3 ms·

Netflix is paying half the cost, you're paying the other half.

• pas 12y ago
  The marginal cost is close to zero. So it's not an issue who pays it. It's not even about reciprocity of used bandwidth (that is used to be taken as the basis for free peering), but the provided value from the traffic flows. And since there's an asymmetry in value (the request data from Comcast's customers is much more valuable for Netflix than for Comcast, and with the added local monopoly of Comcast, there's no real value for Comcast in those reverse flows, because it doesn't help its business position, market share, and just means net upkeep costs) both Netflix and the end-user ends up playing more to Comcast than what'd be reasonable in competitive market.