Apple in Talks With Comcast About Streaming Service ⇥ online.wsj.com

Shalini Ramachandran, Daisuke Wakabayashi and Amol Sharma, of the Wall Street Journal:

Apple Inc. is in talks with Comcast Corp. about teaming up for a streaming-television service that would use an Apple set-top box and get special treatment on Comcast’s cables to ensure it bypasses congestion on the Web, people familiar with the matter say.

The discussions between the world’s most valuable company and the nation’s largest cable provider are still in early stages and many hurdles remain. But the deal, if sealed, would mark a new level of cooperation and integration between a technology company and a cable provider to modernize TV viewing.

This is comparable to the Netflix/Comcast deal announced last month. If Apple’s version of this deal goes through, it will continue to set the precedent for taking a dump on network neutrality. What about a hypothetical New Startup X that can’t afford to make these kinds of deals? Do their customers get a shittier experience until the company can afford to pay Comcast to prioritize their traffic? Does this sound like a scene out of Goodfellas to you, too?