4 ms·

| Keep in mind that still damages the free market for new services If peering extortion is fixed, how are they any worse off?

by tbyehl 12y ago

geoelectric 12y ago
Because if Rdio and Spotify don't count against my data cap because of a paid agreement, a new entrant into music is probably not going to get much of my attention. They'd have to be -so- much better than the existing leaders that I'm willing to pay for a higher cap or sacrifice part of my current cap to use them. That effectively means that to be taken seriously, a new entrant has to pay the ISPs for exemption from the cap. Further, if the ISPs can choose not to make agreements with companies, they become the gatekeepers of who will be successful. Piss them off, and you lose your agreement. This is anticompetitive, for sure, but the FTC has no jurisdiction over common carriers. AT&T is currently flogging this argument based on cc status on phone to escape reprisal from the FTC about lying about "unlimited" plan vs. their throttling policy that effectively caps such a plan to 5 GB. The say that because they're a phone CC, the FTC has to be hands-off period on all their business concerns. I suspect that'll be found to be BS. However, if broadband is Title II, but we add an exemption to allow anti-competitive agreements around caps, there's literally zero remedy. It's specifically not under jurisdiction of the FTC unless Congress changes that particular law. So, not a huge worry of mine as long as it's a "exempt all music, anyone can apply," but big worry if it's "exempt Spotify only." There are plenty of streaming markets that aren't sufficiently mature to be commodities yet (PPV on-demand movies like VUDU, iTunes, CinemaNow, Flixter; remote gaming like OnLive, Sony; etc.) and even the ones that are shouldn't be immune from shakeups.

4 ms·

| Keep in mind that still damages the free market for new services If peering extortion is fixed, how are they any worse off?

by tbyehl 12y ago

| Keep in mind that still damages the free market for new services If peering extortion is fixed, how are they any worse off?

geoelectric 12y ago
Because if Rdio and Spotify don't count against my data cap because of a paid agreement, a new entrant into music is probably not going to get much of my attention. They'd have to be -so- much better than the existing leaders that I'm willing to pay for a higher cap or sacrifice part of my current cap to use them. That effectively means that to be taken seriously, a new entrant has to pay the ISPs for exemption from the cap. Further, if the ISPs can choose not to make agreements with companies, they become the gatekeepers of who will be successful. Piss them off, and you lose your agreement. This is anticompetitive, for sure, but the FTC has no jurisdiction over common carriers. AT&T is currently flogging this argument based on cc status on phone to escape reprisal from the FTC about lying about "unlimited" plan vs. their throttling policy that effectively caps such a plan to 5 GB. The say that because they're a phone CC, the FTC has to be hands-off period on all their business concerns. I suspect that'll be found to be BS. However, if broadband is Title II, but we add an exemption to allow anti-competitive agreements around caps, there's literally zero remedy. It's specifically not under jurisdiction of the FTC unless Congress changes that particular law. So, not a huge worry of mine as long as it's a "exempt all music, anyone can apply," but big worry if it's "exempt Spotify only." There are plenty of streaming markets that aren't sufficiently mature to be commodities yet (PPV on-demand movies like VUDU, iTunes, CinemaNow, Flixter; remote gaming like OnLive, Sony; etc.) and even the ones that are shouldn't be immune from shakeups.