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The problem is that people are completely, almost willfully ignorant of what a gigabyte is. Add to that programs and OS's that automatically update, family mem
by csense 13y ago
The problem is that people are completely, almost willfully ignorant of what a gigabyte is.
Add to that programs and OS's that automatically update, family members / unsecured wifi that results in uploads/downloads without the subscriber's knowledge, and the fact that (especially at fiber speeds) most downloads are in the "fast" to "instantaneous" range. (In the 56k days, you knew to be cautious about downloading big files, because tying up the phone line for a couple hours could be a major inconvenience.)
So I guess people are more willing to pay for a product that's a fixed cost instead of variable cost -- even if variable cost would be lower -- because the conceptual workload of understanding what a gigabyte is, and monitoring their usage in gigabytes, represents a cost higher than the price differential between fixed and variable.
- andrewvc 13y agoI agree, but it's not really a 'problem'. Knowing enough about how the internet works to save, say, $10/mo on your bill due to pro-rated charges probably just isn't worth it for most people. I'm sure we'd all save on car repair if everyone in the country knew the basics of it, but it's really just not in everyones interest to know a little bit of everything.
- csense 13y agoThe post I was replying to said: > Home users don't really want unmetered connections Implying that the commenter was in favor of giving home users metered connections (with a gigabyte cap). I was saying that the problem with a plan to give customers capped connections is that many of them don't understand the concept of a monthly transfer cap and don't know how to effectively monitor or control their usage to stay within the cap. I didn't mean to say that the problem with the customers is that they don't understand the concept of a monthly transfer cap. But I might've come across that way, because trying to get non-technical people to understand technical topics is usually an exercise in frustration and futility (as most HN readers probably already know). And I guess some of that mindset colored the tone of my comment. And it would be interesting to try to fix it as if the customers were the problem -- i.e., an ISP that tries to educate its users about what a gigabyte is and provide bandwidth monitoring tools. Maybe it'll improve technological literacy if people realize that knowledge can save them money. But I fear it'd be an uphill battle.