How many ways do I have to say it?
Sep. 18th, 2008 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenThis is just not a good idea.
The internet providers are not doing it for the benefit of the 95% of the customers (their number) who don't down/upload terabytes of data. If they were worried about the extreme cases, they would set the data-limit packages with much higher limits to really target those who are doing nothing but downloading and uploading huge files with a computer they apparently never turn off.
I don't know how many ways they can sell this bullshit and expect people to swallow it. They can't say this:
The company says it is not fair for average users to subsidize heavy users.
And then say this:
most customers in the Beaumont experiment will not pay much more than they did under the old plan.
And pretend that they're doing anyone but themselves a favor. Look at the wording in that last bit: customers aren't paying less, they're paying more for the "privilege" of having to keep track of how many YouTube videos they watch or iTunes songs they buy. If you're trying to sell this horse manure as a service to keep the average user from being screwed by the mega-downloading-evil-intertubes-clogging-pirate-men-monsters, you have to make it so it's cheaper for them to sign on. If it's more expensive, it doesn't matter how much more. You're making them pay more for less, more money, less access.
There should be a revolt. Instead, The New York Times sees it as the customers who are being greedy, dangerously so:
Customers are reacting like patients whose doctor has put them on a strict diet. Some are looking for tools to restrain their Internet use; others are hoping to find another doctor with a more liberal attitude toward vanilla Swiss almond ice cream and prime rib.
The metaphor isn't even accurate. It's more like customers have been going to a quack doctor because he's the only guy in town and he's trying to keep them from getting a peek at the phonebook where they might find another doctor and learn how badly he's being screwed. This isn't a case of the people using the service doing anything bad for them as a result of more access; this is a case of the telecoms acting like a bad date--agreeing to pay for a meal and then not liking that the consumers can eat whatever they want and not ever be glutted even though it's all-you-can eat.
There's also this:
A few companies say that Internet networks are being clogged by legitimate video services like YouTube.com, Hulu.com and Apple’s iTunes, which use more bandwidth than the illicit file traders.
So, not only does the move to pay-as-you-amass-gbs not save you money so you're not paying for the evil pirate monster men, but the evil pirate monster men aren't even the problem in the first place! YOU ARE.
Why aren't people revolting? Seriously, if this experiment in nowhere Texas proves not to raise hell, they'll use the incredibly disproportionately small sample size (2000 census pop for Beaumont: 100,000; 2008 number of people in the US using the internet: 220,141,969, making Beaumont's representative slice about 0.005%) to argue that it benefits people everywhere. And they'll only pay slight more for that "benefit"!
What was the lesson we learned from iTunes? Make it easy for people to do it legally, they'll do it legally. Complicate the process, and they'll jump ship faster than rats. What happens when people start stealing bandwidth from neighbor's unsecured networks? I guess it just sucks for them, doesn't it?
Will it really take cutting into things that are legal and free like iTunes before someone raises a goddamned stink about this? I mean, I trust that once iTunes' revenue stream is curtailed, they'll do some fit-pitching, but we have to let it go that far? What about the green aspects of this? Costs a helluva a lot of gas to get things delivered that we could just download, especially when we only want the one song, episode, whatever. Guess that doesn't matter so long as the almight internet providers say it doesn't.
I seriously cannot believe that a group of rich-ass bastards is so cheap. No, I take that back. After all the financial institutions collapsed this and last few weeks, I can believe that. I just can't believe we're still not looking into this robber-baron behavior.
The internet providers are not doing it for the benefit of the 95% of the customers (their number) who don't down/upload terabytes of data. If they were worried about the extreme cases, they would set the data-limit packages with much higher limits to really target those who are doing nothing but downloading and uploading huge files with a computer they apparently never turn off.
I don't know how many ways they can sell this bullshit and expect people to swallow it. They can't say this:
The company says it is not fair for average users to subsidize heavy users.
And then say this:
most customers in the Beaumont experiment will not pay much more than they did under the old plan.
And pretend that they're doing anyone but themselves a favor. Look at the wording in that last bit: customers aren't paying less, they're paying more for the "privilege" of having to keep track of how many YouTube videos they watch or iTunes songs they buy. If you're trying to sell this horse manure as a service to keep the average user from being screwed by the mega-downloading-evil-intertubes-clogging-pirate-men-monsters, you have to make it so it's cheaper for them to sign on. If it's more expensive, it doesn't matter how much more. You're making them pay more for less, more money, less access.
There should be a revolt. Instead, The New York Times sees it as the customers who are being greedy, dangerously so:
Customers are reacting like patients whose doctor has put them on a strict diet. Some are looking for tools to restrain their Internet use; others are hoping to find another doctor with a more liberal attitude toward vanilla Swiss almond ice cream and prime rib.
The metaphor isn't even accurate. It's more like customers have been going to a quack doctor because he's the only guy in town and he's trying to keep them from getting a peek at the phonebook where they might find another doctor and learn how badly he's being screwed. This isn't a case of the people using the service doing anything bad for them as a result of more access; this is a case of the telecoms acting like a bad date--agreeing to pay for a meal and then not liking that the consumers can eat whatever they want and not ever be glutted even though it's all-you-can eat.
There's also this:
A few companies say that Internet networks are being clogged by legitimate video services like YouTube.com, Hulu.com and Apple’s iTunes, which use more bandwidth than the illicit file traders.
So, not only does the move to pay-as-you-amass-gbs not save you money so you're not paying for the evil pirate monster men, but the evil pirate monster men aren't even the problem in the first place! YOU ARE.
Why aren't people revolting? Seriously, if this experiment in nowhere Texas proves not to raise hell, they'll use the incredibly disproportionately small sample size (2000 census pop for Beaumont: 100,000; 2008 number of people in the US using the internet: 220,141,969, making Beaumont's representative slice about 0.005%) to argue that it benefits people everywhere. And they'll only pay slight more for that "benefit"!
What was the lesson we learned from iTunes? Make it easy for people to do it legally, they'll do it legally. Complicate the process, and they'll jump ship faster than rats. What happens when people start stealing bandwidth from neighbor's unsecured networks? I guess it just sucks for them, doesn't it?
Will it really take cutting into things that are legal and free like iTunes before someone raises a goddamned stink about this? I mean, I trust that once iTunes' revenue stream is curtailed, they'll do some fit-pitching, but we have to let it go that far? What about the green aspects of this? Costs a helluva a lot of gas to get things delivered that we could just download, especially when we only want the one song, episode, whatever. Guess that doesn't matter so long as the almight internet providers say it doesn't.
I seriously cannot believe that a group of rich-ass bastards is so cheap. No, I take that back. After all the financial institutions collapsed this and last few weeks, I can believe that. I just can't believe we're still not looking into this robber-baron behavior.
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-18 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-18 07:51 pm (UTC)Honestly? I think it just...sort of...doesn't come up. But like I said, I believe it did in the recent FCC/Comcast dustup. Or maybe it only did in an article about it.
The thing is, these days, data is data. Phone, TV, Internet - it's all digital data being pushed around by a lot of the same equipment. And a lot of the same regulations need to apply to all three. All are critical services in the 21st century, that need to be deployed in rural areas and inner cities. All allow a lot more competition than in the past, which is very important. The FCC needs to catch up, not just to get wise to schemes like Comcast has been pulling, but in general to the new way of things. They do seem to be making progress; I guess we'll see how it goes from here.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-18 08:02 pm (UTC)