So it has been briefly mentioned in news articles, but nobody has talked about the underlying consequences of what Fox forced Hulu to do briefly this past weekend. For those of you unaware, Cablevision's agreement to carry Fox channels officially expired this weekend. As a result, subscribers were flocking to catch their favorite shows via online means, many going to Hulu.
Fox briefly decided to have Hulu block visitors to from viewing the show if they were from Cablevision. They were forced to relent because some Cablevision Internet users may not have Cablevision as their cable provider. They could be on DirecTV or DishNetwork for instance. As a result, they removed that restriction.
Let's think about that though. Should content on the Internet be restricted from certain groups of people like this? We've had plenty of arguments on how ISP's should be able to restrict speeds and content to users. Should content providers, such as CNN, Google, Microsoft, MSNBC have the reverse capability and block users from visiting their website if they happen to come from an ISP they aren't on good terms with?
Assuming we can't keep the net neutral, in my opinion not likely, we could just as easily see websites blocked from a certain ISP because they want them to pay to much. Ala the entire Fox versus Cablevision and Dishnetwork thing going on right now. Is that the new reality? Imagine having a Google TV, and Youtube is blocked because your ISP throttles your speed there because Google didn't want to pay them.
It can certainly become an interesting issue. What do you think will happen in this arena?
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