> Why would an ISP bother building out the infrastructure if they can't extract a higher value from those that it most benefits (Netflix)?

Netflix is not getting the benefit, the end user is. That is the demand side of things. They can and do charge more for higher bandwidth, and Netflix will require more than the national average to reliably stream at 1080p. Netflix only exists to fill that need, and the ISP exists to fill that users bandwidth need. It is not Netflix's direct need.

> it must be mutually beneficial for both parties to go along.

It is. Netflix makes more profit off working Internet from Comcast than they lose paying the bribe. But we lose, the consumers, because Netflix is getting a fast lane now, and sets a precedent that ISPs can hold ransom their bandwidth from anyone.

> I think this fear is overblown, although I could be wrong.

It takes no effort on their part to set up their routing to have everyone in a slow lane unless you pay the fee, and they have no motivation not to, because when smaller websites are slow, users stop visiting them, they don't drop their ISP over it.

> Why should those consumers be subsidizing those that use broadband heavy services?

They should not / aren't. At least in terms of month to month server upkeep. In terms of infrastructure wire, you pay the same taxes that maintain the roads if you drive a hundred miles a year as the guy who drives ten thousand miles a month. Previous models have showed that the overhead of calculating physical infrastructure usage (ie, power) is hard, and unless the per-unit volume is valuable enough it is not worth the bureaucracy.

> Why should Netflix not be allowed to help subsidize the cost of providing broadband? Why should this fall solely on the individual?

Because they are not subsidizing at all. End user will pay the same for Internet regardless of how much money content providers throw at ISPs because the vast majority are in monopoly positions and can do whatever they want up until the point users just drop service all together.

> I don't see how that's a better scenario than currently exists.

If it were the case that ISPs were the underdog here, because compelled by legislation to spend their private earnings to build cable that they cannot dictate price on and must lease compulsively, then you would have an argument.

But current ISPs have the opposite. They inherited their infrastructure from public works and other telecom companies, where the laying of cable was heavily subsidized by taxpayer money, and in some cases (verizon) they were given money to invest in infrastructure that they then ran away with and faced no consequences.

> decrease the barriers it takes to compete.

There are only three ways to do this.

One, you have "wire lanes" where anyone can run wire across the nation. This means starting an ISP no longer has the insurmountable mountain of regulation surrounding breaking ground, and you can just buy fiber, run it, and hook up each end user that wants it on an individual basis from the street corner.

The downside is you end up with tons of redundant infrastructure investments, and wire itself is mad pricey. This means that the industry as a whole is inefficient, due to the redundancy. The good news would be that with laying cable being an actual option, entrenched players would have a motivation to lease what they have at reasonable rates to avoid someone else investing heavily in competing in the infrastructure.

But it is also completely infeasible. There is no way to set up New York City or rural Arkansas in a way to just let anyone lay fiber cable. The investment alone in getting to that point vastly eclipses the costs of just laying a public fiber channel owned the state that anyone can hook up to.

Option two is compulsory leasing, which is what Title 2 is in effect. If nobody can lay wire and actually compete with entrenched interests, you cannot have price competition on the rental rates of wire in the ground. So you have to use legislation to force it.

Option three is either eminent domain of the telecommunications infrastructure or the build out of a publicly maintained fiber network. It could emulate the power companies, where regional switching stations are mandated to maintain the network within their jurisdiction using funds from acting as a private ISP, and the networks just need to be interconnected by mandate. This means that the wire is effectively free to use, and you just have to hook in servers and provide bandwidth.

The problem there is that you need junction points where you connect to the backbone, and adding one to an already established network is on the order of complexity as laying wire itself. So it is either that, or wholly public ISPs with taxpayer funded Internet service.

The downside to that is that you can look at all public infrastructure in the US and see how well that went given our current organization of government. The roads in many states are decrepit, the power grid is woefully in need of an upgrade, water services all over the place are being sold off privately and are also in deteriorating condition, and at least pedestrian rail is on the brink of death (no idea about commercial rail, but the prevalence of trucks in the PA area tells me it is not doing too well either). Our local, state, and federal government have collectively and decisively shown that given the political leanings and organization of state we in the US have, that none of them can maintain infrastructure, let alone improve it in the way we desperately need our Internet infrastructure improved over time, not just kept in its current state.