If Netflix continues on its current course, ALL ISPs -- not just rural ones, will eventually be forced to rebel. And it will not be pretty.
I call hogwash. ALL ISPs are in the business of providing access to the Internet. If you feel the need to rebel, then I suggest you look at creative ways to increase revenue from your customers, not threaten to cut off a portion of the Internet that "cost too much". A point that seems to be missed in this whole discussion. It was your choice to provide services in a rural area, not Netflix, Akamai or the like. If your business model is flawed, then don't expect somebody else to step in and fix it for you. Bandwidth is expensive to procure in a rural area, if you wish to change that, maybe it's time to find some investors and build your own network into an urban area where bandwidth, and interconnections in general, are more reasonably priced. Also, based on your logic within this whole thread, if I was a customer of yours, I'd expect you to pay me to use your services as you would be looking to get paid for my use of third party services. Also, I believe that what happened between Comcast and Netflix is temporary, much like what happened between Comcast and Level(3). charles