, but again it isn't how my ISP words the contract.
I don't think zakki is too far off from the truth. Looking at Spectrum's Residential Internet Services Agreement, physical access might be what it boils down to. It's a little shocking they can have terms that make no guarantee to any amount of bandwidth at all, even on "their network". I suspect other large ISPs in the US use the same terminology.
>Subscriber understands and agrees that Spectrum does not guarantee that any particular amount of bandwidth on the Spectrum network or that any speed or throughput of Subscriber's connection to the Spectrum network will be available to Subscriber.
But I think you're correct. Having a physical connection does you no good if it isn't passing packets.
https://www.spectrum.com/policies/residential-internet-servi...
I bet that wouldn't go over nearly as well as this.
SMS spam, though, had a very clear injury when you were charged for the privilege of receiving a message.
[1]https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/hardware-network/console...
https://www.fastcompany.com/90580656/comcast-data-cap-remote...
The way I look at it is that my plan is $20 then my data is $1 / 100 MB.
To get significant damage as a single individual, take someone on a traditional satellite connection who can't get some important work done on time because ads put him above his data cap.
Advertisers give money to users give money to content provider
Where money given to the users == money given to the content provider
and the users pay for the service the advertisers are consuming.
Consider a user with a data cap of 1000GB, is metered as consuming say 1200GB of data, of which 200GB is Ads. The user is forced to pay extra for the 200GB to the ISP which the user should not have had to pay if there were no Ads.
Ignoring that ISPs should not meter the service, the above just doesn't seem right. The individual Internet services may be subsidized by Ads, but the user is paying to the ISP. So, in effect a user is paying, just to a different party.
Some lawyer should definitely look into it and see if there is potential for a class-action against Ad vendors.
Edit: I'm sure the flip argument would be that the user requested the Internet services that came with the Ad, so in effect the user is responsible for consuming the data. But that is where I think it becomes interesting and given that IMNAL I don't know what the legal minds think.
I mean there are only a few ISP in every country. SK Broadband isn't small either it is something like 25% of market share. If I remember correctly Korean Telecom was 50% and LG was something like 15%. SK Telecom is also the largest MNO is South Korea. And if you are into hardware you may have at least heard of SK Hynix, world's third largest NAND manufacture.
Normally being a Korean conglomerate or Chaebol I would have thought SK must have some subsidiary competing with Netflix. But this doesn't seems to be the case here.
Netflix made a few big splash with content made specifically for South Korean. Or K-Drama. But I dont have any data to judge whether they are super popular or not.
Yes, from the article:
> The popularity of the hit series "Squid Game" and other offerings have underscored Netflix's status as the country's second-largest data traffic generator after Google's YouTube
By having Open Connect Appliance network gives up ability to traffic engineer Netflix, which may decrease the leverage the network has with its peers or its transit providers.
Fundamentally, unless someone must peer with you (settlement or settlement free) and must peer with you on your terms ( locations, types of connections, etc ) you always want traffic that you and only you can control.
Your guess is indeed correct! Two out of three major ISPs in South Korea operate their own OTT services (Wavve and Seezn). LG U+ is an exception and also the first major ISP to join the Open Connect Appliance program for the obvious reason.
If my ISP is losing money then I guess they better raise their prices, no?
However, that would leave free content inaccessible, and probably create another wealth divide.
That's leads to a pretty simple conclusion, because Netflix doesn't push any data. I pull data from Netflix. I have already paid my ISP to pull data from anywhere I ask. If my ISP sits down at a negotiating table with Netflix and threatens to disrupt that, they should be laughed out of the room. "Pay me, or else I'm going to break my obligations to an unrelated third party." isn't a move that should have any respect.
But the problem is the people that could get affected by their actions until they stop.
Regardless, Netflix is not pushing content. The consumer is pulling it.
As a one-off, issues like the Squid-Game aren't so bad, but if it's a chronic problem for the ISP then it's because their model of consumer consumption was wrong.
Imagine if the same principles were used in other areas. You iPhone suddenly locking up after using Facebook to much because Facebook wasn’t paying Apple for access to its users.
Pushing implies that data is sent by the server without clients explicitly requesting it.
Pulling is when the client requests data explicitly.
I get notifications pushed to my phone by Apple.
I pull YouTube videos.
YouTube doesn't suddenly decide to "push" random videos to my phone in the middle of the night.
Similarly, Netflix doesn't "push" videos to their customers.
In Nigeria which arguably is more broadband-challenged than Korea, it took me only a few weeks to ship in a Netflix OpenConnect appliance and integrate into the network at a local fiber company where I did some work last year. All we had to do was agree with Netflix that we would keep it powered up and cover the cache-fill bandwidth costs.
Net results: Today, that ISP uses less than 2Gbps of Internet bandwidth for less than 8 hours daily to update their cached content which they deliver to thousands of Netflix users at wire speeds. Literally you're spending less than 2Gbps to acquire popular content and selling more than 10Gbps to your users during peak periods (if your local infrastructure can support it).
Sk broadband already got paid from their customers. Netflix is merely incurring more costs for them, which is why they are suing in court in the first place!
Sk broadband would prefer that their customers don't have netflix, but only browse text websites!
Greed wants to charge customers infinite money and provide 0 product in exchange for it. Customer Service wants to give away everything for free to as many people as possible.
To be a real, viable business you need to find that sweet spot where neither of the two makes too many of the decisions.
The rest of the increase would go to offsetting the additional burden on Netflix that this will cause by forcing them to treat S.Korea differently than everyone else.
I'm honestly surprised that any corporations are paying that there, but if the government is going to requirement, there's not a lot you can do about it. It's a very bad precedent and I don't see it actually going well for S. Korea. Putting up extra barriers is a way to keep companies out. We usually call it a "tariff", but that's generally for physical goods. And the goal is often to prevent as many of those goods from being imported.
What would S.Korea's internet look like if even 1 of the major players decided to just block the country instead of paying the fees?
It benefits Netflix in the long term as it raises barriers to entry for disruptive competitors.
If, in order to reach an ISP's customers, you have to pay the ISP for the privilege, then creating new startups is harder and the incumbents can just price it in.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if this became more common elsewhere, as everyone involved benefits. Except us, the customers, of course, but we don't get a seat at this table and the people who should be fighting for us are taking bribes (sorry "campaign donations").
Content is king and competitors are already priced out long before minor squabbles over bandwidth.
What's happening here is simple: Netflix is so popular that an ISP dare not block their content. Really, put simply: Netflix costs money to deliver, yes, but it is an expectation of ISP customers that they have access to Netflix. If an ISP were to block/charge more for access to Netflix (assuming that's even legal, but let's just say it is), customers would move to another ISP. Outside of cases where moving to another would be impossible[0], that should be the end of it.
It's interesting to me that the article focuses entirely on the courts getting involved. What's happened is that a business made assumptions about cost (that "unlimited" would mostly be users surfing lower-bandwidth web sites, not delivering video) and the market (all of their competitors likely land somewhere near eachothers' pricing) and discovered that those assumptions were wrong. Instead of either accepting that they are not a commodity that will always chase the lowest price and operating accordingly, they've gone to the courts to have the government require Netflix to reward them for their mistakes.
This idea that as an ISP customer, you "paid for unlimited service at a certain rate" but "don't you dare actually use that unlimited service" is absurd. Watching Netflix, even the vast majority of the day/night, isn't a matter of abuse -- akin to bringing a sleeping bag and living at a 24-hour gym that you have a membership to -- it is what most ISPs are advertising as a reason to subscribe to them. They know they can't turn around and tell their customers (that have choices in service providers) that they're going to charge them for access to something that is central to that service, so they go after Netflix. What if Netflix refuses to pay and just leaves the S. Korean market or decides to say "screw it" and shut the business down (ala Atlas Shrugged)? Would that make S. Korean ISPs service more valuable?
[0] In these cases, they're a monopoly to those customers and should be regulated accordingly; preferably in a manner that brings in an ISP that can handle Netflix traffic without the charges.
When I read this description of SK’s complaint it appears they are unhappy with the deals they struck with their customers. Nor in other words they are unhappy their customers are actually using the product.
Back when peering agreements were in place it made sense for everyone involved; ISPs get great content they don't have to provide and/or pay for, content providers get access to customers. Now, however, ISPs are finding out that these agreements are very costly for them, they can't turn to their customers for more money due to competition and they can't just block Netflix because those same customers would leave for another ISP so they turn to the courts to repair their mistakes. If they win, Netflix gets screwed, the customer gets screwed and the ISP gets rewarded for their mistakes... that sounds like a heck of a public-private partnership. :)
Comcast is at $18b in operating profit, with roughly 18% operating income margins. Charter Communications is at $9.6b in operating income, with 19% operating income margins. Those are the two biggest cable companies in the US.
In the early decades of cable, profitability was notoriously flaky for the industry. Enormous amounts of required capital investment, and it took a long time to saturate - scale into - the US market. Now the market is settled and they're printing consistently giant profits.
Interestingly Charter has become a giant, worth $133 billion, and Paul Allen used to own a controlling interest in the early incarnation of it. It was part of his so called wired world collection of investments.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/economy/paul-allen-cha...
In 2020, KT: 1.18 trillion KRW (1.00bn USD), SKT: 1.34 trillion KRW (1.13bn USD), LG U+: 886 billion KRW (749m USD). Their revenues range from 10 to 25 trillion KRW for the reference.
If I were the judge, I would ask Netflix to stream low bandwidth version of the content so it won't impact SK Broadband.
AND, tell BOTH parties that they must put announcement in their respective website, "SK Broadband provides you internet at a cost (as per their claim). To enjoy Full HD of this content, pay extra to SK Broadband".
See which party the customers will be angry to.
They're essentially making the point that if I build a website, spend large portions of my own money hosting it, and it becomes popular, I should also be charged extra by the ISPs of the users who access my site.
We're in clown world at this point.
Not so. This is about an ISP having to deliver what its customers pay it for: bytes.
Incredibly, this has gone to court and the ISP won. The judge found it isn't fair that the market changed, and that Netflix should pony up now that they've dared to become popular.
I wonder if we'll ever see a predictive home-caching system; if I watch the first three episodes of squid game in one night, it might be sensible to have my TV download the rest of the series overnight.
Short version: our Netflix is just fine now. There were just a couple rocky weeks/months at the start. :)
Instead of using the internet its also feasible to use the DVB network like this. they could even broadcast a copy long before release so its guaranteed to be ready for offline watching when released. i am almost certain Sky Germany does something similar...
The public street network is in large parts paid for by taxes, so for everyone access to the network is already payed for.
If I now envision a single company blocking all streets with its giant truck fleet, I could completely understand a motion to introduce a new form of toll to be payed by such companies to avoid having to rise taxes.
That toll would most likely just increase the price of whatever said company is selling.
In the road example, it's more like if every person paid for the ability to put one truck on the road and everyone delegated their truck space to a shipping company who now has millions of trucks hogging the roads. Yes, they're using tons of infrastructure but their usage has been paid for already.
Should the stadium pay the other town money to hold a game because lots of people there drive to watch it? Or should the other town build their roads to meet the demand of their citizens? I think the second option is more reasonable, the problem was that there wasn't enough road for the citizens in general, not that there wasn't enough road for them to watch this particular game.
If the ISP is selling me 1Gbps access to specific internet content only and I purchased the plan I use based on that knowledge[0] then charging me a toll for things that are outside of that specific internet content would be acceptable. But I didn't. I signed up for service that was limited only by speed, not consumption.
It's a little more evil than that, though. In a consumption/speed model, the two work against each other. I've paid a premium for 1Gps service over 300Mbps which results in me hitting that consumption barrier much faster, so I've paid for the privilege of getting hit with more "tolls". That's a hell of a profitable business model if you can get customers to actually do business with you.
Using a different analogy, the car wash company by ,y father's house offered $3/use car washes or a $30/month plan with hand-towel drying. It's a profitable arrangement for the car wash because most people won't wash their car ten times in a month. My dad, however, owned a company that sold products to automotive manufacturing plants and placed an unusually high value on having a very clean car. He took his car in for a wash every morning and many afternoons. That was the point of buying the $30 plan. For the car wash company to turn around and say "You're using your unlimited service so much that you're negatively affecting access to the car wash for our more profitable customers" would be illegal. That's not to say it doesn't happen all the time in other places, but it also doesn't mean we should allow it.
[0] And it's not OK for that to be buried in paragraph 11 of subparagraph a) in the user agreement as "abuse of network services".
Those trucks are only on the road because all the people in the houses keep ordering stuff online.
Should FedEx/UPS/Amazon have to pay an extra tax just because they are popular with the people? The homeowners already pay taxes to maintain the roads to their houses. Why should the city get extra from the trucking companies?
I have to wonder what the SK Broadband PR team was thinking, or if they were overridden by old guys at the top.
What an odd way of representing data transfer bandwidth: Was it so hard to just say 1.2 Tbps (or better 150 GB/s)?
Also, maybe an ignorant question from my side: Is that bandwidth such a big deal at nation-scales? It feels like barely 1000 homes maxing out the fiber usage. All submarine cables being deployed today are already in the 100+ Tbps range, aren't they?
Internet infrastructure and usage is relatively recent and quickly shifting, so the social/political/economic aspects are always trying to fit into legacy arrangements. In this case it was easier to preserve the ISP-user agreement of how content is served and billed, while using pre-existing infrastructures (courts of law) to settle who actually pays the extra bills. It feels out of place, but if you strip the legal content out it's just business deals about services.
1) Ban Netflix IP.
2) Netflix (and customers) complain
3) Come to an arrangement for Netflix to pay a cost
Netflix already had to put together several peering deals in the US when the popularity of their service took off. Why is this scenario any different / what is it about South Korean law that entangles the government in this decision at all?
Any additional info on why the courts said so?
It's like "free guy" (spoiler boring) tries to be a critique of video Game violence by positing the existence of another gaming reality where people are nice to each other. But this other reality is just a Macguffin. We come to watch the violence and mayhem and we come to watch squid game for the same reason.
It is better to own the fact that watching torture porn gives you the jollies rather than posturing that it gives you membership of some anti capalist intelligensia.
It's just Romans and Christians and Lions. The crowd loves it because people love blood.
The comment you’re replying to says the show is harrowing and a critique. There’s no “because” or apologia.
Considering your comment seems to be targeted at pseudo-intellectualism the irony here is simply off the charts.
> capitalism
Too bad they don't want to watch award winning Kim and Beautiful in sustainable 320×200 format from the North :)
I just saw the final episode last night, and I don't remember seeing many flashbacks other than at the start of E01.
I admit it is slower moving than I'd like, and some of the episodes had way to much filler and not enough plot arcs, but I seriously do not remember seeing flashbacks.
Do you have some exclusive access to a version of Squid Game that we all don't?
I don't know how internet prices works for big players, but from the perspective of a little guy, it seems kinda reasonable that netlflix pay, doesn't it?
I mean, why am I paying for bandwidth on AWS? Shouldn't that be paid for by the downloading party?
If I download something from my neighbors computer over a p2p app, then we both still pay for our internet connection, and depending on the contract, we pay by the byte.
That’s a great question; it’s because cloud providers have conditioned you to believe their rent-seeking is necessary.
See Cloudflare R2 vs AWS S3: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28702997
Netflix doesn't get free interconnections.
you're paying for it because it costs money to provide bandwidth on both ends, and AWS is just shunting the cost onto you itemized.
Netflix, believe it or not, also charges for the bandwidth it uses, but it hides it unitemized into the subscription fee, and in sufficient quantities that when averaged across all it's subscribers, they come out at least breakeven.
> why am I paying for bandwidth on AWS?
When I signed up for my ISP, I agreed to pay for a rate of speed that was sold to me as "unlimited" with some restrictions, but none that even came close to resembling "don't download video too much".
It also ignores the value Netflix provides. My parents chose to buy faster internet service than they otherwise would have purchased because of Netflix. If Netflix was not in the picture, they would have purchased the cheapest plan available. It's not a fairness failure, it's a marketing failure.
The only difference between you and Netflix is that they are AWS with all of the interconnect and overhead costs, while you get to pay a third party to abstract all of that complexity away for what is essentially a management fee.
Videos of cats at high enough bandwidth can melt optical interconnects.
For the same reason truckers pay some tax for brutalizing the roads, giant content providers beaming data through these systems must be taxed lest the Internet infrastructure be destroyed and the cost only be burdened by general taxpayers instead of users. (because Netflix would just charge users more, but in the meantime they will fight to have other non-user taxpayers maintain the infrastructure)
No, it isn't. Cars can't spawn clones as they travel down a branching set of roads.
But IP Multicast can do this, which is how IPTV works on the ISP level. And multicast is basically emulated by edge distribution boxes so that the traffic moving into the ISP can be multiplied to multiple customers.
So if you want to be more accurate, the proposed payments won't be like a tax on truckers (in this analogy the truckers are the users, or maybe ISPs), rather it'll be a tax on supermarkets and shops that are getting the goods.