[selmnoo]

> Netflix is particularly unsympathetic in my eyes, because its just a middle man. Almost all the real value (the content, and the wires that deliver the content to consumers) is created by other people.

That is a very strange way to look at things. The rate you're going, I can call anything pretty much anything. What is an ISP but a middle man -- they only facilitate content going from one end to another? Why is content the real value -- to me, it's totally formulaic, dull, uninspiring trash these days. See? You must explain more rigorously the criteria with which you're judging things here.

I also think your reduction of Netflix technology is peculiar - creating Netflix is no trivial feat. Reliable and user-friendly streaming technology for the masses, if it were so easy, would have been done earlier by other big companies. Netflix is doing a lot of things right, including making their own content of all varieties (children shows, adult shows, etc.) that seems to be received well by folks.

I'm guessing that you value the fact that ISPs have poured a fair bit of money into setting up the infrastructure. It's a good point, but I think ultimately moot. Lots of companies give it their all and still die. The people's will rules at the end of the day, whether to do business with them, whether to shape law to grant them their livelihood. This time, I'm personally okay with how people are judging ISPs.

[rayiner]

There's lots of reliable and user-friendly streaming technology on the internet. Youtube, Hulu, Vimeo, Vudu, BBC, RedBox, Amazon Prime, etc. It's not trivial, sure, but it's much easier than building a modern fiber-coax cable network. As for content, it's valuable because it's hard (and expensive) to make content that appeals to the mass market. I don't think people care whether the streaming technology is Netflix's or Vudu's. I do think they care whether they're watching Warner Bro's "Pacific Rim" versus SyFy's "Atlantic Rim."

You're right that Netflix and Amazon are creating value through their original content businesses. That's kind of orthogonal to this debate. That original content gives them a natural leverage over the ISP's that their role as content middlemen does not.