6 ms·
The slower the speed, the greater the price an ISP can charge websites for access at normal speeds, so it would be a balance between slowing down more, and maxi
by Brakenshire 12y ago
The slower the speed, the greater the price an ISP can charge websites for access at normal speeds, so it would be a balance between slowing down more, and maximizing revenue from content providers, and keeping speeds high enough not to lose customers. The customer would be both a subscriber, and an extra member of an audience which could be sold to a website.
If you're talking about a situation where the ISPs are monopolies within a particular geographical area (at least for wired internet) that balance could mean very significant speed reductions. If the revenues from content providers reduced subscription costs by a meaningful amount, it would probably mean quite a significant slow-down even when there's competition, because I suspect many consumers would pick the lowest cost subscription regardless of other factors.
- diminoten 12y agoSo what you're saying is below 56kbps? How long do you think a "slow lane" website will take to load? What would viewing resolutions be for something like Netflix in the "slow lane"? Give me something more concrete.
- bitJericho 12y agoIt would be enough for you to notice or else it wouldn't be an effective sales tool. It hasn't happened yet because the FCC has not ruled on it yet.
- diminoten 12y agoSo we're talking, what, no HD from YouTube or Netflix? Is this just about video? Are my pings going to be artificially inflated in Starcraft? If they throttle based on service, can't I circumvent this by just using a VPN and buying a fast enough base service? Isn't this mostly a, "but the police man could shoot me whenever he wants if he gets to carry a gun!" argument?
- bitJericho 12y agoYes except the gun is used to kill anybody who doesn't pay up. I think the general idea is that yes, all your services will degrade in quality except for the services that pay the ransom. Sure your VPN will make everything equal, except eventually if the QoS scheme works well for the ISPs they could also move to datacaps that don't get used up by the services that pay the ransom.
- diminoten 12y agoSo you'd arrest these ISPs for pre-crime then? Every gun owner could shoot you in the face if they wanted to, therefore they're all guilty?
- bitJericho 12y agoI don't think I ever said that all ISPs are going to do this. I also don't think any ISP needs to charge customers twice for accessing the internet (eg, own the gun in the first place). I think this is where the gun simile breaks down because while a gun may have valid uses relating to protection, internet non-neutrality has no uses except to line the pockets of monopolies.
- diminoten 12y agoThe whole point of the gun analogy is to illustrate how terrible the, "just because they can, means they will" argument is. That's it. Think no more of it beyond that.
- bitJericho 12y agoThey already are with Netflix. And it has been noticable by the users.
- diminoten 12y agoCurrently? No, they're not. There is no "Netflix" option from Comcast that a consumer can purchase to increase their Netflix streaming speed.