>>34240329The problem is that only in korea charges network usage fees to pay to the ISPs whenever their users watch their content.
That means if a content creator uploads a video on ISP A’s server, and someone using ISP B requests to view the content, ISP B has to charge ISP A a fee each time the request is made.
For viral content that is being viewed in large numbers, the fee became so large that ISPs couldn’t continue to bear it, and it trickled down to their subscription fees. These companies raised their internet access fee to keep up with the data toll, which bumped up Seoul’s internet fees ten times higher than Frankfurt, eight times higher than London and Paris, and 5-6 times higher than New York.
The new proposed bill is supposedly targeting big foreign companies like Netflix and YouTube that have huge markets in South Korea. The plan is to make the platforms pay to the South Korean telcos every time someone from the country requests the content from them. For example, if the law was already imposed in 2021, every time someone in South Korea watched Squid Game, Netflix would have to pay Korean telecom companies a delivery fee.
