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Almost no business charges strictly by commodity packet, because it would be disastrous for their long-term future: their margins, their ability to learn from t
by gojomo 14y ago
Almost no business charges strictly by commodity packet, because it would be disastrous for their long-term future: their margins, their ability to learn from their customers, and their ability to dynamically improve over time.
So any criticism of differentiated pricing based solely on the idea that "a packet is a packet and it costs the same to route" may be astute in the static, technical dimension -- but naive in the ultimately more-important dynamic economic and business dimensions.
- mindslight 14y agoThe micro-optimization driven desires of businesses are irrelevant when evaluating the larger picture. Carriers that decommoditize best-effort communications to misappropriate others' value should be taken to court for fraudulently advertising "Internet" access, and the colors of radio waves they enjoy a government-granted "public interest" monopoly on should be put to better use.
- drewcrawford 14y agoIt may very well be disastrous to Verizon's margins. I do not understand why protecting those margins are my responsibility, or anyone's responsibility other than Verizon's. We're not talking about some cable in the ground upon which Verizon exerts a legal property interest. We're talking about the airwaves that are the permanent heritage of the taxpayer (or arguably land owner), which we as a landlord collectively and temporarily rent out for our sole benefit, in an adversarial negotiation. The whole point of a negotiation is to increase your own margins, often at the expense of the other party's. To say our analysis does this is to say it represents our interests.