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"T-Mobile treats all data the same, some data just doesn’t cost money" I guess I'm too stupid to understand what "same" means. It made sense to me, but maybe

by nkurz 9y ago

"T-Mobile treats all data the same, some data just doesn’t cost money" I guess I'm too stupid to understand what "same" means. It made sense to me, but maybe I'm the one misunderstanding. Let's try a hypothetical parallel: PhoneCo sells you 1000 minutes of phone service, meaning that you can make 1000 minutes of calls without additional charge. But as a "perk" (to encourage you to convince your friends to switch PhoneCo), calls to other PhoneCo customers don't count toward this limit. You can still make calls to anyone you want, but the minutes don't always count against your total. I think it's clear what is meant by saying that "PhoneCo treats all calls the same, some calls just don't cost money". Now assume we have DataCo, which sells you the right to download 1000 GB of data, but has a special arrangement with some partner companies such that data going back and forth to those companies does not count toward your limit. Again, you can still connect to any web site or data service you want, but for some subset of sites the data usage doesn't count toward your limit (presumably because those companies are paying something on your behalf). Is it unreasonable to say that "DataCo treats all data the same, some data just doesn’t cost money"? Does it at least have a clear meaning? This is separate from the argument as to whether this is a good idea to allow, but I don't have much problem with the phrasing.

kodablah 9y ago
> But as a "perk" And there's where you went off "same". It's abusing the term "same". I of course understand the author, but he is mincing words. So yes, it is unreasonable to say that in response to "Does DataCo treat all data the same"...or at least you have realized that latter part ("some data just doesn't cost money") must always be present as a caveat. What it leads to, inevitably, is prioritizing the data on cost alone. Users are incentivized NOT to use the non-free side. It's like someone saying "have you ever done THING" and the response being "I have never done THING, except for that one time". Just say it isn't the same then, otherwise it comes off as weaseling.
- nkurz 9y ago
  Rather than disagreeing about "same", we might be disagreeing about "treat". To me, treating all data/calls the same means that there is no difference in speed or reliability. I don't see it as automatically meaning that they are all billed the same. In some contexts this can be misleading, but I didn't think it was within the Stratechery article. I'm much more bothered by "unlimited" meaning anything but unlimited, and like the author, more concerned about the lack of a viable competitive landscape for broadband than with differential billing.

by nkurz 9y ago

kodablah 9y ago

> But as a "perk" And there's where you went off "same". It's abusing the term "same". I of course understand the author, but he is mincing words. So yes, it is unreasonable to say that in response to "Does DataCo treat all data the same"...or at least you have realized that latter part ("some data just doesn't cost money") must always be present as a caveat. What it leads to, inevitably, is prioritizing the data on cost alone. Users are incentivized NOT to use the non-free side. It's like someone saying "have you ever done THING" and the response being "I have never done THING, except for that one time". Just say it isn't the same then, otherwise it comes off as weaseling.

nkurz 9y ago
Rather than disagreeing about "same", we might be disagreeing about "treat". To me, treating all data/calls the same means that there is no difference in speed or reliability. I don't see it as automatically meaning that they are all billed the same. In some contexts this can be misleading, but I didn't think it was within the Stratechery article. I'm much more bothered by "unlimited" meaning anything but unlimited, and like the author, more concerned about the lack of a viable competitive landscape for broadband than with differential billing.