How Netflix Keeps Finding Itself on the Same Side as Regulators

[Commentary] Whatever the outcome of the latest proposed mergers and acquisitions in the media industry, a clear winner has already emerged, and it’s not even a party to any of the deals: Netflix, the streaming television pioneer. To many in the cable and broadband businesses, the invisible hand of Netflix has been apparent in the failed Comcast-Time Warner Cable combination; in likely restrictions on the merger between AT&T and DirecTV; and in the Obama administration’s embrace of net neutrality, to cite just three prominent examples.

Indeed, the corporate philosophy of Netflix, which was once thought to be outgunned in Washington by the East Coast media conglomerates and their vast lobbying forces, now seems so pervasive that the Federal Communications Commission is being referred to by some media executives — half-jokingly and half-enviously — as the “NCC.”

But Netflix is hardly the only corporate beneficiary. To varying degrees, an array of Silicon Valley powerhouses — including Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple — gain from an open Internet and net neutrality, the notion that broadband service providers should treat all data equally, no matter its content, source or volume. That these views have prevailed over long-entrenched telecommunication and cable interests is yet further evidence of the technology industry’s growing political clout inside the White House and on Capitol Hill.