How Amazon Plans to Storm Cable's Castle

[Commentary] Amazon's announcement that it would buy Twitch Interactive, a hugely popular game-streaming service that is just over three years old, marks a key moment for telecommunications policy in the US. But the reason might be unexpected.

What is crucial is that the destiny of Twitch, Netflix and any other future high-capacity streaming service -- think telemedicine, education and civic engagement -- is utterly dependent on the goodwill of just four companies: Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon Communications and AT&T. Each of those four companies, in turn, has the ability and incentive to extract unconstrained tribute from anyone wanting to reach their subscribers. The Federal Communications Commission must intervene decisively to both reassert its authority and help US mayors fix this situation by calling for the construction of open fiber networks without a built-in conflict of interest.

[Crawford is a visiting professor in intellectual property at Harvard Law School]