Netflix doesn’t have the leverage anymore. If people start having problems with it, even when caused by ISPs, people will just subscribe to Disney or Max or whatever. Long gone are the days where they can perform such grandstanding.

Netflix used to be the champion you think of, but in the past ten years has a moat because of this anti-competitive behavior. OpenConnect keeps them competitive by reducing the margins paid to brokers like Akamai.

> See how long they last with most of their customers pissed off.

I suspect Netflix will last a shorter amount of time with their customers pissed off than the ISPs will last with their customers pissed off.

Personally, I have lots of ISP choice. I can have 80/15 VDSL with consistent speed and latency (22ms to nearest internet exchange), I can use Starlink which is supposed to be pretty reasonable bitrate and 15-50 ms latency, I can use 5G/LTE residential internet with actually good speeds but terrible buffer bloat, or I can pay about $30k to get municipal fiber and a monthly cost above DSL and 5G. No cable for me, Comcast says it's too expensive, even though I'm confident they're on the pole at the corner of the property.

I committed to fiber recently, because a neighbor is doing it for their lots which the phone company refuses to service at all, and sharing construction costs means this is the best deal I'll get. And the trenching company came by and said they'll do directional drilling to get under my driveway so it won't be a big mess. But I don't think any 'normal' people in my situation would ever switch from DSL. If Netflix wants to play the blackout games, there's lots of other streaming services to pick from.

They’d just pay the ISPs to be in the fast lane and gain an edge over the competition