Things are changing in the way your favorite online streaming website is doing business, and it’s causing a ruckus and worry for the online world. For those of you who don’t know, Netflix has recently struck a deal with the popular cable/internet/phone provider Comcast. Since a large majority of the student population has a Netflix account, I wanted to give you a quick run down of what you can expect going forward.
Netflix has agreed to pay Comcast to provide faster Internet for Netflix subscribers. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the deal, and speculation that it violates the net-neutrality rule, which states that all content providers should have free and equal access to internet users. With this new way of thinking about business, many people have brought up concerns about the smaller streaming sites, worrying it might squash all competition. There is also some speculation that this additional cost for Netflix (estimated somewhere in the millions, but no one really knows) will be passed along to subscribers, hiking the price of your monthly dose of on-demand shows and movies.
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There are a few benefits for us consumers who can’t get enough Orange is the New Black. It’s predicted that the demand for this type of content will only continue to rise as the public adopts this type of entertainment. For websites like this that tend to eat up broadband, it will be nice to have a faster connection.
It’s still unclear what the repercussions (positive or negative) will be from this deal, but one thing is for sure: House of Cards will now load faster. So can this really be a bad thing? If it ends up being a little more expensive, us college students will just have to start buying our Ramen in bulk.
