But to answer your question - yes. AT&T zero-rated their own streaming service: https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/17/22336872/hbo-max-data-cap...

(Zero-rating doesn't mean "free". It means "You're paying for it whether you use it or not. Competitors cost double.")

One is arguing for a public utility that just pushes arbitrary and unceognizable bits down a fiber line.

The other is about requiring engineers to support actual tangible information of things they do not support.

Please don't conflate these two.

Assuming an ulterior motive is unnecessary, the stated motive seems good enough, they don't want a network to freeze out their services in order to promote their own.

I even read something about how "people will literally die without NN". That kind of rhetoric should be a signal.

The status quo was highly advantageous to said cloud providers, which is why they lobbied so hard against net neutrality changes. And since people on the internet get really vocal about perceived threats to the internet, the lobbying went viral.