I must admit that I am somewhat conflicted by this article. I have to think—and possibly rethink—the positions and assumptions that I have held regarding several of the topics contained herein. Sandvig’s opening assertion is quite bold, for he states that the infrastructure involved in Internet video distribution, which impacts both quality and availability, is a battleground where control for culture is fought. If this sounds rather high stakes, it definitely is—at least for Sandvig who says as much elsewhere in the paper.

Sandvig says “transmission architecture was a moral choice.” I dare say that I have never thought of the morality involved in the architecture of our networked systems. For me, the issue has always, and purely been, a technological one. But the morality here is really that of answering the question of “what is this thing going to be used for?” And while Lick’s goals for the architecture is one that seems altogether altruistic Sandvig calls this into question by stating that “his concerns were unabashedly paternalistic.” Aden, recalling Scott’s words from a week ago, that he thought he was teaching Media Theory, but in reality was “teaching a course on neoliberalism,” resonates here as well.

Part of the issue with the architecture of the Internet rests in the underlying assumption that with diversity of content coupled with diversity of consumerist taste millions of unique requests can be serviced without degrading network performance. And, while the conventional wisdom still holds that the content that users consume is driven by what users ultimately want, the fact remains that the network must overcome the issue that users’ requests really are not all that unique. There is much greater competition and contention for the same resources than had originally been envisioned. CDNs, then, are an outgrowth of this demand. The response, ultimately, is a neoliberal one involving “well-capitalized media” seeking profit.

That the Internet turned from textual discourse, primarily in the form of email, to serving audiovisual-rich content has always seemed to me to be a natural evolution of the network. For Sandvig, however, this “transformation was intentional, and not a process of maturation.” Part of this transformation is away from the concept of the Internet as a participatory medium to one that is optimized the dissemination of relatively few resources to the masses.

In the end, Sandvig offers the promise that all is not lost to neoliberal influences. The infrastructure as it currently exists was “built by people” and, though difficult, it “can be rebuilt by them.” I think there is a question, many questions, relevant to this essay regarding how we understand our use of the Internet and whether we are as determined and shaped by the forces of Capitalism to the degree that Sandvig believes that we are. Finally, if this be the case, then how do we change it—and more importantly, what do we change to?