The battle between Netflix and Comcast appears to be never-ending as both companies are bickering back and forth at each other in the form of two CEOs. Just recently, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings took to Recode's Code Conference event to continue throwing his wrath at Comcast by calling CEO Brian Roberts the "taxman."
The proposed merger between Time Warner Cable and Comcast, fuels Hastings comments. The merger is valued around $45 billion, and if it should be allowed by regulators, Netflix could end up paying more than it already does to Comcast to drive on the Internet's fast-lane.
"They want the whole Internet to pay them for when their subscribers use the Internet," Hastings said of Comcast. "Should Comcast be able to charge everyone else for access to their subscribers?"
The whole thing could turn out to be a huge loss for net neutrality in the mind of Hastings, but maybe he's getting too far ahead of himself. Ranting about Comcast at the Code Conference event is probably not a good move, but the damage is already done.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts didn't take this negativity by Hastings sitting down. He took to the stage at the Recode event to fire back at Netflix, claiming the company doesn't want to bear the cost of travelling on the Internet fast-lane He proceeds to call Netflix the postman, which is direct remark to Hastings calling Comcast the taxman.
"They used to spend three-quarters of a billion dollars for postage," Roberts said.
If you're not sure what Roberts is talking about, let's break it down for you. Netflix in its early years used to ship DVDs to subscribers; this is something the company had to pay for. Roberts is basically saying if they could pay for postage, then they can definitely pay to drive on the Internet's fast-lane.
Hastings does have a point to his complaints. If ISPs are allowed to charge companies to give their customers a faster connection, then what will stop these same ISPs from hiking fees on a regular basis, especially if they have a service that competes with the companies they charge for faster connection.
The FCC needs to step it and put an end to this issue before it gets out of hand.
