What's Now & What's Next: Net Neutrality Electric Boogaloo

Well this deal is probably the biggest Media/Entertainment deal that we've ever seen, even bigger than the AOL Time Warner deal. The only thing that could be bigger is the AT&T, Warner Brothers merger, but I don't know if that deal is gonna pass. So until then this Fox/Disney is the biggest deal we've really seen go down, but how it is handled and how the AT&T/WB is handled by the government will be vastly different IMO. Because of the Net Neutrality being rolled back the AT&T/WB deal is going to be even more scrutinized. Think about the type of control AT&T/WB would have, they could offer you data free cap as long as you subscribed to their video services and watched their content when streaming.

From The Verge: NET NEUTRALITY IS DEAD — WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Carriers could also go after competing services, like Verizon’s move against Google Wallet in 2011 or AT&T’s attempt to block an early version of FaceTime. In those incidents, carriers were trying to protect a competing service, and recent mergers have given nearly every carrier a roster of competing services to protect. Carriers have amassed enormous content holdings since the last FCC regime, with Comcast acquiring NBCUniversal, Verizon acquiring Yahoo and AOL, and AT&T attempting to acquire Time Warner. If any of those companies decide to make things hard for Netflix and YouTube, they’ll have a much freer hand than they did under Title II.

Openly throttling a service like Netflix might seem far-fetched, but there’s a long history of brazen moves after net neutrality setbacks. “The history of net neutrality,” says Feld, “is that whenever you get rid of the rules, one of the carriers does something stupid that makes people very upset.”

Slow Boiling Evil:

Don't expect things to change overnight, but if you think Micky Mouse, Warner Bros, Comcast/NBC, and all of the other major players aren't about to cook your grits you're naive as ****. The entertainment industry now has us by the balls. This all started because of the success of Netflix and it's streaming content. Disney made moves to amp itself to godly levels of power and now there "are no strings on me" due to the death of Net Neutrality.

From The Verge: Net neutrality is dead. It’s time to fear Mickey Mouse

It’s a red letter day for the media industry. Disney just took control of 21st Century Fox’s media empire, and the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal net neutrality regulations that prevent internet providers from discriminatory behavior. These two industry-shaking events will set media companies on a dramatic collision course with ISPs. It is the conflict that threatens the internet.

This week you might have seen lots of talk about fast and slow lanes, blocked websites, and the end of the internet. But the death of net neutrality is not going to look like a sudden apocalypse. It’s going to look more like things we’ve already seen: data caps, “free” data for apps, and service bundling, like an AT&T mobile plan that comes with HBO. These schemes will change the internet slowly, and they might even seem boring.

More and more of these little schemes will add up over time as ISPs merge with more media companies and own more content. These mergers will create huge conflicts of interest, because companies that own access to the internet will be tempted to rig it in favor of their own shows and services. Some of these schemes will show up on an internet bill, while others will be decided in backroom corporate warfare that leaves customers stuck in the middle and in the dark. The next Comcast versus Netflix might be Comcast versus Disney.

So let’s talk about Disney. Combined with Fox, it now has massive leverage over the content industry. It can use that leverage to compete with Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon, because, like Disney, those ISPs are trying to sell people their own video services. Because Disney now owns so much content, other media companies have greater incentive to consolidate to improve their bargaining positions. And ISPs have greater incentive to merge with media companies so they can reap profit from the content that travels on their networks. It’s an escalating cycle of consolidation.

Here are some obvious conflicts that have already resulted from the Disney merger:

• Disney now has a controlling stake in Hulu
• Hulu was jointly owned by Disney (30%), Fox (30%), Comcast (30%) and Time Warner(10%) to compete with YouTube; now Disney owns more than both Comcast and Time Warner combined
• Comcast owns NBCUniversal, which broadcasts shows on Hulu
• Time Warner is about to be owned by AT&T, which is a competitor of Comcast
• Time Warner is a competitor of both NBC and Disney
• Comcast and AT&T control the network that people use to watch content from Disney, Time Warner, and NBC
• (This is just a fun place to put this disclosure: Comcast’s NBCU division is a minority investor in Vox Media, which owns The Verge.)

If this all sounds confusing to you, that’s because it’s confusing. In this world of mergers and overlapping conglomerates, the internet will be a pawn between companies that want to sell you television.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, these companies are going to hold content hostage and while they are playing corporate warfare with the internet and what will stream fast & slow, we the customer will be caught in the middle.

Vertically integrated ISPs like Comcast and Verizon have huge incentives to make up for the decline in cable television revenue by making the internet more like cable, and they are already working on that by bundling video services with internet plans. (ISPs are also buying internet companies to compete with Google and Facebook, creating even more conflicts of interest.) Think about it: why wouldn’t you privilege the media companies you own if your customers have few or no choices about where to buy their internet service?

US regulators have publicly recognized the threat of consolidation with their actions, even if they still allow these hugely problematic mergers to occur. A consequence of Comcast buying NBCUniversal was that Comcast had to enter a consent decree that enforced net neutrality rules to make sure it didn’t put NBC’s competitors at a disadvantage. But that decree ends in 2018 — just as the FCC’s net neutrality regulations are also eliminated. Comcast has promised it won’t behave badly, but without regulation all we have is trust. Comcast has not earned that trust.

As much as I am hyped to see Wolverine vs Hulk, we should now be very wary of media companies like Disney, and ISP like Comcast & Verizon becoming so powerful. They now have incredible leverage in the market place and will probably force ISP to give them internet speed priority preference. It's going to be an interesting journey, but we are going to have a hard time putting this all together to see what changes come.