Although YouTube's name and shame campaign against ISPs is fairly mild compared to that of Netflix, the very fact that the video service finds it necessary to alert users about how Internet traffic and interconnected networks function is telling.
With more and more video content delivered over-the-top (that is, over the Internet), the quality of that video stream becomes increasingly important. When quality fails, users are quick to blame the content source — especially if other websites seem to work just fine.
If a user experiences downtime and buffering from a service or site too many times, he or she will be less likely to use it. Content services want to be shielded from some of that blame, and pass it off to what they see as the ultimate gatekeeper: the ISP.
The real question is: Does this naming and shaming really have any impact? It would be one thing if users could pick and choose their ISP, but most of us have one choice and one choice only (the same is true for cable TV).
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