Failing Cable Networks Move to Price Gouge on Internet Provision in Order to Stay Relevant

This past month in the news there has been uproar about keeping the internet free and essentially a utility in order to avoid price gouging and monopolization by providers. Under Title II legislation, providers are kept in check so they cant charge obscene amounts of money or throttle certain services and how they connect. Despite providers already throttling illegally because they know the FCC wont crack down on them under current leadership, they are lobbying to move forward with removing Title II in order to boost profits. Why is it so important that providers boost profit now more than ever?

In the last 10 years, especially in the last 5, we have seen large scale exodus from cable companies and people who subscribe to cable and phone services. The problem is most internet providers ultimately provide television as well and the lost in profit from that sector has to be made elsewhere. Instead of investing in better infrastructure, these providers are simply raising the price to ridiculous levels and because the market is mostly a monopoly or duopoly in most areas, they are getting away with it. The only people these companies care about are stockholders and if they start to lose profit, they will scare off investors.

In the end the customer is the one who suffers. We have mostly already lost the battle for internet freedom because the barrier to entry for new cable companies is so expensive and high. This leaves the existing companies the only ones who can offer infrastructure to provide a service. Netflix, torrenting and applications like popcorn time have hurt the cable companies in irreversible ways and they aren’t going to take that. If they could have it their way, they would crack down on p2p apps and free ways to get content, which is what we are already seeing in places like the UK. Netflix is at risk of being throttled simply because they compete with the cable companies themselves.

The internet must remain a utility or else the way we do everyday work will change before our eyes. Cable will continue to die and when this happens, the providers will go after move and move in order to keep profits. They already expect us to pay a large amount of money each month for television and then on top of that show us half the run time in advertisements? The current generation does not want advertisements if they pay and that is not going to change. The current elderly generations will put up with it, but in the future they will not.

I think what we will end up seeing is specific channels offering deals and having users opt in through something like a streaming device via the internet. Most people only watch a few channels anyway, so those offering good content will get people to sign on. Unless these cable companies change what they are doing, they will continue to suck money out of the internet provision side of the business and breach our rights. If we do nothing, we can look forward to a future of them selling our data, blocking p2p communication or file sharing and throttling services from sites like youtube and Netflix. This is not the way forward to a better and free internet.

Thanks to @Elyaque for the badges