4 ms·

The hidden costs are the price increases that ISPs add to customer bills to “make up for it.” Now, I’m not saying that’s right - I actually agree with your pre

The hidden costs are the price increases that ISPs add to customer bills to “make up for it.” Now, I’m not saying that’s right - I actually agree with your premise - nor am I saying that any ISP truly has a marginal cost of each customer (especially given their engrained habit of oversubscribing their infrastructure) that they need to “make up for.” I’m just clarifying the “hidden costs” that GP seems to be mentioning. IMO, this would be better handled as an explicit tax that’s passed onto customers of the ISP. If every bill came with a line item adding $0.50 charge for “underprivileged broadband access program,” nobody would complain. Phone bills already include these kinds of line items. And at least this way it would be clearly delineated rather than masked in a future price increase.

ceejayoz 2y ago
> If every bill came with a line item adding $0.50 charge for “underprivileged broadband access program,” nobody would complain. Sure they would.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  It’s been happening with both landline and cell phones since the mid 80s on a national level
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>price increases that ISPs add to customer bills to “make up for it.” This implies that ISPs won't do price hikes to begin with. My bill went up $5 over 2024 alone. Not even an announcement or anything. They'll make up whatever excuse they want, similar to CA's increase in wages to fast food workers: "we'll have to fire staff or shut down if we pay workers $4/hr". All the major chains are still around a year later. Some tried the AI drive thru thing, but they all reverted back. > this would be better handled as an explicit tax that’s passed onto customers of the ISP. I agree. Itemized lists should definitely be a default, and not something inaccessible at worse, and needing to poke a company for at best.
two_handfuls 2y ago
You seem to assume some connection between costs to ISPs and how much they charge. But ISP already try to charge as much as the market can bear.

ceejayoz 2y ago

> If every bill came with a line item adding $0.50 charge for “underprivileged broadband access program,” nobody would complain. Sure they would.

scarface_74 2y ago
It’s been happening with both landline and cell phones since the mid 80s on a national level

johnnyanmac 2y ago

>price increases that ISPs add to customer bills to “make up for it.” This implies that ISPs won't do price hikes to begin with. My bill went up $5 over 2024 alone. Not even an announcement or anything. They'll make up whatever excuse they want, similar to CA's increase in wages to fast food workers: "we'll have to fire staff or shut down if we pay workers $4/hr". All the major chains are still around a year later. Some tried the AI drive thru thing, but they all reverted back. > this would be better handled as an explicit tax that’s passed onto customers of the ISP. I agree. Itemized lists should definitely be a default, and not something inaccessible at worse, and needing to poke a company for at best.

two_handfuls 2y ago

You seem to assume some connection between costs to ISPs and how much they charge. But ISP already try to charge as much as the market can bear.