5 ms·

When Everyone Wants To Watch 'House Of Cards,' Who Pays?

31 points by marwei 13y ago

collint 13y ago
Yikes this article is painfully light on analysis.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
kashkhan 13y ago
why should time warner own the last mile? It should be owned by the homeowners.
- azurelogic 13y ago
  If the homeowner owns the last mile, then they become responsible for maintenance, ensuring they comply with FCC and other regulations, and negotiating terms of interconnection. Obviously, that's out of reach of most of the population, so homeowners don't own the last mile.
  - supercanuck 13y ago
    I'm sure there are companies who would provide that service without requiring ownership
    - azurelogic 13y ago
      Yes, and they could even rent you the modem to use with the service! /sarcasm That's basically an ISP. You pay someone to make sure you stay connected. Then they become corrupt and try to find new ways to make more money on the deal.
      - adamnemecek 13y ago
        Not really no, since you break up the 'pipeline' to be owned by multiple entities. Replacing one entity in said pipeline is easier if each of them controls a smaller chunk of the pipeline.
    - baddox 13y ago
      Kind of like automobiles, which are widely owned by private individuals.
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    Homeowners are responsible for maintenance of many things, including things subject to assorted laws and regulations. Indeed, they can be subjected to FCC enforcement action simply for turning on an common store-bought electrical device, such as a fan or TV.
    - azurelogic 13y ago
      Sure, but those things don't require digging up wires blocks away from your home. Or mounting up on a telephone pole to fix a downed line, as would be the case with my home.
      - nknighthb 13y ago
        HOAs often manage such things. Or, where sanity intervenes, local government. The real point is that private entities shouldn't have control of basic infrastructure.
  - kashkhan 13y ago
    how often is the last mile maintained? Once established there's usually not much need fro maintenance until it is replaced. Coax cables and fibers have little use for maintenance. Homeowners can comply with the FCC just as easily as the corporations. We won't make the stuff, only install it. It's not out of reach. In many poor countries the last mile is done by small companies that string coax wires on existing utility poles (also paid for by the homeowners through the electricity installation charges) which are often just 1-2 guys. Coax cable or fibre costs less than $1 per foot in bulk.
- eck 13y ago
  This concept is often referred to as "homes with tails". The idea is that if everyone controlled a line from their house to a central facility (kind of like a small meet-me room) then at those facilities there could be significant competition that would drive down prices. http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/11/homes-with-tails.html http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/11/homes-with-ta...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
Lockyy 13y ago
I had always assumed that when I paid an ISP for an internet connection that payment was so that I could send and receive packets across their network. Clearly I was wrong.
- kapitalx 13y ago
  I guess I can now stop paying my ISP since netflix will be footing the bill.
- azurelogic 13y ago
  This is exactly why I agree that this whole mess is a load of crap. Net neutrality should be a given. If I'm paying for a service, then it should be up to me how I use it, and the entity that I am paying should not have the right to arbitrarily alter my traffic. I mean, if you send a letter to someone popular, that doesn't give the USPS the right to delay your letter. The same should go for ISPs.
  - waps 13y ago
    And what happens if everyone wants to use the same pipe ? Who pays for expanding that pipe ? Because that's the real question. > I mean, if you send a letter to someone popular, that doesn't give the USPS the right to delay your letter. The same should go for ISPs. Of course the question is the reverse. If someone wants a letter to be sent to virtually everyone in America, that person certainly pays by the letter. Currently that's not what's happening in ISPs, currently sending is free, provided you "deliver it to the post office" (carrier hotel). The companies make their profit by charging rent for having a mailbox and delivering mail for free to those mailboxes. They want to change that.
    - noise 13y ago
      In your analogy, sending is not free. Both Netflix has already paid postage to deliver all of the letters (their CDN/bandwidth costs) and each recipient has already paid for their mailbox (cable modem service). In this case the ISP wants Netflix to pay extra money to to deliver their letters even though everyone has already been paid and they weigh about the same as all the grocery flyers and other junk mail already cluttering your mailbox (think youtube).
ShabbyDoo 13y ago
I've always seen local governments as the root cause of "last mile" providers' ability to turn their customers into the product. Why haven't elected officials made more stringent demands upon the companies given monopoly (or at best duopoly) rights to convey bits to and from my home? I have a condo in Chicago and was delighted to learn that a company was offering our building last mile connectivity via microwave along with SLAs for not only bandwidth but latency as well (to which point I don't recall)! Sadly, the condo board didn't seem so enthralled. Unlike the suburbs, city folk have more options apparently.
- jedbrown 13y ago
  A friend of mine lives in a large apartment building next to the Loop in Chicago. The building was unable to negotiate a competitive plan so they went with satellite. Clearly the local market has failed when satellite offers a better package.
- knodi123 13y ago
  With regards to netflix, it's not always the last mile that's the problem. Specifically, Netflix's ISP has an agreement with your ISP, which says essentially "You know what? We send and receive a lot of data. How about I won't charge you for your data travelling across my network, and you don't charge me for my data on your network." But then Netflix's ISP transmits enormous amounts of bandwidth, and your ISP doesn't really get to take an equal advantage of that reciprocal deal. It's actually about peering agreements between ISPs. Your ISP wants Netflix's ISP to foot the bill for the fact that their reciprocal agreement is statistically just one-sided.
  - dm2 13y ago
    The customers of the ISPs are the ones who obtain value and demand fast delivery of Netflix. The bandwidth from Netflix is something that can't really be avoided so it is advantageous for both the ISP and Netflix for the ISPs for cache the content and use Netflix's Open Connect CDN or whatever it's called. The the ISPs don't deliver and throttle Netflix's bandwidth and it's noticeable to the customer then hopefully the customer has the option of going to another ISP.
LanceH 13y ago
I would like to see someone do a traceroute and explain the hops, who is paying at each step, which steps are in dispute, etc...
doesnt_know 13y ago
Ugh, is this even a question anywhere except in the US? The ISP should be paying for it because that is literally the service they are suppose to be providing, it's the reason consumers are giving them money. In what other industry can you accept payment for a service and then try to make a legitimate claim that you then don't have to provide that service or maintain the infrastructure you are selling? It's fucking nuts. When the so called "free market" fails and you have monopolies in place that are so anti-competitive and anti-consumer, then maybe it's time to go looking for another solution. Perhaps this is the situation when it's time to look for some sort of state or government regulation. Or maybe it's the exact opposite. Perhaps these companies are in control of tight regulatory procedures that it prevents competition. I'm not overly familiar with the current system in place in the US, but whatever the current situation is, you really need to start demanding the exact opposite.
- danjayh 13y ago
  It's really even worse than that - not just the consumer is paying, but netflex, etc. also buy bandwidth from their ISP. Comcast is refusing to allow an adequate interconnection between the the content providers' ISPs to the comcast network unless they pay a ransom.
- adamnemecek 13y ago
  Not to mention the fact that the ISPs got $200 billion from the gov't in order to provide said infrastructure. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_0026...
- baddox 13y ago
  > When the so called "free market" fails Anyone who blames US Internet issues (or pretty much any other issue in the US) should just go and try to start a competing business and see what happens. I think you'd find that "free" is one of the last words you'd use to describe the industry.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- 13y ago
NautilusWave 13y ago
If Netflix is using Amazon Web Services to run its streaming operations, then how did Netflix even get involved in this bandwidth issue? Isn't that included in the bill they pay to Amazon?
- pktgen 13y ago
  They don't use Amazon for streaming videos.
  - NautilusWave 13y ago
    I think they do: http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/netflix/ http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/netflix/
    - drawkbox 13y ago
      The whole system runs on AWS but most videos are watched in the last mile from edge caching hosted closer to the viewer. Bandwidth providers should be happy companies want to edge cache and take strain off the larger network and provide better customer experiences.
    - elq 13y ago
      no. Netflix uses aws for serving html, and other relatively low bandwidth content. But media bits are not served from aws.
    - NautilusWave 13y ago
      From what I can tell, edge caching occurs on AWS as well. http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/06/announcing-zuul-edge-service-in-cloud.html http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/06/announcing-zuul-edge-ser... http://techblog.netflix.com/2012/01/ephemeral-volatile-caching-in-cloud.html http://techblog.netflix.com/2012/01/ephemeral-volatile-cachi...
      - elq 13y ago
        I work at netflix. zuul is used by the netflix API. It's not a cache. It's a request router. EVCache is used internally for ephemeral systems data - things that would frequently go into mysql or cassandra but don't really need crash persistence.
drawkbox 13y ago
"This is why there are fights right now between Netflix and Internet service providers. The fight comes down to this: Who's going to pay to keep the videos running smoothly? Will it be Netflix, which is sending all the data? Or companies like Time Warner, whose customers, like Rachel, are demanding it?" Rachel pays Time Warner for her broadband connection to get her data from anywhere on the internet, as was sold to her by Time Warner which is the current day technology that is expected of broadband network access. Time Warner built their network upon receiving many tax breaks for their prime market position. Rachel pays Netflix for the content that comes through the network. The system is correctly setup except one minor flaw, if Time Warner doesn't want to pay for it then a competitor can't offer the same service or get the same funding and breaks they did to compete. The broadband companies are lethargic dinosaurs, hopefully network access will go right over their heads (even if by Zuckerberg drones), when wires aren't needed we can release them.
houseofshards 13y ago
WTF ?? This argument is so ridiculous. "ISP" stands for Internet Service Provider as in, an entity that provides an internet service (and maintains the necessary infrastructure). That is why people pay them.
al2o3cr 13y ago
Who pays? The same person who pays for the food to go the "last mile" from the restaurant kitchen to the table - THE CUSTOMER... The ISPs appear to be confused about who it is that's paying them for a pipe. I'll offer them a hint: it's the people you send those rate increase notices to every 12 months.
johnvschmitt 13y ago
This is just ridiculous on so many levels. So, should we start debating whether UPS should pay for roads directly in each city? Are our roads going to start being "content aware" & extorting delivery service vendors?
jeffdavis 13y ago
I wonder what would happen if netflix called their bluff? People all of a sudden start to notice that House Of Cards plays more smoothly over their 4G cell connection than their expensive cable connection, and how does Time Warner explain that?
- simoncion 13y ago
  > People all of a sudden start to notice that House Of Cards plays more smoothly over their 4G cell connection... That's not too likely. Most folks (unless their vaguely-savvy 4G-connection-having not-afraid-to-tether friends clue them in) will decide that Netflix sucks and stop right there. As a datapoint, look at Obamacare. Alabama rejected any and all Federal premium assistance subsidies. This means that in Alabama, regardless of your ability to pay, or employment status, you pay full price. In California, low-income folks get reduced or totally subsidized premiums. The talk in Alabama is not about the insurance is gobs cheaper for poor people in California, it's about how Obamacare has made insurance so goddamn expensive for everyone. People are soulcrushingly incurious.
EpicEng 13y ago
>Who's going to pay to keep the videos running smoothly? ...Me? Do I not pay for my internet service? Are ISP's not subsidized to build infrastructure by my tax dollars? Is my ISP running at a deficit? Yes, yes, and no, I don't believe so. I pay Netflix for the content, I pay my ISP to deliver it.
qq66 13y ago
The problem here is that a framework built in one environment (settlement-free peering) has a lot of problems as the underlying environment has changed. Let's say everyone in the United States had a second mailbox, and each mailbox is owned by FedEx, UPS, or DHL. To ship a package, you leave it in your box, it's picked up by your carrier, transferred to the recipient's carrier, who then delivers it to their box. Only the sender is billed, and this shipment fee includes whatever your carrier will have to pay to your recipient's carrier to complete delivery. When these mailboxes are built, most people in the country are shipping as many boxes as they receive, and the number of packages sent by and received by customers of each carrier are roughly the same (let's say a total of 15,000 per day). So FedEx, UPS, and DHL, to avoid having to track every single package, just decide to "call it a wash" and deliver each other's boxes for free, under the assumption that nobody's really getting the upper hand. Fast forward twenty years, and Jeff Bezos has built Amazon.com at his house. His house is a UPS house, so UPS picks up 15 million boxes from him every morning, and hands over 10 million of them to FedEx and DHL for delivery. FedEx and DHL are billing their customers for 15,000 boxes but also have to deliver Bezos' 10 million boxes. You can imagine that they'd want to revisit their original agreement to "call it a wash" and start billing by the actual package.
ASneakyFox 13y ago
I thought this was covered in my internet bill. You know network communication... if that was supposed to be free all this time some one let me know because then Ive got to call the police because some one has been scamming me out of 50 bux every month for the past 2 decades. I suspect there are more victims.

31 points by marwei 13y ago

collint 13y ago

Yikes this article is painfully light on analysis.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

kashkhan 13y ago

why should time warner own the last mile? It should be owned by the homeowners.

azurelogic 13y ago
If the homeowner owns the last mile, then they become responsible for maintenance, ensuring they comply with FCC and other regulations, and negotiating terms of interconnection. Obviously, that's out of reach of most of the population, so homeowners don't own the last mile.
- supercanuck 13y ago
  I'm sure there are companies who would provide that service without requiring ownership
  - azurelogic 13y ago
    Yes, and they could even rent you the modem to use with the service! /sarcasm That's basically an ISP. You pay someone to make sure you stay connected. Then they become corrupt and try to find new ways to make more money on the deal.
    - adamnemecek 13y ago
      Not really no, since you break up the 'pipeline' to be owned by multiple entities. Replacing one entity in said pipeline is easier if each of them controls a smaller chunk of the pipeline.
  - baddox 13y ago
    Kind of like automobiles, which are widely owned by private individuals.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  Homeowners are responsible for maintenance of many things, including things subject to assorted laws and regulations. Indeed, they can be subjected to FCC enforcement action simply for turning on an common store-bought electrical device, such as a fan or TV.
  - azurelogic 13y ago
    Sure, but those things don't require digging up wires blocks away from your home. Or mounting up on a telephone pole to fix a downed line, as would be the case with my home.
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      HOAs often manage such things. Or, where sanity intervenes, local government. The real point is that private entities shouldn't have control of basic infrastructure.
- kashkhan 13y ago
  how often is the last mile maintained? Once established there's usually not much need fro maintenance until it is replaced. Coax cables and fibers have little use for maintenance. Homeowners can comply with the FCC just as easily as the corporations. We won't make the stuff, only install it. It's not out of reach. In many poor countries the last mile is done by small companies that string coax wires on existing utility poles (also paid for by the homeowners through the electricity installation charges) which are often just 1-2 guys. Coax cable or fibre costs less than $1 per foot in bulk.
eck 13y ago
This concept is often referred to as "homes with tails". The idea is that if everyone controlled a line from their house to a central facility (kind of like a small meet-me room) then at those facilities there could be significant competition that would drive down prices. http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/11/homes-with-tails.html http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/11/homes-with-ta...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

Lockyy 13y ago

I had always assumed that when I paid an ISP for an internet connection that payment was so that I could send and receive packets across their network. Clearly I was wrong.

kapitalx 13y ago
I guess I can now stop paying my ISP since netflix will be footing the bill.
azurelogic 13y ago
This is exactly why I agree that this whole mess is a load of crap. Net neutrality should be a given. If I'm paying for a service, then it should be up to me how I use it, and the entity that I am paying should not have the right to arbitrarily alter my traffic. I mean, if you send a letter to someone popular, that doesn't give the USPS the right to delay your letter. The same should go for ISPs.
- waps 13y ago
  And what happens if everyone wants to use the same pipe ? Who pays for expanding that pipe ? Because that's the real question. > I mean, if you send a letter to someone popular, that doesn't give the USPS the right to delay your letter. The same should go for ISPs. Of course the question is the reverse. If someone wants a letter to be sent to virtually everyone in America, that person certainly pays by the letter. Currently that's not what's happening in ISPs, currently sending is free, provided you "deliver it to the post office" (carrier hotel). The companies make their profit by charging rent for having a mailbox and delivering mail for free to those mailboxes. They want to change that.
  - noise 13y ago
    In your analogy, sending is not free. Both Netflix has already paid postage to deliver all of the letters (their CDN/bandwidth costs) and each recipient has already paid for their mailbox (cable modem service). In this case the ISP wants Netflix to pay extra money to to deliver their letters even though everyone has already been paid and they weigh about the same as all the grocery flyers and other junk mail already cluttering your mailbox (think youtube).

ShabbyDoo 13y ago

I've always seen local governments as the root cause of "last mile" providers' ability to turn their customers into the product. Why haven't elected officials made more stringent demands upon the companies given monopoly (or at best duopoly) rights to convey bits to and from my home? I have a condo in Chicago and was delighted to learn that a company was offering our building last mile connectivity via microwave along with SLAs for not only bandwidth but latency as well (to which point I don't recall)! Sadly, the condo board didn't seem so enthralled. Unlike the suburbs, city folk have more options apparently.

jedbrown 13y ago
A friend of mine lives in a large apartment building next to the Loop in Chicago. The building was unable to negotiate a competitive plan so they went with satellite. Clearly the local market has failed when satellite offers a better package.
knodi123 13y ago
With regards to netflix, it's not always the last mile that's the problem. Specifically, Netflix's ISP has an agreement with your ISP, which says essentially "You know what? We send and receive a lot of data. How about I won't charge you for your data travelling across my network, and you don't charge me for my data on your network." But then Netflix's ISP transmits enormous amounts of bandwidth, and your ISP doesn't really get to take an equal advantage of that reciprocal deal. It's actually about peering agreements between ISPs. Your ISP wants Netflix's ISP to foot the bill for the fact that their reciprocal agreement is statistically just one-sided.
- dm2 13y ago
  The customers of the ISPs are the ones who obtain value and demand fast delivery of Netflix. The bandwidth from Netflix is something that can't really be avoided so it is advantageous for both the ISP and Netflix for the ISPs for cache the content and use Netflix's Open Connect CDN or whatever it's called. The the ISPs don't deliver and throttle Netflix's bandwidth and it's noticeable to the customer then hopefully the customer has the option of going to another ISP.

LanceH 13y ago

I would like to see someone do a traceroute and explain the hops, who is paying at each step, which steps are in dispute, etc...

doesnt_know 13y ago

Ugh, is this even a question anywhere except in the US? The ISP should be paying for it because that is literally the service they are suppose to be providing, it's the reason consumers are giving them money. In what other industry can you accept payment for a service and then try to make a legitimate claim that you then don't have to provide that service or maintain the infrastructure you are selling? It's fucking nuts. When the so called "free market" fails and you have monopolies in place that are so anti-competitive and anti-consumer, then maybe it's time to go looking for another solution. Perhaps this is the situation when it's time to look for some sort of state or government regulation. Or maybe it's the exact opposite. Perhaps these companies are in control of tight regulatory procedures that it prevents competition. I'm not overly familiar with the current system in place in the US, but whatever the current situation is, you really need to start demanding the exact opposite.

danjayh 13y ago
It's really even worse than that - not just the consumer is paying, but netflex, etc. also buy bandwidth from their ISP. Comcast is refusing to allow an adequate interconnection between the the content providers' ISPs to the comcast network unless they pay a ransom.
adamnemecek 13y ago
Not to mention the fact that the ISPs got $200 billion from the gov't in order to provide said infrastructure. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_0026...
baddox 13y ago
> When the so called "free market" fails Anyone who blames US Internet issues (or pretty much any other issue in the US) should just go and try to start a competing business and see what happens. I think you'd find that "free" is one of the last words you'd use to describe the industry.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
13y ago

NautilusWave 13y ago

If Netflix is using Amazon Web Services to run its streaming operations, then how did Netflix even get involved in this bandwidth issue? Isn't that included in the bill they pay to Amazon?

pktgen 13y ago
They don't use Amazon for streaming videos.
- NautilusWave 13y ago
  I think they do: http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/netflix/ http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/netflix/
  - drawkbox 13y ago
    The whole system runs on AWS but most videos are watched in the last mile from edge caching hosted closer to the viewer. Bandwidth providers should be happy companies want to edge cache and take strain off the larger network and provide better customer experiences.
  - elq 13y ago
    no. Netflix uses aws for serving html, and other relatively low bandwidth content. But media bits are not served from aws.
  - NautilusWave 13y ago
    From what I can tell, edge caching occurs on AWS as well. http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/06/announcing-zuul-edge-service-in-cloud.html http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/06/announcing-zuul-edge-ser... http://techblog.netflix.com/2012/01/ephemeral-volatile-caching-in-cloud.html http://techblog.netflix.com/2012/01/ephemeral-volatile-cachi...
    - elq 13y ago
      I work at netflix. zuul is used by the netflix API. It's not a cache. It's a request router. EVCache is used internally for ephemeral systems data - things that would frequently go into mysql or cassandra but don't really need crash persistence.

drawkbox 13y ago

"This is why there are fights right now between Netflix and Internet service providers. The fight comes down to this: Who's going to pay to keep the videos running smoothly? Will it be Netflix, which is sending all the data? Or companies like Time Warner, whose customers, like Rachel, are demanding it?" Rachel pays Time Warner for her broadband connection to get her data from anywhere on the internet, as was sold to her by Time Warner which is the current day technology that is expected of broadband network access. Time Warner built their network upon receiving many tax breaks for their prime market position. Rachel pays Netflix for the content that comes through the network. The system is correctly setup except one minor flaw, if Time Warner doesn't want to pay for it then a competitor can't offer the same service or get the same funding and breaks they did to compete. The broadband companies are lethargic dinosaurs, hopefully network access will go right over their heads (even if by Zuckerberg drones), when wires aren't needed we can release them.

houseofshards 13y ago

WTF ?? This argument is so ridiculous. "ISP" stands for Internet Service Provider as in, an entity that provides an internet service (and maintains the necessary infrastructure). That is why people pay them.

al2o3cr 13y ago

Who pays? The same person who pays for the food to go the "last mile" from the restaurant kitchen to the table - THE CUSTOMER... The ISPs appear to be confused about who it is that's paying them for a pipe. I'll offer them a hint: it's the people you send those rate increase notices to every 12 months.

johnvschmitt 13y ago

This is just ridiculous on so many levels. So, should we start debating whether UPS should pay for roads directly in each city? Are our roads going to start being "content aware" & extorting delivery service vendors?

jeffdavis 13y ago

I wonder what would happen if netflix called their bluff? People all of a sudden start to notice that House Of Cards plays more smoothly over their 4G cell connection than their expensive cable connection, and how does Time Warner explain that?

simoncion 13y ago
> People all of a sudden start to notice that House Of Cards plays more smoothly over their 4G cell connection... That's not too likely. Most folks (unless their vaguely-savvy 4G-connection-having not-afraid-to-tether friends clue them in) will decide that Netflix sucks and stop right there. As a datapoint, look at Obamacare. Alabama rejected any and all Federal premium assistance subsidies. This means that in Alabama, regardless of your ability to pay, or employment status, you pay full price. In California, low-income folks get reduced or totally subsidized premiums. The talk in Alabama is not about the insurance is gobs cheaper for poor people in California, it's about how Obamacare has made insurance so goddamn expensive for everyone. People are soulcrushingly incurious.

EpicEng 13y ago

>Who's going to pay to keep the videos running smoothly? ...Me? Do I not pay for my internet service? Are ISP's not subsidized to build infrastructure by my tax dollars? Is my ISP running at a deficit? Yes, yes, and no, I don't believe so. I pay Netflix for the content, I pay my ISP to deliver it.

qq66 13y ago

The problem here is that a framework built in one environment (settlement-free peering) has a lot of problems as the underlying environment has changed. Let's say everyone in the United States had a second mailbox, and each mailbox is owned by FedEx, UPS, or DHL. To ship a package, you leave it in your box, it's picked up by your carrier, transferred to the recipient's carrier, who then delivers it to their box. Only the sender is billed, and this shipment fee includes whatever your carrier will have to pay to your recipient's carrier to complete delivery. When these mailboxes are built, most people in the country are shipping as many boxes as they receive, and the number of packages sent by and received by customers of each carrier are roughly the same (let's say a total of 15,000 per day). So FedEx, UPS, and DHL, to avoid having to track every single package, just decide to "call it a wash" and deliver each other's boxes for free, under the assumption that nobody's really getting the upper hand. Fast forward twenty years, and Jeff Bezos has built Amazon.com at his house. His house is a UPS house, so UPS picks up 15 million boxes from him every morning, and hands over 10 million of them to FedEx and DHL for delivery. FedEx and DHL are billing their customers for 15,000 boxes but also have to deliver Bezos' 10 million boxes. You can imagine that they'd want to revisit their original agreement to "call it a wash" and start billing by the actual package.

ASneakyFox 13y ago

I thought this was covered in my internet bill. You know network communication... if that was supposed to be free all this time some one let me know because then Ive got to call the police because some one has been scamming me out of 50 bux every month for the past 2 decades. I suspect there are more victims.