You may have heard that former President Barack Obama is in talks with Netflix about a possible future show, and I thought it might be fun to see what government connections Netflix has been exploiting over the last few years. In 2017, Netflix spent $800,000 on lobbying and it was leading the push for net neutrality. In 2016 it was estimated that Netflix streaming utilized more than a third of total Internet bandwidth.
Incidentally, Obama's FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler, refused to look into allegations that Netflix violated a net neutrality rule by slowing its video streams on certain networks. Wheeler cited a technicality as Netflix is considered an "edge" content provider and outside the purview of FCC net neutrality rules. However, FCC commissioner Michael O'Rielly suggested that the FTC might have grounds to go after Netflix throttling.
