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To play devil’s advocate, are we really ready for Internet to be regulated like a public utility? Like water, we will need to pay more the more we consume. You

To play devil’s advocate, are we really ready for Internet to be regulated like a public utility? Like water, we will need to pay more the more we consume. You and I can pay but what about poor people? Will this discourage Internet usage?

wmf 9y ago
we will need to pay more the more we consume Not necessarily; under utility pricing your bill might be $49 for maintenance of the network and $1 for usage.
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
The marginal cost for additional bits through an existing hookup is tiny - likely not worth charging for. We'd likely pay based off the bandwidth available to us - and we pretty much already do that today, there's higher-bandwidth tiers available.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> To play devil’s advocate, are we really ready for Internet to be regulated like a public utility? Yes. > Like water, we will need to pay more the more we consume. We already do, though it's more noticeable for mobile broadband. Also, not all public utilities are metered—I’ve lived in places with unmetered public water, for instance, so the connection you draw between metering and public utilities is false. > You and I can pay but what about poor people? Public utilities are often subsidized for the poor (that's actually one way that broadband is already treated like a public utility).
- perseusprime11 9y ago
  Not where I live. Public utilities like water and electricity are run by private companies and no subsidies are offered.
lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
I think this the fundamental problem: so few people have any idea how the internet works. Sending packets is nothing like consuming water. The marginal cost of internet use is 0. But, because all you can get across to people is "series of tubes" the ISPs make out like criminals charging for for bits. With any luck the next generation will look at bandwidth caps the same way young people today are shocked anyone was so stupid as to allow companies to charge per SMS message.
- mikeash 9y ago
  The marginal cost is zero until you hit capacity, and then the marginal cost of the next bit is millions or billions of dollars. Then it goes back to zero until you hit the upgraded capacity, rinse and repeat. This is a pretty common situation in many areas. The marginal cost of putting a package on a truck is nearly zero (there's a very, very small amount of extra fuel burned) until the truck is full, then the marginal cost of the next package is the cost of sending another truck. The marginal cost of putting another passenger on an airliner is nearly zero (again, there's a small amount of added fuel consumption) until you hit capacity, then it's suddenly huge. In these other areas, we generally look at the cost as being the marginal cost of the whole truck or plane divided by the number of things it carries, rather than assigning the entire cost to the one thing that requires a new truck or plane. I don't see why internet access shouldn't be like this too. Data costs should be pretty low, and should be much cheaper at off-peak hours, but I don't see why they should be zero.
mikeash 9y ago
Why shouldn't we pay more when we use more? I know that "unlimited" plans have great popularity in the tech community, but is that based on any principle, or is it based on the fact that people in the tech community tend to use the internet a lot more and thereby benefit from "unlimited" plans by effectively freeloading off their less technically literate neighbors?
albinofrenchy 9y ago
Net neutrality isn't about paying more for consuming more. It is like needing to upgrade your water plan to make coffee as opposed to tea; unless you brew with starbucks or something.
- perseusprime11 9y ago
  I am talking about treating it like a public utility which is what Tom Wheeler did under Obama.
outsidetheparty 9y ago
You’re talking about metered or tiered pricing, which is already allowed and has nothing to do with net neutrality. Net neutrality means ISPs can’t favor some traffic over other traffic.
- perseusprime11 9y ago
  Not with wifi. Fios offers different speeds but it does not charge by consumption.
  - outsidetheparty 9y ago
    That is also allowed by current law, and also has nothing to do with net neutrality.
makecheck 9y ago
Remember though, multiple regulations make pay-for-use work. For instance, due to rules on product package labels, you can figure out the power consumption of one product and compare that to other products (should be easier to do and more important to consumers but I digress). I would love to reach the point where I can take these bloated, horrible web sites and make them have to publicly embarrass themselves by publishing their relative Internet consumption.

wmf 9y ago

we will need to pay more the more we consume Not necessarily; under utility pricing your bill might be $49 for maintenance of the network and $1 for usage.

ThrustVectoring 9y ago

The marginal cost for additional bits through an existing hookup is tiny - likely not worth charging for. We'd likely pay based off the bandwidth available to us - and we pretty much already do that today, there's higher-bandwidth tiers available.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> To play devil’s advocate, are we really ready for Internet to be regulated like a public utility? Yes. > Like water, we will need to pay more the more we consume. We already do, though it's more noticeable for mobile broadband. Also, not all public utilities are metered—I’ve lived in places with unmetered public water, for instance, so the connection you draw between metering and public utilities is false. > You and I can pay but what about poor people? Public utilities are often subsidized for the poor (that's actually one way that broadband is already treated like a public utility).

perseusprime11 9y ago
Not where I live. Public utilities like water and electricity are run by private companies and no subsidies are offered.

lordCarbonFiber 9y ago

I think this the fundamental problem: so few people have any idea how the internet works. Sending packets is nothing like consuming water. The marginal cost of internet use is 0. But, because all you can get across to people is "series of tubes" the ISPs make out like criminals charging for for bits. With any luck the next generation will look at bandwidth caps the same way young people today are shocked anyone was so stupid as to allow companies to charge per SMS message.

mikeash 9y ago
The marginal cost is zero until you hit capacity, and then the marginal cost of the next bit is millions or billions of dollars. Then it goes back to zero until you hit the upgraded capacity, rinse and repeat. This is a pretty common situation in many areas. The marginal cost of putting a package on a truck is nearly zero (there's a very, very small amount of extra fuel burned) until the truck is full, then the marginal cost of the next package is the cost of sending another truck. The marginal cost of putting another passenger on an airliner is nearly zero (again, there's a small amount of added fuel consumption) until you hit capacity, then it's suddenly huge. In these other areas, we generally look at the cost as being the marginal cost of the whole truck or plane divided by the number of things it carries, rather than assigning the entire cost to the one thing that requires a new truck or plane. I don't see why internet access shouldn't be like this too. Data costs should be pretty low, and should be much cheaper at off-peak hours, but I don't see why they should be zero.

mikeash 9y ago

Why shouldn't we pay more when we use more? I know that "unlimited" plans have great popularity in the tech community, but is that based on any principle, or is it based on the fact that people in the tech community tend to use the internet a lot more and thereby benefit from "unlimited" plans by effectively freeloading off their less technically literate neighbors?

albinofrenchy 9y ago

Net neutrality isn't about paying more for consuming more. It is like needing to upgrade your water plan to make coffee as opposed to tea; unless you brew with starbucks or something.

perseusprime11 9y ago
I am talking about treating it like a public utility which is what Tom Wheeler did under Obama.

outsidetheparty 9y ago

You’re talking about metered or tiered pricing, which is already allowed and has nothing to do with net neutrality. Net neutrality means ISPs can’t favor some traffic over other traffic.

perseusprime11 9y ago
Not with wifi. Fios offers different speeds but it does not charge by consumption.
- outsidetheparty 9y ago
  That is also allowed by current law, and also has nothing to do with net neutrality.

makecheck 9y ago

Remember though, multiple regulations make pay-for-use work. For instance, due to rules on product package labels, you can figure out the power consumption of one product and compare that to other products (should be easier to do and more important to consumers but I digress). I would love to reach the point where I can take these bloated, horrible web sites and make them have to publicly embarrass themselves by publishing their relative Internet consumption.