If you enjoy the convenience of streaming your favorite TV shows and movies online, the next couple of years may be rough. The Federal Communications Commission may change how internet service providers can operate, which could lead to slower speeds for some websites and diminished access. But a small, Fort Collins business may actually benefit from the potential rule change.
Right now, your internet company can鈥檛 slow down your access to sites like Netflix and speed up its own streaming service to try frustrating you into watching what they want you to -- that鈥檚 called . The FCC mandates that all websites have to be treated equally by internet service providers, especially when it comes to speed. But without net neutrality, companies could theoretically pay internet service providers so that their website would stream more quickly than their competitors鈥�.
鈥淵ou know I don鈥檛 really want to belong to every streaming service in the world, especially if we have a problem with this net neutrality thing,鈥� said Catherine Cole Janonis.
That鈥檚 why she is a regular customer at the , the last remaining video rental store in Northern Colorado. Her internet just isn鈥檛 fast enough for streaming services, and sometimes they aren't reliable -- so she rents DVDs.
鈥淵ou know Netflix and all those other places are kind of limited, and even if you have Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, whatever else -- that鈥檚 a lot of money per month,鈥� Janonis said.
Following a recent , the Village Vidiot is still in business, but it鈥檚 tenuous said owner Scott Shepherd.
He has seen the rise and fall of large retail chains like Blockbuster, but now streaming, piracy and gentrification are making it difficult for him to keep a single movie rental store open in a city of 160,000 people. He has dedicated customers in the area who like the Village Vidiot鈥檚 50,000 title selection. If net neutrality is eliminated, that could make his business more lucrative.
鈥淥ne of the wonderful things about local video stores is that they are decentralized; programming and curating titles that are interesting and compelling to those audiences,鈥� said , assistant professor of media and visual culture at Colorado State University.
Curating for a streaming service is very different -- and very dependent on what a distributor wants to make available.
鈥淚f a distributor does not think that that they will make enough money on a rerelease of a film, that has up until this point only been released on video, then they will not release it again,鈥� said Hughes.
Meaning unless you鈥檝e got access to a physical copy of a hard-to-find film, you may be out of luck.
She warns that if we move exclusively to streaming, it may mean the creation of a media oligopoly - with just a few companies controlling not only most of our home entertainment choices, but when they are available.
鈥淥nce you move to a model where you have national or international conglomerates, making decisions about what will work on a national or global market, you don鈥檛 have the same attention to local communities, you don鈥檛 have the same diversity in offerings. It鈥檚 just not economically feasible and it鈥檚 not one of their interests,鈥� Hughes said.
That decentralization may inadvertently help the remaining local video stores like the Village Vidiot who continue to offer hard-to-find titles and high quality viewing experience, especially in places where internet connectivity and speeds are slow. These qualities could make them more enticing if net neutrality is eliminated.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 gotta be the future, you have to get the community interested in what you鈥檙e doing or you鈥檙e just another building on the road as you鈥檙e diving down the highway,鈥� Shepherd said.
And who supports net neutrality? Content providers including Netflix, Apple and Google. They argue that people are already paying for connectivity and so deserve access to a quality experience. Something that Village Vidiot customers say they already get, one DVD at a time.
