The distinction with the cable monopolies is that there are externalities to the production of internet capability, where that doesn't really exist with the content production in your example.
The natural monopoly argument exists much more strongly for the ISPs because, as part of the technology, they actually require physical installations of wires et. al. all across your neighborhood, city, etc. It would not be feasible to have 100s of these going up in your city -- you'd live in a "Brazil: The Movie"-like scenario of wires every which way. Also, a lot of these use old -- and often government-owned -- infrastructure, which are also not in infinite supply.
Conversely, in the content production-case, if Netflix doesn't want you to watch their content on a certain device, that has ZERO impact on how you can watch other people's content on your device. In fact, part of their reason for aggressviely pursuing their own content is that they can now distribute it globally and not be tied to all kinds of geographical licensing squabbles with traditional content providers.
So, you are right that Netflix has a natural monopoly on Netflix-owned content. But the ISPs have a natural monopoly over internet infrastructure, not just on the internet infrastructure they provide.
>So, you are right that Netflix has a natural monopoly on Netflix-owned content. But the ISPs have a natural monopoly over internet infrastructure, not just on the internet infrastructure they provide.
Netflix has more of a monopoly than just their own content. Network effects make it so that I won't be subscribing to 10 different streaming services so their monopoly grows naturally because customers want a single streaming provider and content providers need access to a big pool of viewers. That's actually much harder to break than the ISP monopoly because you can easily start a new ISP by building small amounts of infrastructure in a single dense area whereas you can't do the same for the content over those same wires because those people while geographically homogenous will be quite varied in terms of tastes. You can try to build a niche streaming service for a specific type of content but it has to be very appealing for people to be willing to have yet another subscription. But we don't need to conjecture it's evident from reality. There are hundreds of ISPs worldwide and only 2 or 3 relevant streaming providers.
The natural monopoly argument exists much more strongly for the ISPs because, as part of the technology, they actually require physical installations of wires et. al. all across your neighborhood, city, etc. It would not be feasible to have 100s of these going up in your city -- you'd live in a "Brazil: The Movie"-like scenario of wires every which way. Also, a lot of these use old -- and often government-owned -- infrastructure, which are also not in infinite supply.
Conversely, in the content production-case, if Netflix doesn't want you to watch their content on a certain device, that has ZERO impact on how you can watch other people's content on your device. In fact, part of their reason for aggressviely pursuing their own content is that they can now distribute it globally and not be tied to all kinds of geographical licensing squabbles with traditional content providers.
So, you are right that Netflix has a natural monopoly on Netflix-owned content. But the ISPs have a natural monopoly over internet infrastructure, not just on the internet infrastructure they provide.