5 ms·

Does anything, ever, get too cheap to meter? Data transfer has gotten several orders of magnitude cheaper since the days of paying long-distance rates for 300 b

by tlb 7y ago

Does anything, ever, get too cheap to meter? Data transfer has gotten several orders of magnitude cheaper since the days of paying long-distance rates for 300 baud modems, but metered data plans are still very common. "Too cheap to meter" may depend on the meter costing a lot. Perhaps electric meters were a significant fraction of the expense of a power hookup at some point.

tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
Wired residential data tends to be unmetered in many countries in Europe. Server/commercial data usage is often not metered; bandwidth is charged at a fixed price for the provided line, or e.g. a 95%ile (making off-peak data "free"). Water is not metered individually per household in some houses. There is one meter per house, and the cost is split (equally or according to some formula based on people living there or apartment size).
- derefr 7y ago
  > Server/commercial data usage is often not metered; bandwidth is charged at a fixed price for the provided line, or e.g. a 95%ile (making off-peak data "free"). That's not so much "unmetered" as it is "metered using a fixed heuristic for expected usage, that results in the supplier still making a profit† even if you're using 100% of what they provide." † a profit compared to 100% usage with the relative additional costs of metering. (This is why the price is fixed around 95%—that's the break-even where metering the extra usage would cost just as much as taking the hit on the unmetered 5% extra usage.)
  - ghaff 7y ago
    And they may even be OK with some of their heaviest customers being money-losers, so long as the marketing/sales advantages of having a fixed rate outweigh pay-as-you-go pricing.
  - JetSpiegel 7y ago
    It's basically all you can eat. There are heuristicts about the limit on what you can consume.
- krageon 7y ago
  > Server/commercial data usage is often not metered This is definitely not typical in Europe. Typically you'll get a bandwidth cap and have to pay per gigabyte above that. For home use this is not the norm.
  - cpach 7y ago
    IMHO it’s kinda hard to generalise about the whole of Europe as if all European countries are alike. Where I live (Sweden) ADSL and fiber for home use are generally not capped, AFAIK. Obviously that is not true for all European countries.
    - krageon 7y ago
      You are correct of course, I am talking about the rich parts of Europe. The more to the east (and in some cases the south) you go, the worse the situation can be. Edit: Though reading this again, I was mostly talking about server usage - in which case I don't know of any country that has unmetered bandwidth in practice (this means no FUP either, which is just a fancy way of saying "there is a cap but we can change it whenever we feel like it") in the EU and I have an above average familiarity with the space.
smallnamespace 7y ago
A packet of ketchup at McDonalds in Moscow cost 35 kopecks in the early 2000s. It was only $0.01, but they would still charge you for it. There was no free toilet paper in China a couple of decades ago — either bring your own, or maybe buy it for inflated prices from a nearby attendant. If you want to talk about things that actually flow, I'm pretty sure using the sewers free during the Roman era — but you had to pay to get it hooked up. A bit ironic since now many places meter for sewage (using the water bill as a proxy).
masklinn 7y ago
> Does anything, ever, get too cheap to meter? Data transfer has gotten several orders of magnitude cheaper since the days of paying long-distance rates for 300 baud modems, but metered data plans are still very common. I'm not sure there's still capped broadband anywhere in mainland europe, even the UK mostly stopped doing that. IIRC some Japanese providers cap upload, in the 100s of GB, that's basically just network maintenance. Residential bandwidth is effectively too cheap to meter, but US ISPs found they could keep nickel-and-reaming their captive audience, why would they stop?
- stordoff 7y ago
  I'm not quite sure what you mean by "that's basically just network maintenance" - could you explain?
  - masklinn 7y ago
    There's little reason to limit the bandwidth, but at the same time you want to avoid straight abuse (especially when there are connections up to Gbps). So you put on a high cap on upload as that's usually a minor activity for residential users.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  nickel-and-reaming I like this term.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ses1984 7y ago
  Residential bandwidth isn't too cheap to meter it just uses a different business model that doesn't involve metering most of the time.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ghaff 7y ago
A lot of the time, a big function of metering is to avoid wasteful behaviors that "free" can cause especially when consumption can be more or less open-ended. On the other hand, sometimes selling a service for a fixed monthly fee (e.g. Netflix) is preferred by consumers and the costs of heavier users aren't too high.
08-15 7y ago
Yes, some things have such a low marginal price that metering is pointless, for example unlimited coffee refills at a restaurant. That doesn't mean it's free, you still have to pay for the cup. And that was Rod Adams' take on electricity, too, more than a decade ago: https://atomicinsights.com/too-cheap-meter-its-now-true/ https://atomicinsights.com/too-cheap-meter-its-now-true/
- ghaff 7y ago
  >pointless, for example unlimited coffee refills at a restaurant Low marginal cost of drip coffee certainly enables restaurants to offer "unlimited" drip coffee refills. (Quotes because you might get a nudge to buy something else or leave if you hang around all day.) But deciding to do so is driven to a considerable degree by the prevailing customs/practices. You at least partly get free coffee and soda refills because customers generally expect them in the US.
  - JetSpiegel 7y ago
    > get free (...) soda refills because customers generally expect them in the US. And on most Burger Kings, at least in some European capitals.
- ip26 7y ago
  There's definitely an upper limit to the coffee you can drink in one sitting, while the amount of water, data, or electricity you can use is astronomical (I won't say "unlimited", your mains hookups do limit you)
dredmorbius 7y ago
Most of modern surveillance capitalism is. When Di Cleverly and Dave Thiery set up Pluspora as a home for for G+ refugees, the costs worked out (at least for direct hosting, ignoring admin costs) to about $0.25 per user. Not per month. Per year. They're hosting 10,000 users (a very considerable chunk of the active English-language G+ user core) out of pocket. That's literally too cheap to meter. At best you might aggregate service at blocks of 100, and more likely 1,000 - 10,000 users -- large groups or communities. One reason mass media turn to advertising-based business models, and all the dysfunction and social malfunction that generates, is because adverts are a tractable scaling and grouping mechanism. They're a hack (though not the only one) to the too-cheap-to-meter problem.
- tlb 7y ago
  Surveillance capitalism gets paid by the ad impression/click, and those are metered very thoroughly. If you could pay $1000/mo for "some ads", that would be unmetered.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Yes. But that is because charging the direct users isn't tractable. Charging users rather than advertisers fails (largely) due to TCTM. Though there are other dynamics as well.
munfred 7y ago
3D printing in university libraries is my favorite example. Every makerspace in libraries I talked too says they contemplated charging and discarded the idea because filament is so cheap ($10/kg in bulk) that it's not worth the hassle and would dampen the goal of giving students access to the technology

by tlb 7y ago

tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago

Wired residential data tends to be unmetered in many countries in Europe. Server/commercial data usage is often not metered; bandwidth is charged at a fixed price for the provided line, or e.g. a 95%ile (making off-peak data "free"). Water is not metered individually per household in some houses. There is one meter per house, and the cost is split (equally or according to some formula based on people living there or apartment size).

derefr 7y ago
> Server/commercial data usage is often not metered; bandwidth is charged at a fixed price for the provided line, or e.g. a 95%ile (making off-peak data "free"). That's not so much "unmetered" as it is "metered using a fixed heuristic for expected usage, that results in the supplier still making a profit† even if you're using 100% of what they provide." † a profit compared to 100% usage with the relative additional costs of metering. (This is why the price is fixed around 95%—that's the break-even where metering the extra usage would cost just as much as taking the hit on the unmetered 5% extra usage.)
- ghaff 7y ago
  And they may even be OK with some of their heaviest customers being money-losers, so long as the marketing/sales advantages of having a fixed rate outweigh pay-as-you-go pricing.
- JetSpiegel 7y ago
  It's basically all you can eat. There are heuristicts about the limit on what you can consume.
krageon 7y ago
> Server/commercial data usage is often not metered This is definitely not typical in Europe. Typically you'll get a bandwidth cap and have to pay per gigabyte above that. For home use this is not the norm.
- cpach 7y ago
  IMHO it’s kinda hard to generalise about the whole of Europe as if all European countries are alike. Where I live (Sweden) ADSL and fiber for home use are generally not capped, AFAIK. Obviously that is not true for all European countries.
  - krageon 7y ago
    You are correct of course, I am talking about the rich parts of Europe. The more to the east (and in some cases the south) you go, the worse the situation can be. Edit: Though reading this again, I was mostly talking about server usage - in which case I don't know of any country that has unmetered bandwidth in practice (this means no FUP either, which is just a fancy way of saying "there is a cap but we can change it whenever we feel like it") in the EU and I have an above average familiarity with the space.

smallnamespace 7y ago

A packet of ketchup at McDonalds in Moscow cost 35 kopecks in the early 2000s. It was only $0.01, but they would still charge you for it. There was no free toilet paper in China a couple of decades ago — either bring your own, or maybe buy it for inflated prices from a nearby attendant. If you want to talk about things that actually flow, I'm pretty sure using the sewers free during the Roman era — but you had to pay to get it hooked up. A bit ironic since now many places meter for sewage (using the water bill as a proxy).

masklinn 7y ago

> Does anything, ever, get too cheap to meter? Data transfer has gotten several orders of magnitude cheaper since the days of paying long-distance rates for 300 baud modems, but metered data plans are still very common. I'm not sure there's still capped broadband anywhere in mainland europe, even the UK mostly stopped doing that. IIRC some Japanese providers cap upload, in the 100s of GB, that's basically just network maintenance. Residential bandwidth is effectively too cheap to meter, but US ISPs found they could keep nickel-and-reaming their captive audience, why would they stop?

stordoff 7y ago
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "that's basically just network maintenance" - could you explain?
- masklinn 7y ago
  There's little reason to limit the bandwidth, but at the same time you want to avoid straight abuse (especially when there are connections up to Gbps). So you put on a high cap on upload as that's usually a minor activity for residential users.
HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
nickel-and-reaming I like this term.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ses1984 7y ago
Residential bandwidth isn't too cheap to meter it just uses a different business model that doesn't involve metering most of the time.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

ghaff 7y ago

A lot of the time, a big function of metering is to avoid wasteful behaviors that "free" can cause especially when consumption can be more or less open-ended. On the other hand, sometimes selling a service for a fixed monthly fee (e.g. Netflix) is preferred by consumers and the costs of heavier users aren't too high.

08-15 7y ago

Yes, some things have such a low marginal price that metering is pointless, for example unlimited coffee refills at a restaurant. That doesn't mean it's free, you still have to pay for the cup. And that was Rod Adams' take on electricity, too, more than a decade ago: https://atomicinsights.com/too-cheap-meter-its-now-true/ https://atomicinsights.com/too-cheap-meter-its-now-true/

ghaff 7y ago
>pointless, for example unlimited coffee refills at a restaurant Low marginal cost of drip coffee certainly enables restaurants to offer "unlimited" drip coffee refills. (Quotes because you might get a nudge to buy something else or leave if you hang around all day.) But deciding to do so is driven to a considerable degree by the prevailing customs/practices. You at least partly get free coffee and soda refills because customers generally expect them in the US.
- JetSpiegel 7y ago
  > get free (...) soda refills because customers generally expect them in the US. And on most Burger Kings, at least in some European capitals.
ip26 7y ago
There's definitely an upper limit to the coffee you can drink in one sitting, while the amount of water, data, or electricity you can use is astronomical (I won't say "unlimited", your mains hookups do limit you)

dredmorbius 7y ago

Most of modern surveillance capitalism is. When Di Cleverly and Dave Thiery set up Pluspora as a home for for G+ refugees, the costs worked out (at least for direct hosting, ignoring admin costs) to about $0.25 per user. Not per month. Per year. They're hosting 10,000 users (a very considerable chunk of the active English-language G+ user core) out of pocket. That's literally too cheap to meter. At best you might aggregate service at blocks of 100, and more likely 1,000 - 10,000 users -- large groups or communities. One reason mass media turn to advertising-based business models, and all the dysfunction and social malfunction that generates, is because adverts are a tractable scaling and grouping mechanism. They're a hack (though not the only one) to the too-cheap-to-meter problem.

tlb 7y ago
Surveillance capitalism gets paid by the ad impression/click, and those are metered very thoroughly. If you could pay $1000/mo for "some ads", that would be unmetered.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Yes. But that is because charging the direct users isn't tractable. Charging users rather than advertisers fails (largely) due to TCTM. Though there are other dynamics as well.

munfred 7y ago

3D printing in university libraries is my favorite example. Every makerspace in libraries I talked too says they contemplated charging and discarded the idea because filament is so cheap ($10/kg in bulk) that it's not worth the hassle and would dampen the goal of giving students access to the technology