The Obama Network could be coming to Netflix soon.
Former President Barack Obama is in advanced talks with the streaming service, the New York Times reports, to star in a series exploring “inspirational stories.” Think of it as a modern fireside chat piped into the homes of the 118 million Netflix users.
It isn’t so much that Netflix is trying to sign new talent and cash in on presidential nostalgia as it is that Obama is cashing in after eight years of defending the bottom line of the streaming service from the threat of innovation. Call it the Netflix kickback.
Obama is most responsible for codifying net neutrality. He campaigned on it, fought in the courts for it, and unilaterally made it de facto law. This pleased Internet giants like Netflix because net neutrality requires the Internet service providers to treat every bit of information equally, allowing streaming services to take up a disproportionate amount of bandwidth.
Lift the net neutrality requirements, as President Trump’s Federal Communications Commission recently did, and cable companies like AT&T or Verizon could theoretically create a fast lane on the Internet. Those Internet service providers could devise a new business model, which could perhaps speed up certain websites like Netflix, for a premium. In short, they could innovate.
But innovation and new business models are an obstacle for companies like Netflix. If the Internet has fast and slow lanes, streaming high-speed video could become more expensive and could end up hurting their bottom line.
To keep that from happening, Netflix lawyered and lobbied up. They spent millions of dollars on lobbying and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to predominantly Democratic politicians. And it worked out. In November of 2014, Obama ordered the FCC to adopt net neutrality rules.
“For almost a century, our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access into and out of your home or business,” Obama said appropriately enough in a streaming video announcement. “It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information — whether a phone call or a packet of data.”
Now that Trump has repealed net neutrality, Netflix wants Obama back. It isn’t clear how much a former president might cost.
Having an old president on the payroll might serve their interest in the future. It did in the past.
