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Well, Netflix is pushing traffic to Verizon. Saying they're not is factually incorrect. They're just doing so in response to requests coming out of Verizon ne

Well, Netflix is pushing traffic to Verizon. Saying they're not is factually incorrect. They're just doing so in response to requests coming out of Verizon networks. Still though, Verizon customers are running Netflix apps, which are making the requests, so it's not like customers are doing the requesting "in the raw", or as "informed" consumers. They're just clicking "play" on Netflix video devices. Also, Verizon customers aren't paying Verizon to deliver content, they're paying Verizon to try to deliver content. This goes all the way back to the "unlimited" deception ISPs pull on consumers, and Verizon is double-guilty of this deception, as they're a cell phone carrier as well. Edit: I really hate to be that guy (and I know I'm breaking rules by saying this), but have we really devolved to the point where we downvote everything that isn't 100% in agreement with the hive mind? I thought HN was better than this. I'm just getting so sick of being downvoted because I'm offering a different angle - I've been polite, deferent, and explanatory, and my words get sent straight into the "grey" anyway. You're given downvote privileges because it's been determined that you're capable of thought, please don't disprove that.

groby_b 12y ago
That's silly word twisting. Following that logic, my bartender is pushing drinks on me, just by my request.
- diminoten 12y ago
  Bartenders will get fined and lose their license if they serve drunk people. Also, calling what I said "word twisting" isn't really addressing their argument, it's more or less just name-calling, which companies are really good at ignoring. To beat them, you've got to do better than that.
  - swasheck 12y ago
    > Bartenders will get fined and lose their license if they serve drunk people. only because they don't have a large lobby organization to protect them from the laws ;)
    - diminoten 12y ago
      Heh yeah, I mean the "let people get wasted in public" lobby isn't quite as big as the ISP lobby. The analogy isn't great, I'll agree. I prefer the "water" analogy, myself.
ubernostrum 12y ago
I think we downvote people who just post nit-picky irrelevant "corrections". The reply about a bartender "pushing a drink on you" is spot-on for why your point is pointless and not in need of visibility.
- diminoten 12y ago
  What's irrelevant about "some of the major points you said are factually wrong"? It just sounds like you're okay with misrepresentation of the facts, because it agrees with your overall point. Also, like I said in the above comment, bartenders can lose their license and get fined heavily for continuing to respond to requests for drinks once a user is "saturated", so I don't think it's the best analogy possible for your argument. A better analogy might be water usage, which lends itself well to an "Internet as a utility" segue.
  - ubernostrum 12y ago
    You wrote: Well, Netflix is pushing traffic to Verizon. Saying they're not is factually incorrect. Then you wrote: They're just doing so in response to requests coming out of Verizon networks. The point at hand, of course, was whether it's fair to frame things in terms of "Netflix pushing traffic to Verizon" when the reason for the traffic is requests initiated by customers on Verizon's network. Nit-picking about whether someone is "pushing" data when responding to a request does not in any way further the discussion. Hence, downvote into invisibility. Incidentally, the way to continue the script here is for you to ignore everything I just wrote and continue focusing with laser-beam intensity on bartenders serving drunk people in order to cover the fact that you did not have any relevant point to make in your original comment.
    - diminoten 12y ago
      Netflix wrote all of the apps people are using to make requests to Netflix. It's important to note that, because that means Netflix is in complete control over the number of requests that come "from" Verizon. To say that customers are directly making the requests is factually incorrect - Netflix is making the requests, to itself, over the connections of Verizon customers. Important distinction, because Netflix is in control the whole time, and can do things, if it wants to, to mitigate the flood of requests. It's not, and in fact is intentionally ramping up the volume of requests by offering content such as 4k resolution videos, most likely to further push this issue. So no, again, this isn't a nit-pick, it's a central point to this conversation. I don't really understand why you're being such a jackass about this, though.
dllthomas 12y ago
'[I]t's not like customers are doing the requesting "in the raw", or as "informed" consumers. They're just clicking "play" on Netflix video devices.' I think most people clicking "play" on Netflix devices understand that it entails Netflix sending the content to them. I think most of them probably understand that this is more data than your average webpage, too. Maybe I'm significantly overestimating the intelligence of the average Netflix user, but I don't see how a deliberate request to play a show differs from "a request for the traffic".
- diminoten 12y ago
  My point is that Netflix controls the requests, the whole time. So to say that "customers" are making these requests isn't actually true. Netflix is asking its own servers for the streaming video, which means they can control the volumes at which the data gets sent. Netflix could ask for less data, in the form of lower quality streams, but have intentionally decided to ask for, at all times, the highest possible video quality possible. In fact, they're so intent on sending as much data as possible, that they've begun rolling out 4k quality videos of more and more of their content. It's just important to recognize that it's not like Netflix has no control over these request volumes, because it's their software that's making the requests. They're in charge of the entire end-to-end.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    It's their software proxying customer requests. It's not like Netflix devices up and decide to watch a movie. It's true that Netflix software is involved at every point, but it's still fundamentally the customer demanding the data. Note that users can opt to stream lower quality than their link supports: Adjusting the data usage settings for your account is the easiest way to reduce the amount of bandwidth used while watching Netflix. There are 4 data usage settings to choose from, each estimate below is per stream: Low (0.3 GB per hour) Medium (SD: 0.7 GB per hour) High (HD: 3 GB per hour, 3D: 4.7 GB per hour, Ultra HD 4K: 7 GB per hour) Auto (adjusts automatically to deliver the highest possible quality, based on your current internet connection speed) From https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87
HCIdivision17 12y ago
Coldcode notes elsewhere in the thread that to the consumer, the Internet is a requests based system. Your comment, while well written, sounds suspiciously like the Current Push theory of modeling electrical flow: put a huge motor on a small drive, and you'll blow the drive from all the current the motor forces through it. In reality, that's backwards, and the motor simply stalls. (Full disclosure: I'm not an EE, but man a master electrician I knew thought it was funny.) Back to the point. Consumers request data, and then expect it to arrive. Netflix offers a service that replies with enormous amounts of data for very little request data. Now, most sites are like this, but video is a caricature of the imbalance typically seen. And Netflix serves a _lot_ of video. So a quick Pareto diagram points right to Netflix for congestion. But none of that is preemptive - all of that data was requested from the Verizon side, and so the word pushing gets you downvoted. It's just that Netflix's service is less like Newton's equal and opposite force and more like Flubber. But like all things, there's more to it than just Netflix replying to requests with an asymptotic amount of data. Check out the Level3 blog posts linked elsewhere in this thread, as I think they're a reasonable counterpoint. At least, I thought it was neat.
- diminoten 12y ago
  I agree, it ultimately ends up being a cost issue. Analogies just start to break down a bit when you consider the fact that these consumers aren't making these requests of Netflix's CDNs on their own. Netflix is giving them an app that does this, so Netflix the company is actually in charge of the volume and direction of these requests from start to finish. From what I gather from Level3's blog post, they've built out a lot of extra capacity to specifically handle the kinds of traffic that a company like Netflix would be pushing, and that the ISPs have not done so, intentionally, and are trying to get Level3 and others to pay the costs for the upgrades. Why? Well, again from what I've gathered from the submission and Comcast's article on the same topic, it's because they don't want ALL of their customers paying for upgrades that will only benefit the folks who actually use that increased capacity - specifically, Level3's content. If I don't use YouTube and Netflix, the argument goes, why should I have to pay for the upgrades that'll only benefit Netflix and YouTube? The ISPs are therefore saying that the folks providing the content would be the best ones to pay for these upgrades, because that way the costs are only on the consumers paying for the services (in the form of money or ad views), instead of all of the ISP customers. Now I think the debate can really take place once we start talking about "who benefits" from these upgrades. The ISPs appear to be saying Netflix, et. al. are the only beneficiaries, and Netflix, et. al. are claiming that since the upgrades are taking place on the ISP side, everyone who is a customer of the ISPs would benefit from the upgrades.
mullingitover 12y ago
Following your logic, restaurants should be charging their wholesale suppliers for all the ingredients they're 'pushing' into the restaurant's kitchen. > I really hate to be that guy (and I know I'm breaking rules by saying this), but have we really devolved to the point where we downvote everything that isn't 100% in agreement with the hive mind? I think people are seeing this as a misinformed viewpoint and reacting to that.
- diminoten 12y ago
  I never made a value judgement - there is no "should" statement in my comment. Like I said in another comment, I've given up trying to express a view on this topic. This isn't "my" logic, it's fact. It's a fact that customers aren't making informed requests, and it's a fact that Netflix is in control of the requests, from start to finish, and it's a fact that Netflix is increasing the request volume over time by offering more and more higher-quality video (they even offer 4k video streams for some of their content and have said they intend to do more of this over time).
scott_s 12y ago
I gave you an upvote correction. I know it's frustrating, but sometimes comments get an unfair downvote, and then I think two issues kick in. One, less people see the comment, so you're less likely to get the correction upvote. And two, the priming effect kicks in, and people see your negatively voted comment as inherently negative, and don't give it a correction upvote, or pile on. I've seen this happen for a while. My only advice is to just roll with the punches.

groby_b 12y ago

That's silly word twisting. Following that logic, my bartender is pushing drinks on me, just by my request.

diminoten 12y ago
Bartenders will get fined and lose their license if they serve drunk people. Also, calling what I said "word twisting" isn't really addressing their argument, it's more or less just name-calling, which companies are really good at ignoring. To beat them, you've got to do better than that.
- swasheck 12y ago
  > Bartenders will get fined and lose their license if they serve drunk people. only because they don't have a large lobby organization to protect them from the laws ;)
  - diminoten 12y ago
    Heh yeah, I mean the "let people get wasted in public" lobby isn't quite as big as the ISP lobby. The analogy isn't great, I'll agree. I prefer the "water" analogy, myself.

ubernostrum 12y ago

I think we downvote people who just post nit-picky irrelevant "corrections". The reply about a bartender "pushing a drink on you" is spot-on for why your point is pointless and not in need of visibility.

diminoten 12y ago
What's irrelevant about "some of the major points you said are factually wrong"? It just sounds like you're okay with misrepresentation of the facts, because it agrees with your overall point. Also, like I said in the above comment, bartenders can lose their license and get fined heavily for continuing to respond to requests for drinks once a user is "saturated", so I don't think it's the best analogy possible for your argument. A better analogy might be water usage, which lends itself well to an "Internet as a utility" segue.
- ubernostrum 12y ago
  You wrote: Well, Netflix is pushing traffic to Verizon. Saying they're not is factually incorrect. Then you wrote: They're just doing so in response to requests coming out of Verizon networks. The point at hand, of course, was whether it's fair to frame things in terms of "Netflix pushing traffic to Verizon" when the reason for the traffic is requests initiated by customers on Verizon's network. Nit-picking about whether someone is "pushing" data when responding to a request does not in any way further the discussion. Hence, downvote into invisibility. Incidentally, the way to continue the script here is for you to ignore everything I just wrote and continue focusing with laser-beam intensity on bartenders serving drunk people in order to cover the fact that you did not have any relevant point to make in your original comment.
  - diminoten 12y ago
    Netflix wrote all of the apps people are using to make requests to Netflix. It's important to note that, because that means Netflix is in complete control over the number of requests that come "from" Verizon. To say that customers are directly making the requests is factually incorrect - Netflix is making the requests, to itself, over the connections of Verizon customers. Important distinction, because Netflix is in control the whole time, and can do things, if it wants to, to mitigate the flood of requests. It's not, and in fact is intentionally ramping up the volume of requests by offering content such as 4k resolution videos, most likely to further push this issue. So no, again, this isn't a nit-pick, it's a central point to this conversation. I don't really understand why you're being such a jackass about this, though.

dllthomas 12y ago

'[I]t's not like customers are doing the requesting "in the raw", or as "informed" consumers. They're just clicking "play" on Netflix video devices.' I think most people clicking "play" on Netflix devices understand that it entails Netflix sending the content to them. I think most of them probably understand that this is more data than your average webpage, too. Maybe I'm significantly overestimating the intelligence of the average Netflix user, but I don't see how a deliberate request to play a show differs from "a request for the traffic".

diminoten 12y ago
My point is that Netflix controls the requests, the whole time. So to say that "customers" are making these requests isn't actually true. Netflix is asking its own servers for the streaming video, which means they can control the volumes at which the data gets sent. Netflix could ask for less data, in the form of lower quality streams, but have intentionally decided to ask for, at all times, the highest possible video quality possible. In fact, they're so intent on sending as much data as possible, that they've begun rolling out 4k quality videos of more and more of their content. It's just important to recognize that it's not like Netflix has no control over these request volumes, because it's their software that's making the requests. They're in charge of the entire end-to-end.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  It's their software proxying customer requests. It's not like Netflix devices up and decide to watch a movie. It's true that Netflix software is involved at every point, but it's still fundamentally the customer demanding the data. Note that users can opt to stream lower quality than their link supports: Adjusting the data usage settings for your account is the easiest way to reduce the amount of bandwidth used while watching Netflix. There are 4 data usage settings to choose from, each estimate below is per stream: Low (0.3 GB per hour) Medium (SD: 0.7 GB per hour) High (HD: 3 GB per hour, 3D: 4.7 GB per hour, Ultra HD 4K: 7 GB per hour) Auto (adjusts automatically to deliver the highest possible quality, based on your current internet connection speed) From https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87

HCIdivision17 12y ago

Coldcode notes elsewhere in the thread that to the consumer, the Internet is a requests based system. Your comment, while well written, sounds suspiciously like the Current Push theory of modeling electrical flow: put a huge motor on a small drive, and you'll blow the drive from all the current the motor forces through it. In reality, that's backwards, and the motor simply stalls. (Full disclosure: I'm not an EE, but man a master electrician I knew thought it was funny.) Back to the point. Consumers request data, and then expect it to arrive. Netflix offers a service that replies with enormous amounts of data for very little request data. Now, most sites are like this, but video is a caricature of the imbalance typically seen. And Netflix serves a _lot_ of video. So a quick Pareto diagram points right to Netflix for congestion. But none of that is preemptive - all of that data was requested from the Verizon side, and so the word pushing gets you downvoted. It's just that Netflix's service is less like Newton's equal and opposite force and more like Flubber. But like all things, there's more to it than just Netflix replying to requests with an asymptotic amount of data. Check out the Level3 blog posts linked elsewhere in this thread, as I think they're a reasonable counterpoint. At least, I thought it was neat.

diminoten 12y ago
I agree, it ultimately ends up being a cost issue. Analogies just start to break down a bit when you consider the fact that these consumers aren't making these requests of Netflix's CDNs on their own. Netflix is giving them an app that does this, so Netflix the company is actually in charge of the volume and direction of these requests from start to finish. From what I gather from Level3's blog post, they've built out a lot of extra capacity to specifically handle the kinds of traffic that a company like Netflix would be pushing, and that the ISPs have not done so, intentionally, and are trying to get Level3 and others to pay the costs for the upgrades. Why? Well, again from what I've gathered from the submission and Comcast's article on the same topic, it's because they don't want ALL of their customers paying for upgrades that will only benefit the folks who actually use that increased capacity - specifically, Level3's content. If I don't use YouTube and Netflix, the argument goes, why should I have to pay for the upgrades that'll only benefit Netflix and YouTube? The ISPs are therefore saying that the folks providing the content would be the best ones to pay for these upgrades, because that way the costs are only on the consumers paying for the services (in the form of money or ad views), instead of all of the ISP customers. Now I think the debate can really take place once we start talking about "who benefits" from these upgrades. The ISPs appear to be saying Netflix, et. al. are the only beneficiaries, and Netflix, et. al. are claiming that since the upgrades are taking place on the ISP side, everyone who is a customer of the ISPs would benefit from the upgrades.

mullingitover 12y ago

Following your logic, restaurants should be charging their wholesale suppliers for all the ingredients they're 'pushing' into the restaurant's kitchen. > I really hate to be that guy (and I know I'm breaking rules by saying this), but have we really devolved to the point where we downvote everything that isn't 100% in agreement with the hive mind? I think people are seeing this as a misinformed viewpoint and reacting to that.

diminoten 12y ago
I never made a value judgement - there is no "should" statement in my comment. Like I said in another comment, I've given up trying to express a view on this topic. This isn't "my" logic, it's fact. It's a fact that customers aren't making informed requests, and it's a fact that Netflix is in control of the requests, from start to finish, and it's a fact that Netflix is increasing the request volume over time by offering more and more higher-quality video (they even offer 4k video streams for some of their content and have said they intend to do more of this over time).

scott_s 12y ago

I gave you an upvote correction. I know it's frustrating, but sometimes comments get an unfair downvote, and then I think two issues kick in. One, less people see the comment, so you're less likely to get the correction upvote. And two, the priming effect kicks in, and people see your negatively voted comment as inherently negative, and don't give it a correction upvote, or pile on. I've seen this happen for a while. My only advice is to just roll with the punches.