The quaintness of “content” vs “infrastructure”
Here’s a really informative article on the economics of Google’s fiber offer. One of the key takeaways is that Google’s ownership of high-bandwidth content (YouTube) gives them leverage in peering arrangements.
This is a lovely turnabout, in my opinion. It allows Google to hang carrots/wield sticks that most others can’t. Fighting incumbents ain’t beanbag.
There was a time when arguments about the net (neutrality in particular) hinged on a Luddish mental model that “content” and “infrastructure” were, and should be, different.
A classic case of status quo bias — this is what we know, this is what we have, so let’s preserve it. Quaint.