July 12 will be a national day of action for net neutrality, and Netflix has finally announced it will be fully participating.
During the Obama years, Netflix was a major player on the front lines of the fight for ensuring net neutrality. As a streaming service, Netflix theoretically relies on net neutrality to ensure internet providers don’t slow down their streaming speed in order to elevate cable programs.
But Netflix hasn’t seemed to be as enthusiastic as of late, even as the FCC under Ajit Pai, a former cable lobbyist appointed by Trump, poses the most grave threat to net neutrality we’ve ever seen.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings recently said, “We think net neutrality is incredibly important, [but] not narrowly important to us because we’re big enough to get the deals we want.”
This raised concerns that Netflix had grown too big for it’s britches and that the fight for net neutrality had lost one of its most powerful forces.
But a few days ago, Netflix released another statement saying, “Netflix will never outgrow the fight for net neutrality. Everyone deserves an open Internet.” A Netflix spokesperson also added, “”We support strong net neutrality protections, even if we are at less risk because of our popularity. There are other companies for whom this is a bigger issue, and we’re joining this day of action to ensure the next Netflix has a fair shot to go the distance.”
Some have said that Netflix’s response was just a PR ploy and they’re just doing this to save face because of growing public pressure. That may be true, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. It’s great that there’s enough public zeal out there to put pressure on companies, and it’s great that Netflix has reaffirmed its position regardless of their motive.
Maybe Netflix really is big enough now to have sufficient negotiating power to take care of themselves when it comes to streaming speeds and dealing with ISPs. But the internet-based video streaming industry as a whole needs net neutrality and would be one of the hardest hit mediums if Pai and cable providers have their way.
Without net neutrality, cable providers can prioritize cable TV in ways that will attempt to deter people from using various online video streaming platforms. Imagine going to Youtube, Amazon or Netflix and seeing a message saying something along the lines of, “To access this site you must pay $5.99/month access fee to your internet provider. If you would like to be able to stream without buffering for 10 minutes or more, an additional $2 fee will be added for each video.”
It’s impossible to overstate the importance of the what’s going on with net neutrality right now. Regardless of what you think of Netflix, it’s a huge relief to have them, and all their lobbying resources, in the fight.
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