Once Comcast’s Deal Shifted to a Focus on Broadband, Its Ambitions Were Sunk - NYTimes.com

Preserving the existing oligopoly, for now...

"The government’s verdict on the merger and its stance on net neutrality were separate issues, but they were very much intertwined. At the end of the day, the government’s commitment to maintaining a free and open Internet did not square with the prospect of a single company controlling as much as 40 percent of the public’s access to it. All the more so given the accelerating shift in viewing habits, with increasing numbers of consumers choosing streaming services like Netflix over traditional TV. In this sense, it didn’t really matter if Comcast and Time Warner’s cable markets overlapped. The real issue was broadband.

“The simple way to think about the problem with the Comcast merger is that once they get that big, they’re pretty much too big to regulate,” said Marvin Ammori, a lawyer who helped lead the campaign for net neutrality."

Once Comcast’s Deal Shifted to a Focus on Broadband, Its Ambitions Were Sunk - NYTimes.com