4 ms·

Because with electricity, everyone gets the same power. You're tied to the same grid; your provider just meters your usage, bills you, then pays wholesale price

by exelius 12y ago

Because with electricity, everyone gets the same power. You're tied to the same grid; your provider just meters your usage, bills you, then pays wholesale prices for the power you used. But the system as a whole only measures inputs (from power generators) and outputs (consumers). It works for something like electric power where a volt is a volt and a kilowatt is a kilowatt. With Internet access, you're looking for SPECIFIC packets. Those packets have to be routed in a certain way and delivered over a shared, multicast last mile infrastructure. If you want the ability to choose your ISP, then while it may be the same Hacker News, the route the packets take to get there might be very different.

pdkl95 12y ago
With internet access, everyone (should) get the same bandwidth (per-dollar). Similarly, with electricity you're not looking for SPECIFIC electrons.
- mitchty 12y ago
  > Similarly, with electricity you're not looking for SPECIFIC electrons. Actually, I am, though its more the source of those electrons. I pay more specifically to get as much power from wind/solar sources. This is an option on my power bill that I explicitly support. I would pay more for internet access that isn't comcast and isn't tied to their stupid bs. So keep that in mind.
  - aninhumer 12y ago
    >I pay more specifically to get as much power from wind/solar sources. And you are able to do this because there is a grid network, which allows your alternative energy provider to enter the market simply by connecting themselves to it, instead of having to run cables to your house.
    - mitchty 12y ago
      Actually not really, there is only one electric provider here, they just give you the option of choosing to prefer power generated with renewables or not. I don't think the actual electrons come from there its just a budgeting trick I expect.
      - nknighthb 12y ago
        Of course it's a trick. If you're anywhere other than an island that has no transmission lines running to it and you pay for electrical service, you're connected to the same grid everybody else is. Your power comes from the same place everybody else's does. You don't actually have a choice of where your "electrons" come from (they come from the wires, by the way, generating stations just make them move around). Your "preference" is nothing more than providing an extra subsidy to generating stations that make the electrons wiggle via renewable energy sources.
AnthonyMouse 12y ago
> With Internet access, you're looking for SPECIFIC packets. Those packets have to be routed in a certain way and delivered over a shared, multicast last mile infrastructure. If you want the ability to choose your ISP, then while it may be the same Hacker News, the route the packets take to get there might be very different. That is only really true in the parts of the network that don't matter for network neutrality. If you want to send or receive 500MB worth of data, the last mile doesn't care whether you're communicating with Hacker News or Google or Amazon, it's all going over the physical wire that comes into your house. It's only after you cross the last mile and get into the central office that the paths of packets diverge in every direction, but those are the parts of the network that have competition.
zanny 12y ago
Your ISP does not give a shit where your packets are going to or where packets directed towards you are coming from. That is the backbones problem, and most ISPs do not manage it at all. For an ISP, it is effectively electricity - the cost to route a packet is always constant, assuming they don't have meterage deals with different backbone routers depending on the destination. To them, they just care where the packet is going, to just send it in the right direction either way. And maybe billing for data usage is a valid business model, but the real world per unit costs of packets are magnitudes lower than the per unit costs of even electricity in traditional measures like kwh. IE, the modern "pricing schema" for data, where a gigabyte costs multiple dollars, is an insanely unrealistic measure - if you are not paying for the wires in the dirt.
- exelius 12y ago
  > assuming they don't have meterage deals with different backbone routers depending on the destination. That's a big assumption, and an incorrect one at that. Most content delivered to large ISPs is delivered by CDNs over paid interconnects (and it's been that way for a decade or more). They either pay the ISPs directly or for transit at a peering point. > IE, the modern "pricing schema" for data, where a gigabyte costs multiple dollars, is an insanely unrealistic measure - if you are not paying for the wires in the dirt. If you're expecting pricing to be tied to cost, you're gonna have a bad time. That's just not how modern product pricing works for ANY product. You pay as much as the service is worth to you; if it wasn't worth it, you wouldn't pay it.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

by exelius 12y ago

pdkl95 12y ago

With internet access, everyone (should) get the same bandwidth (per-dollar). Similarly, with electricity you're not looking for SPECIFIC electrons.

mitchty 12y ago
> Similarly, with electricity you're not looking for SPECIFIC electrons. Actually, I am, though its more the source of those electrons. I pay more specifically to get as much power from wind/solar sources. This is an option on my power bill that I explicitly support. I would pay more for internet access that isn't comcast and isn't tied to their stupid bs. So keep that in mind.
- aninhumer 12y ago
  >I pay more specifically to get as much power from wind/solar sources. And you are able to do this because there is a grid network, which allows your alternative energy provider to enter the market simply by connecting themselves to it, instead of having to run cables to your house.
  - mitchty 12y ago
    Actually not really, there is only one electric provider here, they just give you the option of choosing to prefer power generated with renewables or not. I don't think the actual electrons come from there its just a budgeting trick I expect.
    - nknighthb 12y ago
      Of course it's a trick. If you're anywhere other than an island that has no transmission lines running to it and you pay for electrical service, you're connected to the same grid everybody else is. Your power comes from the same place everybody else's does. You don't actually have a choice of where your "electrons" come from (they come from the wires, by the way, generating stations just make them move around). Your "preference" is nothing more than providing an extra subsidy to generating stations that make the electrons wiggle via renewable energy sources.

AnthonyMouse 12y ago

> With Internet access, you're looking for SPECIFIC packets. Those packets have to be routed in a certain way and delivered over a shared, multicast last mile infrastructure. If you want the ability to choose your ISP, then while it may be the same Hacker News, the route the packets take to get there might be very different. That is only really true in the parts of the network that don't matter for network neutrality. If you want to send or receive 500MB worth of data, the last mile doesn't care whether you're communicating with Hacker News or Google or Amazon, it's all going over the physical wire that comes into your house. It's only after you cross the last mile and get into the central office that the paths of packets diverge in every direction, but those are the parts of the network that have competition.

zanny 12y ago

Your ISP does not give a shit where your packets are going to or where packets directed towards you are coming from. That is the backbones problem, and most ISPs do not manage it at all. For an ISP, it is effectively electricity - the cost to route a packet is always constant, assuming they don't have meterage deals with different backbone routers depending on the destination. To them, they just care where the packet is going, to just send it in the right direction either way. And maybe billing for data usage is a valid business model, but the real world per unit costs of packets are magnitudes lower than the per unit costs of even electricity in traditional measures like kwh. IE, the modern "pricing schema" for data, where a gigabyte costs multiple dollars, is an insanely unrealistic measure - if you are not paying for the wires in the dirt.

exelius 12y ago
> assuming they don't have meterage deals with different backbone routers depending on the destination. That's a big assumption, and an incorrect one at that. Most content delivered to large ISPs is delivered by CDNs over paid interconnects (and it's been that way for a decade or more). They either pay the ISPs directly or for transit at a peering point. > IE, the modern "pricing schema" for data, where a gigabyte costs multiple dollars, is an insanely unrealistic measure - if you are not paying for the wires in the dirt. If you're expecting pricing to be tied to cost, you're gonna have a bad time. That's just not how modern product pricing works for ANY product. You pay as much as the service is worth to you; if it wasn't worth it, you wouldn't pay it.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]