Netflix Promises To Protest Net Neutrality

While Netflix announced it’s Q4 2013 earnings, which were very positive, the company made headlines for its take on the Net Neutrality ruling. In a letter to shareholders Netflix bemoaned the decision, saying that, “In principle, a domestic ISP now can legally impede the video streams that memebrs request from Netflix, degrading the experience we jointly provide.” Netflix is imagining the scenario thought up by many, wherein the company would have to pay fees to ISP’s to prevent the degradation of service, passing that cost back onto consumers with higher member fees. But it doesn’t want to do that: the company said that were this to happen it would protest and encourage its members to do the same. Though Netflix doesn’t see this happening – the company puts faith in ISP’s to keep providing the open internet they are charged with delivering – it could prove to be a pressure point in the coming months and years: what will it take for users to protest against these sorts of changes? Would the intentional throttling of Netflix, the number one source of U.S. Internet use during peak hours, be enough to push people over that edge?