They can serve all they want, but the unfortunate fact remains that companies like Time Warner and Comcast are needed to actually provide the network service.
It's like having a gas station in the middle of a desert, with no roads within a 50 mile radius.
The point is not that they can avoid using Time Warner's infrastructure, it's that Time Warner will eventually stop offering content if nobody wants to view it. Then they will have no more incentive to throttle third party content.
I'm not suggesting that this will work, I'm disputing that the people don't have any power. People almost always have some influence over their situation. That doesn't mean they have a magic bullet, but there is almost always hope.
1) Internet isn't a luxury anymore, it's a necessity. One can't live in society today with much success without some form of Internet access.
2) The free market is not at work when it comes to the proverbial "pipe" that's been laid - the Internet backbone. Getting a fiber cable to your house, to your neighborhood, and to your city was a task that cost a lot of money, and was paid for in part by the US government and state governments. Despite this fact, companies like Time Warner do not share "their" infrastructure to 3rd party ISPs. This, in turn creates an artificial monopoly where Time Warner unfairly benefits from publicly funded infrastructure.
People can't avoid Time Warner, because in many places, they have literally no other option. There is no hope for these folks.
How many people have no access to Verizon Wireless, AT&T wireless, Tmobile, Sprint, or telephone DSL?
There is competition in the residential Internet business.
If you say that "all those alternatives are too slow," I say: too slow for what? Too slow or too throttled for Internet video: perhaps. But the argument you are making is that "one can't live without some form of Internet access." Most people have Internet access available, in multiple forms.
I agree that Internet is not a luxury, but 10 or 50 megabit Internet is. True, you need Internet to apply for jobs and even in some cases to interact with your government. Do you need 50 megabits for that? No.
People can avoid Time Warner. They might not get their Netflix with their slower Internet, but the government should not be getting involved to preserve something as trivial as streaming video.
> How many people have no access to Verizon Wireless, AT&T wireless, Tmobile, Sprint, or telephone DSL?
Different product, same problem, possibly even the same company. Switch out "Time Warner" with "Verizon" (a reality for some), and the problem exists anew.
There is not competition in the residential Internet business.
I would guess that most people are more interested in watching something than they are in fighting Time Warner Comcast. As such, if the cable ISPs throttle Netflix (or de facto throttle it by choosing suboptimal peering arrangements), even if consumers would have preferred Netflix, they will watch cable because they don't have any other option.
