[pdonis]

> Netflix can't keep flooding Comcast's network with impunity

You mean, Comcast's customers can't keep causing Netflix to flood Comcast's network with impunity. Netflix only sends traffic that Comcast's customers request. I don't think the issue was a "one-sided peering agreement"; I think this issue was Comcast using a monopoly position to extract more rent. Your own next comment explains why:

> I absolutely don't want to pay extra to my ISP just to watch Netflix in HD

In other words, Comcast's customers don't want to pay for the extra bandwidth to watch Netflix in HD, so Comcast is trying to get Netflix to pay instead. Which, of course, means Comcast's customers will end up paying anyway, by paying more to Netflix...what was it you said you didn't want to pay for, again?

[diminoten]

What?

Why should the cost of Netflix traffic be put on all of Comcast's customers, instead of just the ones with Netflix?

The solution is to charge Netflix. That way, Netflix customers are the only ones paying for the extra traffic, in the form of price increases, instead of Comcast customers who don't pay for Netflix at all.

This is like business 101, why is this even an argument?

[pdonis]

> why is this even an argument?

Because Netflix is not the only application that requires more bandwidth than Comcast' network can support in high volume. So what will end up happening is that Comcast will get paid multiple times for the same bandwidth, because they will pull the same sort of scam that The Producers did: sell the same "bandwidth" to ten different applications, so they get paid ten times for a network upgrade that they only actually have to do once.

What's more, it's not always predictable what applications will need more bandwidth. Forcing individual applications to make individual deals with ISPs to get faster service puts a huge roadblock in the way of new services.

Finally, as I posted in another response to you upthread, Comcast and other ISPs have been extracting monopoly rents for years, and a major reason why they were allowed to do that was their own claim that they were going to use that extra money to keep the capability of their networks in line with demand. They have not done that. Why should we users now have to pay for something we already paid for?

[diminoten]

> Because Netflix is not the only application that requires more bandwidth than Comcast' network can support in high volume.

Netflix and YouTube, but the argument is the same. Why should people who don't use Netflix and YouTube pay for the upgrades that help only users who make use of these things? If I don't use any streaming video services, why should my money go to upgrading the systems those services need?

As for the monopoly discussion, that's different than this one, though ultimately it does effect this (if there were alternatives, we'd just all move over to them and Comcast would rot).

I explained already, multiple times, why this makes sense. Once you assume the costs will all get passed onto users, then why should I, Comcast customer who doesn't have Netflix, have to pay for upgrades that ONLY help out Netflix users? If the costs are shifted to Comcast, then that's what happens - EVERYONE pays for Netflix. If the costs are shifted to Netflix, then only the users who actually HAVE Netflix have to pay.

[pdonis]

> Netflix and YouTube

And multiplayer online games, and others that have been mentioned in this thread, and... The basic error you are making here is to think that the set of applications with these bandwidth requirements is small and easily predictable. It isn't. And it will get less and less so as time goes on.

> Why should people who don't use Netflix and YouTube pay for the upgrades that help only users who make use of these things?

They shouldn't, and they aren't. They just buy a cheaper, lower bandwidth Internet plan from their ISP. They're doing that already--certainly I am. I don't want or need Netflix so I don't pay Comcast for that level of bandwidth.

If your reply is that that money still ends up going to pay for network upgrades that I don't need, first of all, if that were really true, Comcast wouldn't have had to try to charge Netflix for the privilege of faster connections, because, as I said before, they would have actually been using the monopoly rents they've been extracting for the purpose for which they were intended--network upgrades to keep pace with demand.

But more importantly, network upgrades that increase aggregate bandwidth benefit everybody, not just Netflix or Youtube users. Except for the "last mile" connection to each individual house (which is not affected by deals like the Comcast-Netflix deal), everybody's traffic travels over the same network, and network upgrades speed up all that traffic. Which is precisely what net neutrality is trying to preserve, and what Comcast charging Netflix for faster connections does not preserve.

In other words, your claim that passing the costs on to users will make everyone pay for Netflix will only come true if we allow ISPs to privilege Netflix traffic over other traffic. Otherwise everyone is just paying for increased aggregate bandwidth from which everyone benefits. And if everyone pays just for the bandwidth they need, what's the problem? Everyone then contributes their fair share to keeping up the network that everyone uses.