Left-Wing Senator Wants Streaming Companies To Offer Free Subscriptions To Keep People Inside
If you’re a casual Senate watcher, you’re probably familiar with one of Maine’s two representatives in the upper chamber: Republican Sen. Susan Collins, whose upset victory in the 2020 election threw a wrench into Democrat hopes of senatorial control. If the other one is more of a what’s-his-face kind of guy, well, at least for the next few news cycles he won’t be.
Sen. Angus King, an independent who leans heavily left, has a plan to keep everyone inside this winter and thus reduce the spread of COVID-19: He wants streaming media companies to offer their services for free.
In a letter King sent last week to Netflix, Amazon, Disney and WarnerMedia, the Maine senator urged that the companies should “temporarily remove any cost considerations for use of your services for current non-subscribers as a public service to [those] who are seeking to remain safe and indoors this holiday season, as opposed to the risks involved as the nation sees a dramatic surge in pandemic cases.”
Translation: These companies should make their services free — and presumably without recompense from the government, as that’s mentioned nowhere in the short document.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued guidance recommending that specific community actions be taken to limit the exposure of the virus, and has additionally encouraged Americans to avoid their usual holiday travel to reduce transmission of the coronavirus. We believe that your companies are in a unique position to help families cope with the effects of this health emergency on typical holiday traditions,” King wrote.
See, King’s position is that Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services are already used as part of a “safe at home” strategy for many Americans. If the services were free, well, think of how many more Americans would be “safe at home,” using these “responsible alternatives” to going out.
“Yet as the weather grows colder across much of the country and safe outdoor recreation options are further restricted, Americans are faced with even further social isolation and increased free time during the holidays. This is a risk; it could also be an opportunity for creative, socially responsible thinking,” King wrote.
King, again, defines “creative, socially responsible thinking” as corporations giving away free stuff. As a Wall Street Journal editorial about King’s proposal noted Wednesday, he also doesn’t explain why, during a period in which streaming services have seen a massive influx of subscribers, that we haven’t seen a corresponding decrease in COVID-19 cases.
But never mind, because it’s time for corporations who share King’s general worldview to come together and make sure Americans obey the rules. At least, it is, according to Angus King.
“At this time, we must find ways to incentivize people to follow guidance from the CDC, their employer, local public health officials, or school leaders,” King wrote.
“Unfortunately, some Americans are likely to choose to ignore public health advice and carry on their typical holiday traditions instead of remaining safely at home. While your platforms would likely experience greater traffic as a consequence of extending service, we encourage you to provide temporary service at no cost to non-subscribers as a way to encourage people to make responsible choices and safely navigate this holiday season.”
King wrote that he looks “forward to hearing what steps you see feasible and able to be accomplished to limit the health emergency that COVID-19 is posing at this difficult time” and reminded the services that the mitigation efforts required “a whole-of-society effort.”
I’m not quite sure what responses King had received as of Sunday afternoon, but it’s a good chance the streaming services were cool to the idea of giving away the very product they sell.
Many years ago, a now-deceased Alaska senator named Ted Stevens gave a roundly mocked speech about the internet in which he referred to it as a “series of tubes” that would get clogged up if too much information was shoved through it.
Stevens was portrayed as an old coot who probably used a coal-powered Atari XE as his primary computer, but he wasn’t that far off; even The Washington Post admitted his characterization of the limitations of our network infrastructure was actually fairly accurate. I mention this because more than a decade on from that speech and Angus King has spent the pandemic saying dumber things about internet service, things that have only gotten desultory attention at best.
King was one of 17 senators who signed a letter early in 2020 demanding internet service providers figure out a way to provide better technologies for people working or learning at home, according to The Hill.
It’s not really that there’s much that could be done — the series of tubes, such as it is, was designed to meet our needs before our lives were mediated almost entirely through streaming video connections between one another — but just by saying something should be done, King and others believed change could be effected.
That sort of thing happens all the time, though — legislators sending letters wondering Why Won’t Companies Just Fix the Problems?
Well, now Angus King has a way to fix the problem, although it’s unclear what problem his solution would fix and it’s very clear it isn’t tenable: What if companies that make money streaming content they’ve spent Brobdingnagian amount of money to produce or acquire the rights to simply gave it away free? It’d help us out tons, guys. We’ll send you a thank-you note and stuff, particularly since it’d stop people from doing things we’ve told them not to do. They won’t listen, so maybe free episodes of “Parks and Rec” will do the trick.
King’s letter incurred the mockery of The Wall Street Journal editorial board, which noted “many young people already free-ride on subscriptions of family and friends. Increased streaming of ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ or ‘Seinfeld’ reruns would increase broadband traffic and slow speeds for other uses including telemedicine visits and FaceTiming with grandparents. There’s no such thing as free Netflix.”
Thankfully, that “series of tubes” probably won’t have to handle the strain of free Netflix.
It’s good to know, however, that if King keeps this farcical anti-COVID strategy up, you won’t have to strain too hard to remember the name of Maine’s other senator.
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