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Time Warner: Making An Offer They Can't Refuse?
Verteiron writes: "According to Reuters, Time Warner is requiring nearly 40 Internet companies in Texas to give up 75% of their subscriber fees and 25% of revenues from other sources such as advertising in order to gain access to its cable TV network. This seems to be an effort to weasel out of their promise to the Federal Trade Commission; in light of the AOL/TW merger, TW had said it would open its cable network for ISP access. To add insult to injury, the term sheets for ISP access also require that TW have 'approval control' (read: censoring rights) over the ISP's homepage." Maybe they're just used to having municipal monopolies ...
Now, someone gets it.
Notice there's no mention of any additional payments of any sort.
Think of it this way. They'll be setting up a virtual ISP inside of the cablemodem network. The only thing their current connection would be used for would be SMTP, POP, and NNTP.
No modem banks. No phone lines. So two of the four major costs of running an ISP are gone. The remaining major costs are:
The first of which can be severely curtailed, since you don't need as much skilled labor when you're not the one managing dozens of modem banks and scads of servers.
Small ISP's could, conceivably get away with 3-4 people handling a couple thousand of customers (heck, I know one dialup ISP in NW Indiana that does this now!). Only one or two would actually need to know enough to deal with the servers and their office connection. The others could be techsup drones.
Medium ISP's, with more than 2000 subscribers, could get away with maybe 8-12 people. Three or four of which would need to know enough to keep the mail and news servers running (as well as the ISP's connection).
ISP's with more that 10,000 subscribers could probably get away with the most drastic reductions, and staff levels could probably reduced to somewhere between 20 and 30. Again, you'd need 3-4 people who knew enough to keep the computer room running, but the rest could be techsup drones. Note: This is predicated on the notion that the ISP would be starting from SCRATCH, instead of simply adding the user's onto the load of the current techsup staff.
Currently, cable companies charge around $40-$50 (USC) for cablemodem access. Were a moderate sized ISP to pick up around 1000 subscribers on a cable network, they'd still see $10-$12.50 pre-expense profit per user. Especially if the users are just added into the current techsup staff's load.
As to the 25% from other revenues, well. If it includes dialup accounts, I can see how this'd be REALLY egregious, but like every other business expense, they'd simply pass the buck (well leech the buck) out of their dialup subscribers in the form of higher dialup fees. If a company doesn't take advertising money, there's nothing to worry about there either.
The only issue I'd have would be content control.
It just sounds a lot more horrendous than it actually is.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
If you look at the numbers, AOL currently pays about 60% of revenues to pay MCI/Worldcom for 56K dial-up access. This is a "sweetheart" rate, which is low because of size (AOL is a decent sized ISP ;-), because they negotiated a significant discount during the deal for Compuserve, and because Steve Case is on the board for Worldcom. Keeping all this in mind, is 75% so outrageous if it costs the largest and most profitable ISP 50% for 56K access? In Canada, their version of the FCC has already ruled that 75% is a reasonable rate for "carrage charges", or fees for ISP's to piggyback on cable lines.
ISP's working with AOL are getting broadband access for their customers and can begin to phase out their dial-up access and reduce maintenance and technical support costs, better for them in the long run. For instance, AOL has a $9.95/plan TCP/IP only access plan that is MORE profitable than a $21.95/month dial-up plan.
Now, I do admit that some of the plan is very onerous (veto power over external content, advertising space on the ISP's home page, etc.). That is just dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. There are legitimate business reasons for flexing your muscle, but this is certainly not one of them.
Look at the numbers before you fire off your mouth about the evil AOL. When you make a business case (and believe it or not, AOL intends to make money, not build the ultimate weapon and destroy Alderan) this is not so outrageous.
Let the flames begin!
Morgan
************ DISCLAIMER *****************
I am a former AOL employee and current AOL stockholder.
************ DISCLAIMER *****************
The original article has a decidedly anti-cableco bias. While TWE has obviously got a lot of learning to do about dealing with ISPs, there's much to be said about cable modems:
* Cablecos are not, under law, common carriers, so they don't have to carry anything they don't want to. Congress said so.
* Telephone companies are common carriers. Under the law, they have to serve all comers, even ISPs. The incumbent local telcos (ILECs) are trying to avoid their obligations.
* The above situation is not so unfair. Telcos basically got guaranteed returns on their monopolies, while cablecos haven't, and have been much more marginal, financially. And cablecos aren't legally monopolies (nor are telcos anymore); it's just hard to have more than one cableco in a city. RCN and Knology are trying to make a go of "overbuilding".
* The cablecos got into cable modems a few years ago by having third parties (@Home and Roadrunner, mostly) set it up for them. They know entertainment, not data, so they were giving the public an alternative source of Internet access (not using telcos) and should be thanked for that.
* There was no "open access" movement then; the cablecos were basically creating self-provisioned ISPs.
* Now that the cablecos are successful at selling modems, dial ISPs are feeling competition and want in. Understandable. But remember, cablecos are not common carriers, telcos are.
* AOL charges $10 for "bring your own" access, which is 25% of the typical $40/month cable modem fee. Of the $40, probably less than $10 goes to the backbone and to run the servers which @Home provides.
TW's proposed revenue-sharing model is obviously wrong. They should be selling the pipe for a fee, probably around $30/month (which is the range of wholesale ADSL), content neutral. The homepage crap follows from the wrong model. It is in all cablecos best interests to have the ISPs use them, rather than telcos, for their access pipes. But the cablecos are just learning about selling bandwidth, rather than content. It's a foreign concept to them. Don't blast them for trying. They will probably get it right the third or fourth time around.
Flat out untrue. The Cable Act of 1992 forbade local governments from giving any monopoly franchises, not that most had official monopolies before then.
Ever wonder why some cities (like L.A.) have such a crazy-quilt of cable areas? No monopoly! Each of several non-exclusive franchisees just built until they met somebody else's buildout. They didn't have to stop, but it's a hell of a lot more profitable to be the first on a block than the second, so they logically avoided each other.
Telcos had monopolies enforced in most states until 1996. Very different.
When Adam Smith came up with the term "Free Market", he said it had 2 enemies - Government and Monopoly. That is as true today as it was then.
An efficient free market needs to be free of monopolies. Here in the UK we have much weaker anti-monoploy laws than the US, and the US is seen as being much more free market friendly because of it.
Oh, and BTW -
liberalism: The creed of those who believe in individual liberty. More specifically, since "no government allows absolute liberty" (Locke), it is the belief that it is desirable to maximize the amount of liberty in the state. [Encyclopaedia Britannica]
Despite the efforts of right-wing politicians, the word "liberal" is not an insult. I would be proud to be called it.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
I figure it will be about another 8 years until we see the FCC and/or the FTC intervene to break up the _one_ company that will be providing backbone bandwidth on the Internet.
-This sig intentionally left blank
Makes you wonder what it takes to make an ISP
:)
If you read Cringely a few weeks back, you would see that it really doesn't take anything but a name. You can farm out pretty much all the operations, and just sign people up.
Sort of like a digital Amway
-This sig intentionally left blank
We delegated the task of building our modern internet infrastructure to the private sector. Their goal is to maximize profits. They're doing exactly what they're supposed to do. In fact, if they weren't doing this, they'd probably be legally liable for not doing it.
They're dancing in the zone between the unlawfully monopolistic and the unlawfully unprofitable. Not a fun place.
I don't sympathize much, particularly with people or institutions that have more money than me and my descendants will ever earn for the next 200 years, but at least I try to understand. Perhaps we can learn lessons of control and accountability from this and apply them to internet v2.0? We know what happens when you take a small, clubby academic internet and release it to the commercial world. We've learned that lesson. Let's take the good parts and try to mitigate the bad parts for the next revision.
Any large institution, public or private, attempts to control mass perception for its own ends. History has proven this for thousands of years. Don't be surprised. Be vigilant and alert. We are the most media/propaganda-savvy generation yet. Still, researchers are working harder than ever to pull one over on you. On all sides of any issue.
Your Working Boy,
Yes, the deregulated electricity markets in California have at least made electricity sellers richer. The biggest problem with a lot of the "free market" ideology is that there are already a number of restrictions on how free the market can be. In the electrical power market, there was already a limited supply of power, it takes a long time to build new power stations, and many elctrical power companies are perfectly comfortable with an economy of scarcity.
A number of noble laureates, who have studied option prices, succeeded in bankrupting their company and neccesitated a government bailout to the tune of billions of dollars. They had believed that they could make money by eliminating the risks inherent in options trading. Many explanations have been given for the demise of Long Term Capital Management, but perhaps the simplest explanation was that the market simply was not big enough to absorb the risks associated with a default on Russian Bank loans.
The Nobel Laureate James Buchanan believes that society can be modeled and structured on the premise that every one is capable of perfectly rational choices (Homo Economicus). Many people, however, are beholden to economically irrational beliefs, or belief structures opaque to economic reasoning...
Perhaps there should be a gradual drift towards a free market utopia. But such a drift should not begin by eliminating structure that prevent megacorporations such as Time-Warner-AOL from excercising their economic power to societies detriment.
Most people weould probably agree with that statement that "slavery is morally wrong." It can probably be argued, that, in a free market, slavery is economically unfeasible. Yet in many societies, slavery remained a stable economic force.
Absolutely Free society: slavery is not banned, slavery is economically unfeasible.
Society A: slavery is banned, slavery would be economically feasible, were it not for the ban.
Society B: slavery is not banned, slavery is economically feasible, and is practiced.
Most people would see Society A as preferable to Society B, and perhaps even to the Absolutely Free Society.
The ISPs might, in theory, do value-added services. For example, when using Bell Atlantic DSL resold through other companies, you can get static IP addresses, extra shell accounts, linux-friendly utilities for managing your DSL, and domain names registered - all things that BA won't do for you, and which cost money.
Because BA resells DSL at a wholesale rate, their customers can choose to eat into their profit margins to offer these services at the same price as BA, or can choose to increase their cost and compete on things other than price.
Law is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained. -- Aaron Burr
To demand "approval control over the ISP's home page" and free advertising flies in the face of everything ISPs are about. ISPs provide access to everything on the internet, and they also provide their own content if they so desire; I'm an ISP and would NEVER accept terms like these.
If TW & AOL are committed to open access, they should publish their term sheet. That way we'd know for sure.
sulli
RTFJ.
If this is legal in the first place, then why didn't they go ahead and require 99.9999% of all revenue, and the first born children of all ISP employees? It's not like requiring 75/25% of revenue is subtle, so why not just go all out?
If this is legal in the first place, then why didn't they go ahead and require 99.9999% of all revenue, and the first born children of all ISP employees? It's not like requiring 75/25% of revenue is subtle, so why not just go all out?
Satan doesn't want to be too obvious, right away. It attracts immediate attention from On High.
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
What I'm curious about, is why they did this so baltantly. They could have been much more subtle, for example: A local ISP (Netdoor) where I live leases bandwidth from BellSouth for DSL access. BellSouth also offers DSL access via the BellSouth ISP. Well, because they don't rape Netdoor, it's less profitable to have Netdoor provide access the DSL. So what does BellSouth do? They simply make DSL through Netdoor horrible. Periodic outages and (relative to BellSouth DSL) slow connections. Therefore Netdoor's DSL subscriber base is slowly switching to the more expensive BellSouth.
While it isn't extreemly subtle, most end users wouldn't notice, and its certainly not something that would get posted on Slashdot. So why would AOL/TimeWarner (who we assume have at least one or two smart people in their employment) opt for the heavy handed approach rather than the much more sneaky one.
After all, being sneaky is what US businesses are all about!
Corporate greed will never die. In a way this doesn't suprise me- it sounds like AOL/TW want to be Microsoft of cable (actually they may already be in truth).
I forsee cable taking the same path as AOL has taken though(for more than one reason).. It's almost like we have a parallel here. In the days of 56K modems, AOL was getting customers like crazy, and everyone (except the geeks of course) looked at it as the next best thing to sliced bread. Pretty soon, everyone started getting busy signals... then a lot of people started switching (granted there are stilly plenty of suckers still using AOL).
I think something similar could happen with cable. Once everyone starts "getting the internet" with cable modems, instead of getting busy signals they are going to get slow and crappy connection due to the technology. However, what is the alternative? I hope some form of DSL comes along soon that just about anyone can get, and get without problems... There really isn't much else right now.
Relax, Chachi. The poster does have a point that I think you're misunderstanding. Cable companies are protected monopolies within their territory. They are given exclusive franchises by state and local regulatory agencies, and it is illegal for anyone to compete with them. Go ahead, try to start a competing cable TV service in your area... the government will put you out of business so fast it will make your head spin.
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Not that I'm a fan of AOL/Time Warner, but I wouldn't pass judgement until I got more information; what exactly is their contribution in providing this service? If they provide the actual connection, on both the backbone and the home ends, I can't really see what the ISPs are doing. Unless it's hardware/co-branding/tech support like the DSL companies do with the telcos, in which case 75% might be extremely high, but not totally out of touch with reality, considering Time Warner would be shouldering most of the cost. Personally AOL/Time Warner worries me a lot less than the other corporate behemoths because Time Warner has a history of poor financial performance, and AOL is definitely going to peak soon; as their revenues rely more and more on non-access fees I think people are going to come to the conclusion that there's just not that much there.
Wouldn't this mean you couldn't be the first in the market to offer a new service? Or if you want to, you need to help set up someone to compete with you before the FTC will allow you to start business? It seems like that would promote collusion.
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Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
I'm no fan of cable companies in general, but this article doesn't exactly cast the facts of this issue in a fair light.
The reality is, that under a reseller model, 75%/25% is a somewhat better deal than that being currently offered by the Telco's for DSL service, where the split is currently about 83%/17% in many states.
Is this split unfair? Not really. Consider, that the value-added by the isp itself is pretty insignificant compared to the cost of building, maintaining, and operating the wire plant. Mail servers, DNS, docsis service, etc. are trivial costs, and the real value added by the isp is customer service - and a considerable portion of that must be provided by the hosting cable company, since a large percentage of customer problems are system based.
A fairer way of presenting this issue, would have been "Cable company offers 25% discount at wholesale to ISP's wishing to use their system."
More troubling, are the requirements about splitting advertising, and providing AOL/TW editorial control over content provided by the ISP. I doubt this will be a long-term issue, since the FCC has previously taken very negative stances towards attempts to exert too much control over reseller ISP's in the Telco arena.
In fact, this may not be an issue long at all, since the 8th Circuit recently declared that cable modem service was, in fact, a telecom service. This is an important distinction, since currently, cable modems are regulated under the much more ambiguous "cable services" umbrella by the FCC and by state PUC's. At some point soon, cable modems are going to be moved under the far more restictive telecom data services regulatory umbrella, at which time the entire "Open Access/Forced Access" issue will go away. Telecom companies are required to provide non-discriminatory access to their systems, at rates set by state PUC's.
Frankly, the whole issue doesn't turn me on at all. AOL/TW, TCI/AT&T, et al, currently are selling the service over systems based on a very old branching tree/coax design, that as never intended to provide two-way services. That it works at all is somewhat miraculous. Much more interesting, is the arrival of a new class of "Overbuilders" (or companies planning to build and deploy their own wire plant over the top of the old incumbant systems). Comapnies like Western integrated networks, Wide Open West, Rio, etc. are currently seeking franchises from cities, to construct ultra-high density fiber-optic systems, to deliver voice/video/data services on systems that are far far superior to the crapulent old coax systems.
Take a look at the system specs for Western integrated network's system, for example (http://www.winfirst.com). Note, especially, the planned data speeds they plan to deliver into homes. Yeah - that's 100baseT service. And yup, they're bringing fiber inside the house . Frankly, the prospect of a fully bi-directional ethernet connection into my home makes me erect. It also has to have the incumbant telecoms shitting in their pants, as they watch the imminent death of their cash-cow DS1 and DS3 circuit business arriving on the scene. These new systems are designed with a series of descending fiber rings, and very low node densities. wow baby. No reason at all they can't offer businesses sonet (OC3-OC48) services at very low rates.
Oddly, I've seen very little drooling about this from the geek press, who ought, rightly, to be having a feeding frenzy about it. Instead, we see silly gnashing of teeth over AOL/TW, and inappropriatly biased stories over a thing which, by comparison, is almost irrelevent.
On the other hand, it's horribly inefficient for every company to trench and run their own cable into homes. How many do you need anyway?
I don't know, it just seems like certain things like telecom, power grids, natural gas lines, roads, rivers, and canals should be considered critical national infrastructure and provided by the government and then available to use to any company, organization, or individual through user fees.
Hah. You want "applied lobbying"?
If OpenSecrets has the facts, then Time-Warner is the one doing all the lobbying, right behind Seagrams which, if memory serves me correctly, is fairly active in the music business, is it not?
It wouldn't take a competitor to leak such a story, just a really disgruntled ISP that Time-Warner is trying to strong-arm. How many of the 40 would you think are disgruntled enough to call the press on this?
The "deal" isn't the only sad thing... I'm also bothered that Time-Warner could get this far, try to dismiss it in such contradictory terms and even hope to be believed, and that consumers could be so Internet-hungry that they motivate such behaviors on the part of big companies like Time-Warner.
I'm also bothered by a government that either doesn't see campaign contributions as a way of currying favor for a significant merger, or who doesn't consider it significant.
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You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
Form a union? Like, perhaps, the Texas ISP Association? The same TISPA that David Robertson, the source quoted in the story, is president of?
Nah, that'd never work.
http://www.wa shi ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28372-2000Oct6.html
sulli
RTFJ.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
>> I want to know WHY don't they allow cometitive cable companies
... (name a tv show). Voters were offered a wider selection of channels. Usually, at least in this area, it was decided by the city council and the voters weren't consulted, but opinions that I heard were mixed between "Don't set up a new monopoly" and "I want to see more programs", so the council may have been going with the more popular voice.
... O, that's right, the government broke them up!
Which they? Originally the cable companies looked quite expensive to set up, and nobody had done it much of anywhere. It was only expanding slowly. The ??? (who?) wanted cable services to expand more quickly than the free market was willing to pay for (negotiating the right to place cables in the utility right of way was one of the hellacious hassels that they faced). So some big companies stepped up and said "if you give us exclusive rights to supply cable connections in your city, then we will supply them. By the way, WE have the right to distribute
Now the cable companies had no interest in allowing other companies to horn in on their turf. After they had their cables in place, it would be quite expensive for any other company to intrude, even if there hadn't been a no-competitors clause in the contract. (The first company would already have their investment at least partially paid off, so they could usually drive prices lower if they had to.) The city council was bemused by the whole subject, and was only interested in it as a means of getting votes (or, possibly, for other reasons that they didn't see fit to publically disclose).
If standard oil had been expanding fast enough, there never would have been a second oil company
Please consider that economies my sometimes naturally generate monopolies, and that the people in charge of the monopolies will, if not in the first generation, then in the next, take advantage of the monopoly to ["maximize profits"|"put the squeeze on their customers"].
Motives for behavior are among the unobservables. They are an internal construct that we use to model our own behavior and that of others. To assume that our model of others motives has any strong degree of certainty is unwarranted. Unfortunately, since we use motives so frequently for understanding ourselves, we tend to think easily as if the motives of others flowed in our own patterns. This is not always true. As best as I have been able to estimate it is roughly true about 1/4 of the time, and even then there is a lot of fine tuning required.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Paper: Time Warner Sets Terms for Access
Last updated: 08 Oct 2000 12:35 GMT (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Time Warner Inc TWX.N is requiring some Internet service providers to pay up to 75 percent of their revenue and relinquish some control of content to gain access to its high-speed network, the Washington Post reported.
The Post reported that unnamed sources said the Federal Trade Commission is examining the terms of many of the deals proposed to smaller Internet service providers to determine if they violate Time Warner's promise to open its high-speed cable TV lines to competitors in the wake of its $183 billion merger announcement with America Online Inc AOL.N .
Time Warner is requiring nearly 40 Internet companies in Texas to give up 75 percent of their subscriber fees and 25 percent of revenues from other sources such as advertising in order to gain access to its cable TV network, according to term sheets obtained by the Post.
In addition, the term sheets indicate Time Warner would get approval control over the Internet service providers' home pages and "prominent above-the-fold areas on the home page of the service for use."
"Totally ridiculous," said Dave Robertson, vice president and general manager of Stic.net, an Internet service provider in San Antonio with more than 10,000 subscribers. "The bottom line is, they don't have a desire to open their network."
Time Warner denied the charge, saying it and AOL are committed to open access, the Post reported Saturday.
Cable networks are one way to deliver high-speed Internet access to residential customers. Time Warner's cable network reaches 18.8 percent of all cable customers nationwide.
If we made monopolies illegal (not abuse of monopoly, monopoly), no cable company or any other company could get away with onerous terms unless they made economic sense. If all competitors were forced by the economics of an industry to charge 75%, it would be ok. But if you allow monopoly, you have to go through a complicated process of figuring out what makes economic sense in order to form a judgement, and then decide whether it qualifies as abuse.
From popcorn at a movie theater, to movie prices, to music CD prices, to Microsoft Windows: monopolies (and the equivalent, collusive behavior by competitors) invariably lead to unfair pricing. Make them all illegal and people (working, nonworking, rich and poor alike) will be better off.
This memo wasn't supposed to be released until the day after the FTC approved the TWT/AOL merger. Until the approval, they would never think of doing such an evil thing as this.
But once they convince the FTC they don't need any special "force of law" provisions to keep them in line, then they can do whatever they want.
The same types of deals are happening in Europe, or they will once the telco companies manage to corrupt the regulating agencies. Keep an eye on how BT is dealing dirty with colo space in their COs. Watch how FT has locked up the local loop, and charge similar fees to the ISPs who want access to DSL headends.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I can't wait. They use Cable & Wireless here, and their service simply sucks in the evenings mos days. A particular C&W router (as shown by traceroute) always fails. My ping times go from 40msec to 4000+msec, and then I lose connectivity. What would be interesting is BGP between ISPs; I could choose a single ISP, or several, if I wanted better connectivity.
________________________________________
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
As far as the "editorial control" of my homepage... Sure, I'll have http://[My IP] as the "homepage" for my "business." Then I'll register as many anti-TW domains as possible, and host them all. They're not a "homepage", and they're not for my "business."
This is starting to sound good...
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
Can anyone tell my why monopolies are granted for such trivial and ubobtrusive wires like this? It's not like you need much of the public right of way and massive hardware investments to make these networks. I'm told Chicago has granted six companies access to their right of ways. It looks like this is anything but a natural monopoly.
We must not allow broadband to end up like broadcast TV and radio. There is no scarcity of public resources to consider, and no reason to keep anyone from pubishing in a pull media. As this is the future of publishing in general we need to be very careful about who controls it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'm also bothered by a government that either doesn't see campaign contributions as a way of currying favor for a significant merger, or who doesn't consider it significant.
The government may not see (or admit seeing) that campaign contributions and softmoney are nothing other than blatent, legalized bribery, but We The People have no trouble recognizing this for what it is.
It is common knowledge that our senators, representatives, and presidents routinely sell themselves to business and special interests like cheap whores on a Saturday night. Unfortunately people feel very powerless to do anything about it, since they correctly identify this behavior with both the Democratic and Republican branches of the Corporate Party and fail to realize that their vote, were it cast for a third party (such as the Greens or the Libertarians), would not only speak out loudly against this behavior, but quite probably have a much greater influence on the public agenda and public policy than the sheeplike votes cast for the two main parties.
Until people realize how much power they do hold in their hands, and begin exercising it by voting non-Corporate, they will remain impotent, and our elected "leaders" will continue shamelessly turning sleazy tricks for cash in the full and confident knowledge that they, in truth, have nothing to fear from a disgruntled, but apathetic and thus powerless, constituency.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The Anonymous Coward who made the post I was replying to was being arrogant and demeaning to people who lack his intellectual strength. I called him on his arrogance by extending his position to an absurdity.
Intellectual strength is much like physical strength - if it is not used properly it can be destructive and damaging rather than constructive. Using intellectual strength to damage those who lack it is very similar to using physical strength to damage those who lack physical strength.
The problems of the world are often blamed on the stupid - but the truth is most of those problems are the result of the actions of the intelligent. The stupid lack the intellectual strength to cause much damage - far more damage is done by intelligent people doing things without thinking about what they are doing. Sloppy thinking is far more destructive than being unable to think could ever be.
The intellectually strong blame the weak because the weak are unable to stop the strong from doing so. Weakness of any kind often takes the blame for misapplied strength. This is such a problem that the intellectually strong really believe that the intellectually weak are responsible for the world's problems.
If intellectual weakness is the cause of problems - why not blame chimps for all of our troubles? After all even the dullest of people are smarter than chimps. If stupidity causes troubles then chimps are far more to blame than dumb humans.
In my opinion the time for the intellectually strong to realize and admit that most problems are their fault has arrived; quit blaming helpless people who can't defend themselves. Being demeaning to people with less intellectual ability than you have is just as wrong as physically bullying a cripple.
The truth is that intelligent people tend to be intellectual bigots; the intellectually weak are the 'lackey slaves' of the intellectual world; people beneath our contempt - to be whipped and reviled for our amusement. Watching the behavior of the intelligent around the less gifted is a disgusting event for me: it makes me ashamed to admit that I have a brain. Perhaps now you can begin to understand why average people hate nerds - we couldn't be much worse than we are.
When I see someone physically bullying a cripple I'll step into the situation; when I see someone being demeaning toward the less intelligent I'll stomp on him just as hard as I would any other bully.
You are about as amusing as someone mocking my legally blind brother for his lack of eyesight.
That was a rhetorical question, I didn't expect an answer.
come on, people have won Nobel Prices by showing that free markets make everybody richer
And 8 years of supply-side economics showed that it doesn't. Despite common misperceptions (mostly by economics it seems), economics is not an exact science; just because they use a lot of math doesn't make it so.
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Granted AOL/TW have denied 75%. But look at who does what, and is 75% unreasonable? It sure sounds usurious, but who provides what service?
If TW supplies all the hardware and the upstream connection, what is there left for the ISP to do but run POP, SMTP servers and maybe host some user webpages plus maybe answer a helpless desk? Then IMHO, 75% might be high but reasonable.
AFAIK, the biggest single cost for ISPs is their incoming lines and modem banks. Gone with cable. But if the ISPs still have to supply all the upstream bandwidth (routers in their shops), then 75% is ridiculous. Upstream bandwidth is the second biggest cost.
TW had better tread carefully here, or they will get themselves re-regulated.