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The marginal costs of commercial software is even lower, but most vendors charge in a mostly linear manner; it's not like they decrement their prices for each s

by walkon 15y ago

The marginal costs of commercial software is even lower, but most vendors charge in a mostly linear manner; it's not like they decrement their prices for each sale they make to keep a steady cost-to-price ratio. Why should they? If enough people want to still voluntarily purchase their product/service, they should continue to try and make as much money as possible. If their are few good options, then the market is ripe for competition to help bring the incumbents back to offering better values. Isn't this a site revolving around entrepreneurs in IT? Doesn't everyone want to make more money then they spend?

jbri 15y ago
If the market was actually open for competition, then there would be alternatives and no-one would complain about caps, they'd just move to another provider. The fact that bitching about the caps is people's only option should tip you off to the fact that the market is not, in fact, open.
- walkon 15y ago
  There is definitely competition, but even if there wasn't, that would mean that the existing provider was good enough. What's stopping more alternatives from appearing besides this? Probably looming legislation more than anything. If you really hate it, instead of spending your energy lobbying for regulations, go start your own ISP that gives everyone the world for a lower flat rate. I'm sure you'll stay in business for a long time.
  - henrikschroder 15y ago
    In countries where there is actual competition between ISPs, such as Sweden, and other parts of Europe, there are no caps. And our ISPs don't seem to suffer for it. I'm sure they'd love to have caps, but the first one to do it will just start bleeding customers, and none of them can afford that since the market is saturated. I have a throttle cap on my mobile internet though, I can use as much internet as I like on my iPhone for a flat fee, but if I go over 5GB in a month, they may throttle my speed for the next month. That's pretty fair, I guess, but they're building out 4G now with even faster mobile internet, so those caps are probably going to disappear slowly as people move over to newer technology with more bandwidth than the current 3G/EDGE systems. Stop being an apologist.
    - jasonlotito 15y ago
      > In countries where there is actual competition between ISPs How do you define competition between ISPs?
      - henrikschroder 15y ago
        Where I am, I can choose between nine different ADSL providers, one cable provider, and about six different mobile broadband providers. All of them want me to switch to them, and they differ slightly in pricing, bundling, triple-play, customer service, speed, etc.
        jasonlotito 15y ago
        That's not what I'm asking. I have multiple providers of DSL internet, cable, and mobile providers, all with varying services, pricing, etc. Each one applies caps. Where you are, are their lies that affect providers in that area? Or is it all pure competition? Did those 9 ADSL providers all lay their own line, or is their laws in effect that make those providers lease their lines out to other providers? Basically, is it pure competition?
        henrikschroder 15y ago
        The copper network is owned by TeliaSonera, the former state telephone monopoly, but they were forced to open that up to competitors so anyone could install DSLAMs in the phone stations, etc. There's competing national fiber networks as well, so no ISP has a stranglehold on the DSL market. There's no competition and choice for cable though, you have the cable company you have, and that's it. For GSM networks, there's three separate, and two or three 3G networks, so there's competition there as well. In a few months my house is gonna be hooked up to the city fiber network, at which point I can choose from another bunch of ISPs.

by walkon 15y ago

jbri 15y ago

If the market was actually open for competition, then there would be alternatives and no-one would complain about caps, they'd just move to another provider. The fact that bitching about the caps is people's only option should tip you off to the fact that the market is not, in fact, open.

walkon 15y ago
There is definitely competition, but even if there wasn't, that would mean that the existing provider was good enough. What's stopping more alternatives from appearing besides this? Probably looming legislation more than anything. If you really hate it, instead of spending your energy lobbying for regulations, go start your own ISP that gives everyone the world for a lower flat rate. I'm sure you'll stay in business for a long time.
- henrikschroder 15y ago
  In countries where there is actual competition between ISPs, such as Sweden, and other parts of Europe, there are no caps. And our ISPs don't seem to suffer for it. I'm sure they'd love to have caps, but the first one to do it will just start bleeding customers, and none of them can afford that since the market is saturated. I have a throttle cap on my mobile internet though, I can use as much internet as I like on my iPhone for a flat fee, but if I go over 5GB in a month, they may throttle my speed for the next month. That's pretty fair, I guess, but they're building out 4G now with even faster mobile internet, so those caps are probably going to disappear slowly as people move over to newer technology with more bandwidth than the current 3G/EDGE systems. Stop being an apologist.
  - jasonlotito 15y ago
    > In countries where there is actual competition between ISPs How do you define competition between ISPs?
    - henrikschroder 15y ago
      Where I am, I can choose between nine different ADSL providers, one cable provider, and about six different mobile broadband providers. All of them want me to switch to them, and they differ slightly in pricing, bundling, triple-play, customer service, speed, etc.
      - jasonlotito 15y ago
        That's not what I'm asking. I have multiple providers of DSL internet, cable, and mobile providers, all with varying services, pricing, etc. Each one applies caps. Where you are, are their lies that affect providers in that area? Or is it all pure competition? Did those 9 ADSL providers all lay their own line, or is their laws in effect that make those providers lease their lines out to other providers? Basically, is it pure competition?
        henrikschroder 15y ago
        The copper network is owned by TeliaSonera, the former state telephone monopoly, but they were forced to open that up to competitors so anyone could install DSLAMs in the phone stations, etc. There's competing national fiber networks as well, so no ISP has a stranglehold on the DSL market. There's no competition and choice for cable though, you have the cable company you have, and that's it. For GSM networks, there's three separate, and two or three 3G networks, so there's competition there as well. In a few months my house is gonna be hooked up to the city fiber network, at which point I can choose from another bunch of ISPs.