South Park's satirical stab at ISP and cable providers' bullying tactics.

It's been confirmed that Netflix paid Comcast an undisclosed amount of money in an agreement to make sure their most popular shows - like House of Cards - stream smoothly via Comcast's broadband network.

On the surface, this may not seem important, but a look under the hood of media economics tells another story. The recent deal between the two media giants is a hugely pivotal point in Internet history.

Analysts and activists are anxious that the deal marks the decline of Net Neutrality and fair market competition in the media industry.

Netflix and Comcast have been negotiating for years over the cost of delivering online video content over Comcast's network: Netflix wants to connect to Comcast for free, while Comcast argues the costs to delivering high-bandwidth content are too high to maintain. 

Over the past couple of months, Netflix has been reporting that content delivery speed to its Comcast subscribers had slowed more than 25 percent, resulting in interrupted streaming and disgruntled viewers.

Media monopoly watchdogs like Freepress.net have accused giant Internet Service Providers of slowing Netflix connections on purpose to "abuse their power to serve their own anti-competitive ends." In other words, ISPs like Comcast whose own cable television viewerships are threatened by the rise of online video streaming sites like Netflix are deliberately forcing those sites to compensate them for the competition via restricting broadband traffic.

Comcast and Netflix offer an alternate explanation: "Working collaboratively over many months, the companies have established a more direct connection between Netflix and Comcast, similar to other networks, that's already delivering an even better user experience to consumers, while also allowing for future growth in Netflix traffic."

Despite its emphasis on "interconnection," the Comcast-Netflix deal has raised a great degree of worry among industry experts due to its timing - the business deal comes barely a month after FCC hearings on Net Neutrality.

Observers are worried about a future without Net Neutrality in which Internet Service Providers like Comcast exert even greater economic control in what is already a nearly monopolistic media economy.

After Comcast merges with Time Warner Inc., a 45 billion dollar buy-out, who knows what other online video streaming sites - e.g. Hulu - are going to start paying ISPs to ensure quality streaming?

But what choice do they have? They must have the Internet, and there are only so many Internet Service Providers. Cue South Park photo.

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