Who Pays for Rebuilding the Internet?

pcause writes "The Internet (physical as opposed to technical) was really not designed for applications that want to use maximum bandwidth all of the time, such as P2P and streaming video. Here in the US we've seen Comcast try to balance the demands of P2P traffic with other traffic and its backbone capacity. In the UK, a flame war has broken out between the BBC and ISPs about the same issue. So the question is who pays? Should the content owners who make the profits pay for the extra infrastructure, or should the consumer pay?"

Comments

I will.

[tverbeek]

Here, I'll pay for it. Whom do I make the check out to?

Re:Duh - we all do.

[emjay88]

If someone isn't going to pay the $3 for downloading a 700 MB ISO for Ubuntu... ...we go back to the '80s style of paying for crappy software rather then just downloading it.
+5: Implication that Ubuntu is crappy software

How about we do this?

[Orion Blastar]

Put a tax on spam emails, and popup advertising? Then use that tax to pay for the new Internet.

Also charge the spyware and adware companies fees for infecting a majority of the Internet and affecting bandwidth, and use those fees to pay for the new Internet.

My plan is to get the money from companies and people that abuse the Internet via taxes or fees and use that to build the new faster Internet.

Maybe it will cut down on spam, adware, spyware, and popup ads? Just a thought.