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Pay-to Play and the Tiered Internet

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.

Crash24 writes "According to an article at The Nation, "industry planners are mulling new subscription plans that would further limit the online experience, establishing "platinum," "gold" and "silver" levels of Internet access that would set limits on the number of downloads, media streams or even e-mail messages that could be sent or received." " Tiered internet service may be inevitable folks. Brace yourself.

2 of 664 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Fine with me by sconeu · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I don't know about you, but I personally would prefer not to be double billed.

    <SARCASM>
    What are you, some kind of hippie commie terrorist?
    </SARCASM>

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  2. Simple Economics: This is a GOOD thing by joefreshman · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Look, I don't know about you guys, but I'd be more than happy to pay an extra $20 or even $50/month to have faster access than my existing cable internet (which is notably faster than the DSL service in my area). My problem is that the next tier in my area is about $500/month. Tiered access makes sense; you should pay for what you use. Otherwise you have the traditional economic problems of free-riding, adverse selection, and moral hazard.

    Maybe you're all upset because you've been free-riding on lower-usage members, but think about it this way -- the people who have no clue that their computers are spam zombies will presumably be the lower-paying broadband users, and won't clog your access nearly as much.

    Think about it.