3 ms·

Or follow the automotive model: put greater liability on the end user. End user is then obliged to pay for insurance, incentivized to pick safer suppliers, and

by jl6 9y ago

Or follow the automotive model: put greater liability on the end user. End user is then obliged to pay for insurance, incentivized to pick safer suppliers, and feels the consequences of their own bad behaviour (it's not the ISP's fault that you keep opening .exe email attachments).

wahern 9y ago
The automotive model is split. The end user pays insurance because he's the least cost avoider for the most obvious types of accidents. And you want him to internalize the cost of such easily avoidable errors. But the producer is also regulated and required to include certain safety features because individual consumers are poorly equipped to select cars based on complex safety features. And in any event most consumers are very price sensitive; many people (perhaps most, actually) don't have the luxury of choosing a car based on safety features. seat belts, air bags, crumple zones, ABS, and rear-view cameras have all become mandatory thanks to regulation. (In some cases voluntarily with the understanding that they'd be involuntary if industry didn't cooperate). Collision avoidance systems are already scheduled to be mandatory, again by voluntary agreement. When it comes to tech, consumers just aren't sophisticated enough to know how to choose products. And the insurance industry doesn't know how to solve that problem, either. It's really only the _commercial_ insurance industry where the insurers work with the policy purchasers to help them select the safest products and procedures. Anyone who has worked in tech support knows that it's a lost cause trying to educate individual consumers.
mysterydip 9y ago
What about in this case? Some areas only have one internet provider. Are the users liable because they chose "have internet" over not?
mjevans 9y ago
How's the customer going to pick when their market, if they're lucky, has only two fixed link ISPs? When most have only one (really crappy cable one) that if they're lucky provides more than 25Mbit down and who knows what up. (Yeah it's nearly 2018 and those speeds would have been 'OK' 15 years ago.) A lot of the reason Americans are in this mess is the complete lack of competition in 99+% of the country. /That/ lack of competition comes from a broken investment model. Like roads, water/sewer, and other systems regulated as utilities the physical plant is a natural monopoly; it isn't effective for society or companies to build parallel infrastructures. If the base platform (last mile 'wires') were owned by the community and competition occurred on top of it (like with package delivery) then the context of your comment would make more sense.
- crmd 9y ago
  >If the base platform (last mile 'wires') were owned by the community It's not necessary for the wires to be owned by the people. They could be owned by a private, highly regulated, capital intensive, infrastructure utility company, that is a legally separate entity from the ISPs who compete to provide your data services. Private is not necessarily better than community ownership, but may be more politically viable.
- posguy 9y ago
  Even in areas with heavy fiber penetration like Seattle, where Centurylink has 70+% of the city covered with Fiber, Comcast is still capping users to 1TB and Centurylink feels little competition. Hell, they're trying to kill off their TV service right now, and pitching DirecTV (with a much slower guide, missing multi-channel preview, and with a dish bolted to your house) as the new thing they're pushing.
chiefalchemist 9y ago
What's the incentive for the vendor? Trying to do the best and hoping the customer picks them? Or just maintaining the status quo because the customer has insurance and is protected? I hear ya. The flaw is, there isn't enough competition in enough markets. Many rural areas only have one ISP.

by jl6 9y ago

wahern 9y ago

The automotive model is split. The end user pays insurance because he's the least cost avoider for the most obvious types of accidents. And you want him to internalize the cost of such easily avoidable errors. But the producer is also regulated and required to include certain safety features because individual consumers are poorly equipped to select cars based on complex safety features. And in any event most consumers are very price sensitive; many people (perhaps most, actually) don't have the luxury of choosing a car based on safety features. seat belts, air bags, crumple zones, ABS, and rear-view cameras have all become mandatory thanks to regulation. (In some cases voluntarily with the understanding that they'd be involuntary if industry didn't cooperate). Collision avoidance systems are already scheduled to be mandatory, again by voluntary agreement. When it comes to tech, consumers just aren't sophisticated enough to know how to choose products. And the insurance industry doesn't know how to solve that problem, either. It's really only the _commercial_ insurance industry where the insurers work with the policy purchasers to help them select the safest products and procedures. Anyone who has worked in tech support knows that it's a lost cause trying to educate individual consumers.

mysterydip 9y ago

What about in this case? Some areas only have one internet provider. Are the users liable because they chose "have internet" over not?

mjevans 9y ago

How's the customer going to pick when their market, if they're lucky, has only two fixed link ISPs? When most have only one (really crappy cable one) that if they're lucky provides more than 25Mbit down and who knows what up. (Yeah it's nearly 2018 and those speeds would have been 'OK' 15 years ago.) A lot of the reason Americans are in this mess is the complete lack of competition in 99+% of the country. /That/ lack of competition comes from a broken investment model. Like roads, water/sewer, and other systems regulated as utilities the physical plant is a natural monopoly; it isn't effective for society or companies to build parallel infrastructures. If the base platform (last mile 'wires') were owned by the community and competition occurred on top of it (like with package delivery) then the context of your comment would make more sense.

crmd 9y ago
>If the base platform (last mile 'wires') were owned by the community It's not necessary for the wires to be owned by the people. They could be owned by a private, highly regulated, capital intensive, infrastructure utility company, that is a legally separate entity from the ISPs who compete to provide your data services. Private is not necessarily better than community ownership, but may be more politically viable.
posguy 9y ago
Even in areas with heavy fiber penetration like Seattle, where Centurylink has 70+% of the city covered with Fiber, Comcast is still capping users to 1TB and Centurylink feels little competition. Hell, they're trying to kill off their TV service right now, and pitching DirecTV (with a much slower guide, missing multi-channel preview, and with a dish bolted to your house) as the new thing they're pushing.

chiefalchemist 9y ago

What's the incentive for the vendor? Trying to do the best and hoping the customer picks them? Or just maintaining the status quo because the customer has insurance and is protected? I hear ya. The flaw is, there isn't enough competition in enough markets. Many rural areas only have one ISP.