The whole weakness of Netflix must pay argument is what good is your internet connection without it (insert every other video provider here)? Netflix and Youtube may be the biggest internet traffic generators, but that is what people want and have the high speed connections to get. If you cut internet video out why do you really need anything faster than about 1 mbit/sec? For 99.99% of homes that is probably all they would really need without video. Fast enough for pictures on web pages. The whole point of people buying higher speed packages is because they want to get content like Netflix without bottlenecks. Of course 10-20 mbit would probably be all that most households need even with multiple netflix streams, if ISPs did not artificially constrain the connection to Netflix. The ISP implies that a higher speed connection will get you better internet video. The user is paying for content delivery. To turn around and then say well you may pay for this content delivery, but unless the people sending it also pay we are not going to deliver it to you invalidates the whole need for paying for a faster connection. The ISPs are not building lines to Netflix, no, Netflix has always delivered the content to the ISPs, either through Netflix's new backbone or through a content delivery service which brings it to the ISP. Netflix wants to deliver it right to your city, probably only a few miles from your house. It is not long distance. It is the ISPs that are overselling their connections by charging more for high speed lines that they cannot deliver on. If you are paying for a 50mbit/sec connection to your house why is it crazy to expect that they can deliver a 5mbit Netflix stream without capacity constraints without forcing Netflix to pay?
