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Of course it's harmful! We have a similar thing in our region (Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia). Mobile operators give you access to a couple of services unmetered, an
by r3bl 9y ago
Of course it's harmful!
We have a similar thing in our region (Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia). Mobile operators give you access to a couple of services unmetered, and you spend your data for other. As long as you can't choose the services you want to be unmetered, I consider these packages anti-NN.
This works in your specific advantage since you've probably already been using Spotify previously. If you were an Apple Music / Google Play Music subscriber, and were forced to switch to Spotify, it wouldn't be ideal for you, would it?
I even took things a bit further. About two dozens of websites from the region (so, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia) either shut down, or displayed a static message about the harmfulness of such data packets today. It's kind of a small support towards Battle for the Net and their action, but our goal was more to spread awareness and start a story than to ask for a specific action (like sending comments to the FCC).
It's not as big as Battle for the Net, it's mostly me and the websites I already had a previous affiliation with (posted articles previously and things like that), but I had $0 budget, a steady job + other obligations, and was basically able to spend <2 hours per day convincing websites to shut down for a day.
All in all, I consider my own project a success.
No point in sharing the link in an English forum, but in case there's someone from the region interested in it, and in case you really feel helpless outside of the US, here's an example of what you can do. This is not a local fight, this is a global fight against the ISP fuckery: https://netneutralnost.com/ https://netneutralnost.com/
- dis-sys 9y agoI don't see how providing unmetered Spotify is "forcing" any Apple Music / Google Play Music subscriber to switch. You can freely choose to ignore the unmetered services and continue to use whatever other services you choose.
- r3bl 9y agoOkay, let me put it this way: You have three competitors: A, B, and C. They all pretty much accomplish the same thing. Your ISP cooperates with A to give it a privileged position (unmetered connection). If you're a subscriber to B and C, you can't use your service of choice under the same conditions as those who use the service A. Therefore, you can either switch to A, or pay more data to use your preferred service (B or C). As long as you can't choose the service that's going to be unmetered, Spotify has a privileged position compared to its competitors for the users of that ISP.
- dis-sys 9y agoNo, I disagree. For your mentioned services B and C for which you are subscriber, you have been paying for the data usage, you are free to use them in the future with the exact same conditions/charges. If A enters some agreements with the ISP/carrier you choose to give you unmetered access, you are not put into any disadvantaged position, because you are not paying extra, you only get an option to use A's free traffic or pay the current same amount for services from B and C. It should also be pointed out that services A, B and C you described above are not "pretty much accomplish the same thing", A managed to reach this agreement to foot a part of your traffic bill, B and C refused to somehow pay your carrier to match the same level of service currently offered by A. There is a huge difference here.
- philipodonnell 9y agoYou're kind of assuming that services B and C have the ability to choose to enter agreements to give you unmetered access and have chosen not to. There is no such restriction as far as I know. Any ISP would be free to sign an "exclusive" agreement with a Spotify and B+C are now stuck having their customers charged more without any ability to control the price or do anything about it.. Or the exclusive agreement could be with a carrier-owned service and A, B and C are all stuck.
- dis-sys 9y agoISPs around the world are the same, they are commercial companies to make $, it signed an exclusive agreement with A because B/C refused to match the conditions put forward by A. Are you suggesting that ISPs are knocking back better $ offers from B/C in favour of A? I doubt that. Unless the ISP is downgrading the service quality of B/C or charging you more for using the same services from B/C, I don't see any problem if they choose to make services from A unmetered. The entire argument is so flowed - using such logic, one can jump up and argue that unmetered Spotify traffic is bad because people are "forced" to listen more music and spend less time on sports/reading/<insert your favourite stuff here> related apps/services - what is the difference here, they all compete for your time/attention.
- 9y ago
- bandushrew 9y agoBecause, without NN, it doesn't have to be JUST unmetered. QoS can be used to throttle connections to Apple Music, hell, service to competing music services could even be denied totally.