The Cost of a Tiered Internet

An anonymous reader wrote in to mention a Popular Science article about the money issues involved in a tiered internet. From the article: "With a tiered Internet, such routing technology could be used preferentially to deliver either the telecoms' own services or those of companies who had paid the requisite fees. What does this mean for the rest of us? A stealth Web tax, for one thing. 'Google and Amazon and Yahoo are not going to slice those payments out of their profit margins and eat them,' says Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, a nonprofit group that monitors media-related legislation. 'They're going to pass them on to the consumer. So I'll end up paying twice. I'm going to pay my $29.99 a month for access, and then I'm going to pay higher prices for consumer goods all across the economy because these Internet companies will charge more for online advertising.'" Update: 05/26 16:54 GMT by Z : The article is hosted on CNN, but is original material from Popular Science. Post updated to reflect this.

Comments

Tiery eyed

[dotslashdot]

It brings tiers to my eyes.

be fair

[convolvatron]

i'm sure that given this new income, the phone companies will lower
their rates and it will all balance out.

Re:My letter to my congressman.

[Anonymous Coward]

...due to postal security concerns

You won't send your letter by post due to security matters, but posting it on Slashdot is ok? :-)

Re:Fix it

[spun]

Can't we just gut all the AOL users instead? What was that quote, oh yes, here we go (emphasis mine):

There it is again. Some clueless fool talking about the "Information Superhighway". They don't know didley about the Net. It's nothing like a superhighway. That's a rotten metaphor.

Suppose the metaphor ran in the other direction. Suppose the highways were like the net...

A highway hundreds of lanes wide. Most with pitfalls for potholes. Privately operated bridges and overpasses. No highway patrol. A couple of rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles. 500 member vigilante posses with nuclear weapons. A minimum of 237 on ramps at every intersection.

No signs. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at a passing truck to ask directions.

Ad hoc traffic laws. Some lanes would vote to make use by a single-occupant-vehicle a capital offense on Monday through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00. Other lanes would just shoot you without a trial for talking on a car phone.

AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking bus with hundreds of ebola victims on board throwing dead wombats and rotten cabbage at the other cars, most of which have been assembled at home from kits. Some are built around 2.5 horsepower lawn mower engines with a top speed of nine miles an hour. Others burn nitroglycerin and idle at 120.

No license plates. World War II bomber nose art instead. Terrifying paintings of huge teeth or vampire eagles. Bumper mounted machine guns. Flip somebody the finger on this highway and get a white phosphorus grenade up your tailpipe. Flatbed trucks cruise around with anti-aircraft missile batteries to shoot down the traffic helicopter. Little kids on tricycles with squirt guns filled with hydrochloric acid switch lanes without warning.

NO OFFRAMPS. None.

Now that's the way to run an Interstate Highway system.

Author (maybe, it's hard to track down sources on the Net): Jim Wiedman

Re:My letter to my congressman.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good letter!

Now tell me how you faxed the wikipedia link, and I'll be really impressed.

Solution is simple...

[JoeLinux]

Fine...let them create the tiered internet...then sue them the next time you get spammed through their connection.

1 million lawsuits the day after should convince them otherwise.

All you need are lawyers....

Re:Solution is simple...

[linvir]

Damn, how is it that the damn lawyers always win? Bastards!

Re:lame

[cashman73]

Yeah. I cancelled my cable modem account and went with a hot, new Wi-Fi provider called Default . Don't know who runs it, but there just about everywhere and don't send me a bill! ;-)

Re:Fix it

[drinkypoo]

You're an idiot. Don't just read what you want into my comments. Read what I actually said, instead. The next line, which you failed to quote, starts "All kidding aside". In the English language, that typically means that the last thing you said/wrote was humor. In other languages, it doesn't mean shit, therefore you have no fucking excuse. Where I was talking about not seeing the bad, I was talking about AOL being blown out of the water, which is a huge win for everyone - so I was half-serious, and every good joke contains a kernel of the truth just as every good stereotype does. YOU fit the stereotype of the slashbot with a knee spasm problem.