It’s really pretty simple: video requires a lot of space to travel over the Internet. That means that if you get your Internet access from the same company as you get your cable televisions, Comcast for instance, and you’re using that access to watch Netflix or Hulu, then your cable/Internet provider is sort of in competition with itself.

Welcome to the tricky side effects of media consolidation.

The Department of Justice is now said to be investigating cable/Internet providers over whether they’re limiting the amount of data a customer can download each month.

No one’s talking on the record about it yet but how can this not continue to be an issue? The question that remains is whether enough obstacles can be thrown in the way of Netflix and similar companies by the cable operators to kill them and leave only things like Comcast’s Xfinity service.