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'The cell carriers fear being turned into "dumb pipes" and generally prefer proprietary services that give them customer lock-in.' Uhh, that's kind of what I p

'The cell carriers fear being turned into "dumb pipes" and generally prefer proprietary services that give them customer lock-in.' Uhh, that's kind of what I pay my service providers to do though; deliver services through their "dumb pipes" and infrastructure. There's not a lot of differentiation in internet or phone services from provider to provider for consumers. The biggest difference I can find is price and network availability. Your job as a provider is to give me access to "dumb pipes".

zeveb 8y ago
That's what I want, too. The thing is, that's so very much not what the carriers want. They don't want to be a commodity (like corn or bacon): one provider of a commodity is very much the same as every other, which means that there's a race to the bottom on price. What the providers want is to differentiate themselves from their competition, in order to add friction to switching and thus help sustain higher prices. The thing is, with general-purpose computing devices in our pockets we can run just about anything. We don't need special carrier features, and in fact those are anti-features: why would I want something I can only use with those of my friends on the same carrier? Ultimately, of course, this also applies to OSes: why would I use something Android- or iOS-specific when I could use something universal instead? Right now, there are plenty of iPhone users using iCloud services which lock out their Android-using friends & family, but over time social pressure will lead the to find more platform-neutral ways to share. The web is eating the world, and that means being in the ISP or OS space is a losing game (in the long term: in the short term, of course, there's plenty of profit to be had).
- spadros 8y ago
  Yeah, that's what I was thinking. What's the point of a feature like RCS to me when I can only use it with other Fido users? I'm not going to expect my friends and family to stay on my provider, so that actively discourages me from wanting any provider locked in features. Make your dumb pipes better and available to all networks and maybe I'll consider it.

zeveb 8y ago

That's what I want, too. The thing is, that's so very much not what the carriers want. They don't want to be a commodity (like corn or bacon): one provider of a commodity is very much the same as every other, which means that there's a race to the bottom on price. What the providers want is to differentiate themselves from their competition, in order to add friction to switching and thus help sustain higher prices. The thing is, with general-purpose computing devices in our pockets we can run just about anything. We don't need special carrier features, and in fact those are anti-features: why would I want something I can only use with those of my friends on the same carrier? Ultimately, of course, this also applies to OSes: why would I use something Android- or iOS-specific when I could use something universal instead? Right now, there are plenty of iPhone users using iCloud services which lock out their Android-using friends & family, but over time social pressure will lead the to find more platform-neutral ways to share. The web is eating the world, and that means being in the ISP or OS space is a losing game (in the long term: in the short term, of course, there's plenty of profit to be had).

spadros 8y ago
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. What's the point of a feature like RCS to me when I can only use it with other Fido users? I'm not going to expect my friends and family to stay on my provider, so that actively discourages me from wanting any provider locked in features. Make your dumb pipes better and available to all networks and maybe I'll consider it.