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The one caveat is that today all ISPs advertise their plans as "up to" a certain speed very prominently in all marketing material. It's no even fine print or by

The one caveat is that today all ISPs advertise their plans as "up to" a certain speed very prominently in all marketing material. It's no even fine print or byline. The "fair usage" clause is the kind of thing that's buried deep to hide that they may employ throttling. Think of a "service" you provide. If your employer was expecting you to deliver peak performance 8h per day, 5 days per week, for the rest of your employment with no exception, would you still accept the salary you get now, or would ask an order of magnitude more? It's just that your employment contract and law introduce some "fine print" to allow downtime, and the chance to make mistakes or run at lower efficiency with no (immediate) termination. Why is the same so unacceptable when it comes to a product or service you pay for?

goodpoint 6y ago
> Why is the same so unacceptable when it comes to a product or service you pay for? ...because it could be described and measured precisely. And it's not.
- buran77 6y ago
  My friend, there are very few things that we can describe precisely, from a legal standpoint or even for technical specs. It's all about "ranges". And the higher the precision and the guarantee, the higher the price, or the converse. Which was my point, in case I couldn't manage to make it clear enough even when putting it next to something an average person could relate to. There's leeway built into any legal or technical framework and the contract terms should follow. Your "precisely defined and measured" SATA3 6 Gbit/s interface never delivers the 6.000Gbps to you by design (8b/10b encoding). So are all SSDs and motherboards in breach? SSDs rarely hit any of the advertised speed. By comparison their endurance is defined far clearer for the consumer. Whether it's an SSD or an internet connection they come with clear predefined conditions that are legal* and the customer agrees to. Everything else is high consumer expectations meeting low consumer willingness to pay, or even to understand the relationship. *Of course there are plenty of illegal and abusive clauses but giving a stated 900Mbps average speed with a 1Gbps contract, or selling an SSD with stated low DWPD don't really fit that description.
  - goodpoint 6y ago
    Don't shift the goalposts. You started from a very broad claim: > Why is the same so unacceptable when it comes to a product or service you pay for? ...and now you are talking about "ranges". Datacenters and ISPs for commercial use can provide very detailed SLAs. Consumer ISPs refuse to publish metrics or have 3rd party services monitor them to create accountability. They refuse to provide the most basic SLAs and refuse to adopt any user-friendly quality rating.
    - buran77 6y ago
      Meh: > The one caveat is that today all ISPs advertise their plans as "up to" a certain speed very prominently in all marketing material. I literally started how describing something as "up to" [ostensibly a range] is not outright misleading, if at all. It was also strictly speaking of marketing material and how well you can convey info in one banner. Seems you're not a stranger of moving goalposts and dodging question. You're selectively arguing some of my points, while so elegantly avoiding others because "oh that's different". Which is a very immature way of pretending to have a meaningful conversation, and a good way of hinting you have no counter for that one. You're doubling down on your misconceptions. Whatever "they" do it's because it's legal. And I'll be blunt: your definition of what is moral and what things should mean is irrelevant. If you want to be right at any cost you can just keep inventing personal definitions to apply to others but not to you because "that's different". I made my point at quite some length. If that didn't do it, nothing will.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
> "If your employer was expecting you" Firstly you are comparing performance guarantee of a person vs a router. Secondly employment law is a different from consumer law. It's a separate can of worms, with specific clauses for discrimination, etc. The reason this is important is to limit fraudulent claims, if my business is selling a 1 GB/s internet connection that actually only reaches the speed once a month, and someone is selling 1 GB/s internet connection that works reliably, our marketing material and contract might look the same. I would be defrauding the consumer and my competitor.
- buran77 6y ago
  I am comparing 2 situations where laws set the framework and contracts specify the relevant details within that framework. The contract or terms of use usually contain the exact definition of the service and the conditions it's offered in, and the SLAs. So I'm not entirely sure how these being "different" changes anything for the purpose of the discussion. The contract sets some terms within the framework set by the law. This is valid whether it's a router or a person. The only thing you could point at is that the marketing material is misleading. But... GP's claim was based on the same misunderstanding you make now regarding that marketing material: > if my business is selling a 1 GB/s internet connection You're doubling down on the same mistaken assumption. I randomly browsed over ISP websites just now and they all sell "up to xGbps" connections. Marketing material anyway can't cover the breadth and scope of an actual contract. So it's the job of the law to decide what "up to x" can mean (you deliver that speed at least 60% of the time for example), and for the terms for the specifics of that particular contract. Just because we don't like something doesn't mean they're breaking the law or that there's a moral obligation on one side to satisfy all claims for the other. No marketing material is 100% accurate because you can't cram all the things that need to be said in one punchline. But if you enter an agreement based on that one marketing claim then surely the problem isn't with the provider.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    >"contract or terms of use usually contain the exact definition of the service and the conditions it's offered in, and the SLAs" I would love to see this fantasy world - I have been with 5 different residential broadband providers in the past 8 years, not a single contract contains SLAs nor do they give any indication of how their speeds or latency stack up in practice. Calling the Virgin Media customer line does not produce any usefull information either, and their sales staff cannot answer basic questions. Even worshippers of 'mah free market' should be able to see the problem: I was looking for the best provider money can buy, and I ended up stuck in year-long contracts with companies that actually provide a crap service, because the only way to know is trial and error. My money should have gone to the best company instead. >"Just because we don't like something doesn't mean they're breaking the law or that there's a moral obligation" I think we have a moral obligation not to defraud others. Casually I define it as misleading people into parting with their money or causing them to suffer losses. To me that includes selling herbal cures that you know are fake, homeopathy, or inviting people to a restaurant telling them you'd pay and then taking off as the tab arrives. None of these activities are actually crimes.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
> today all ISPs advertise their plans as "up to" a certain speed very prominently in all marketing materia Where I live they don't. > Why is the same so unacceptable when it comes to a product or service you pay for? Because consumers deserve more protections in general. ISPs know exactly what they're doing, they shouldn't be able to mislead consumers by promising performance they can't deliver.

goodpoint 6y ago

> Why is the same so unacceptable when it comes to a product or service you pay for? ...because it could be described and measured precisely. And it's not.

buran77 6y ago
My friend, there are very few things that we can describe precisely, from a legal standpoint or even for technical specs. It's all about "ranges". And the higher the precision and the guarantee, the higher the price, or the converse. Which was my point, in case I couldn't manage to make it clear enough even when putting it next to something an average person could relate to. There's leeway built into any legal or technical framework and the contract terms should follow. Your "precisely defined and measured" SATA3 6 Gbit/s interface never delivers the 6.000Gbps to you by design (8b/10b encoding). So are all SSDs and motherboards in breach? SSDs rarely hit any of the advertised speed. By comparison their endurance is defined far clearer for the consumer. Whether it's an SSD or an internet connection they come with clear predefined conditions that are legal* and the customer agrees to. Everything else is high consumer expectations meeting low consumer willingness to pay, or even to understand the relationship. *Of course there are plenty of illegal and abusive clauses but giving a stated 900Mbps average speed with a 1Gbps contract, or selling an SSD with stated low DWPD don't really fit that description.
- goodpoint 6y ago
  Don't shift the goalposts. You started from a very broad claim: > Why is the same so unacceptable when it comes to a product or service you pay for? ...and now you are talking about "ranges". Datacenters and ISPs for commercial use can provide very detailed SLAs. Consumer ISPs refuse to publish metrics or have 3rd party services monitor them to create accountability. They refuse to provide the most basic SLAs and refuse to adopt any user-friendly quality rating.
  - buran77 6y ago
    Meh: > The one caveat is that today all ISPs advertise their plans as "up to" a certain speed very prominently in all marketing material. I literally started how describing something as "up to" [ostensibly a range] is not outright misleading, if at all. It was also strictly speaking of marketing material and how well you can convey info in one banner. Seems you're not a stranger of moving goalposts and dodging question. You're selectively arguing some of my points, while so elegantly avoiding others because "oh that's different". Which is a very immature way of pretending to have a meaningful conversation, and a good way of hinting you have no counter for that one. You're doubling down on your misconceptions. Whatever "they" do it's because it's legal. And I'll be blunt: your definition of what is moral and what things should mean is irrelevant. If you want to be right at any cost you can just keep inventing personal definitions to apply to others but not to you because "that's different". I made my point at quite some length. If that didn't do it, nothing will.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

> "If your employer was expecting you" Firstly you are comparing performance guarantee of a person vs a router. Secondly employment law is a different from consumer law. It's a separate can of worms, with specific clauses for discrimination, etc. The reason this is important is to limit fraudulent claims, if my business is selling a 1 GB/s internet connection that actually only reaches the speed once a month, and someone is selling 1 GB/s internet connection that works reliably, our marketing material and contract might look the same. I would be defrauding the consumer and my competitor.

buran77 6y ago
I am comparing 2 situations where laws set the framework and contracts specify the relevant details within that framework. The contract or terms of use usually contain the exact definition of the service and the conditions it's offered in, and the SLAs. So I'm not entirely sure how these being "different" changes anything for the purpose of the discussion. The contract sets some terms within the framework set by the law. This is valid whether it's a router or a person. The only thing you could point at is that the marketing material is misleading. But... GP's claim was based on the same misunderstanding you make now regarding that marketing material: > if my business is selling a 1 GB/s internet connection You're doubling down on the same mistaken assumption. I randomly browsed over ISP websites just now and they all sell "up to xGbps" connections. Marketing material anyway can't cover the breadth and scope of an actual contract. So it's the job of the law to decide what "up to x" can mean (you deliver that speed at least 60% of the time for example), and for the terms for the specifics of that particular contract. Just because we don't like something doesn't mean they're breaking the law or that there's a moral obligation on one side to satisfy all claims for the other. No marketing material is 100% accurate because you can't cram all the things that need to be said in one punchline. But if you enter an agreement based on that one marketing claim then surely the problem isn't with the provider.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  >"contract or terms of use usually contain the exact definition of the service and the conditions it's offered in, and the SLAs" I would love to see this fantasy world - I have been with 5 different residential broadband providers in the past 8 years, not a single contract contains SLAs nor do they give any indication of how their speeds or latency stack up in practice. Calling the Virgin Media customer line does not produce any usefull information either, and their sales staff cannot answer basic questions. Even worshippers of 'mah free market' should be able to see the problem: I was looking for the best provider money can buy, and I ended up stuck in year-long contracts with companies that actually provide a crap service, because the only way to know is trial and error. My money should have gone to the best company instead. >"Just because we don't like something doesn't mean they're breaking the law or that there's a moral obligation" I think we have a moral obligation not to defraud others. Casually I define it as misleading people into parting with their money or causing them to suffer losses. To me that includes selling herbal cures that you know are fake, homeopathy, or inviting people to a restaurant telling them you'd pay and then taking off as the tab arrives. None of these activities are actually crimes.

matheusmoreira 6y ago

> today all ISPs advertise their plans as "up to" a certain speed very prominently in all marketing materia Where I live they don't. > Why is the same so unacceptable when it comes to a product or service you pay for? Because consumers deserve more protections in general. ISPs know exactly what they're doing, they shouldn't be able to mislead consumers by promising performance they can't deliver.