I normally agree with you on the 'slippery slope' argument. For the most part, I think the idea that that government or people will give or take too much when you engage common sense is a precedent more dangerous than a slippery slope would likely be.
However, in this instance, Congress HAS attempted to pass amendments that would extend FCC regulation to cable television, subjecting it to the same standards as broadcast television. And from what I can tell, it only failed to pass by a hair width margin.
This is a situation where some sort of community action would be best. Your congressman works for you, and most of us are very bad managers, letting our employee have free reign without any oversight. Time to hold OURSELVES accountable for the decisions that THEY make.
I would say that the 'general public' find fart and belching in public more rude and offensive than most of the profane words. While I can't imagine people running around shouting 'cunt' all the time, most of the other words are well within bounds, and would likely not raise an eyebrow. The government seems to try very hard to restrict the flow of society, but it amazes me how it does so in the wrong direction, by shielding us from free speech and sexual expression while filling our television screens with violence and hatred.
I can agree with this to a limited degree. Personally, I believe it's our RESPONSIBILITY as citizens to educate ourselves as thoroughly as possible on these things. But, with 9-5 more like 7am-9pm for some folks, I understand that it's not always possible. I wasn't necessarily attempting to discount OSS, but was pointing out that perhaps there were better and more relevant things that we could be focusing on, and not getting too mired in a game of Six Degrees of Linus Torvalds.
I'm fairly sure that the poor and starving, or the victims of earthquakes, or oppressed writers and artists, or the politically open-minded, probably couldn't care less about source code. They need access to support structures, relief fund informations, open discourse, free exchange of ideas. The people who would be most helped by just some source code probably are the ones who need the least help.
I figured I should take the time to reply to some of these:
I do agree with you that Digital Righs Management and even copyright law itself have managed to entwine themselves far more deeply into our everyday lives than the authors could have imagined. The unfortunate aspect is that very few people could tell you what DRM stands for, let alone what it means, or what it's political and social implications both immediate and long-term are.
Also, remember that when the hardware and the DRM are embedded, it won't matter what OS you are running. You will either have the hardware to read the digital content legally, or will illegally create methods to read it, and illegality is what we want to avoid. Political education on the subject of DRM, and how it applies to everyday people, is really the button you want to push.
Unfortunately, unless we're willing to make the effort for this push, it won't matter what Iran does. It's hard for me to appreciate our way of life, when we no longer have it and the Iranians do. The effort will start at home.
Perhaps we are placing just a little TOO much faith in the POWER of OSS. I realize that it can heal the sick, feed the hungry, and make politicians honest, but maybe just this once, it's completely irrelevant.
We should be focusing more on the content then the delivery method. IN countries like Iran, overcoming and undermining the harsh edicts of the mullah is probably slightly more important than what version of SCO-Derivative Unlicensed(TM) *Nix verion they are running. I realize that talking about free software is important and innocuous, but whenever I see things like this pop up arbitrarily, I want to make sure you're not missing the point.
If the president were found banging a dead 14-year-old hooker in the Vatican, I get the feeling some people here would either blame it on SCO, Microsoft, Bill Gates, the RIAA, or wonder what version of Apache the Vatican is running. (It's 1.3.27, to save you some trouble).
This has got to be the DUMBEST ongoing argument that I have ever heard. People seem to argue that 'the rich' should be unburdened, to create jobs and prosperity for all mankind!
Look around. Are you reading these corporate reports? We're in a recovery! There is profit everywhere. Almost every company is making money, fully in the black, and many of them are meeting estimates! Year-over-year growth, higher productivity.
And layoffs. Layoffs, mind you, not to BECOME profitable, and not even to slake off lower than expected profits, but to maximize profits and "shareholder value". And who benefits most from maximized shareholder value? Well, that would be the executives of the company, and other rich people who happen to own significant chunks of stock. And the last time I checked, we were in the slowest job recovery market in recorded HISTORY, so your argument holds flat.
The problem you're having is that you're wrapping this in the wrong direction. Rich people don't create jobs. Healthy and employed markets with high productivity and steady profit create rich people. And middle class people. Obviously, to create a lot of middle class people, the rich people have to get slightly less rich, and there-in lies the problem with our greedy profit-taking investment and executive climate right now. Everyone is in it for the short-term investment. Make a quick buck on stock, or be CEO for 3-5 and escape on your golden parachute, regardless of how you performed.
The rich people aren't doing anything for anyone but themselves right now.
Programs are segregated into/bin//usr/bin//usr/local/bin,/sbin etc for good reasons, however it is not difficult to make your own directory for things that you add, as long as you put it in the path.
The problem is, most normal end-users don't even know what that sentence MEANS. They don't even BEGIN to know what that sentence means. I can tell you that as a support tech, there is a large segment of the population that doesn't even LEARN Windows. And generally seems incapable of doing so. Their minds are somehow blocking. I've been on a call where I've walked someone step by step through going to Control Panels literally a dozen times. And the thirteenth time, they still ask "Where was that again?". And it's not even counter-intuitive. Start -> Settings -> Control Panels. Pretty simple, really. You could recite it like a nursery rhyme. But they just can't do it.
No user like this will remember the/bin... style directory structure, and even users more familiar with Windows probably couldn't keep it all straight. You could convert middle of the road users, people who are fairly knowledgable and can learn, but why would they switch? Most of them use programs in Windows, and don't care to learn the Linux equivalent if it's not present there. Who wants to relearn an office app? Or an image editing application? Linux gives middle of the road individuals NO reason to switch. If these same people had STARTED their computer lives with Linux, it probably wouldn't have mattered, but now they are 'locked in' to Windows.
So that leaves the hardcore computer folks, which you separate instantly into "gamers" and "non-gamers". Gamers are out. Which leaves us with hardcore non-gamer computer folks. Mostly these are sys-admins, tech support folks, network admins, programmers, some engineers...and these people already use Linux.
Linux adoption continues to ramp up in these domains. But there STILL is no REASON to switch to Linux. There still is no compelling application or set of applications to pull people over. And without a REASON, it will simply continue as it is.
And this is why I don't believe in "globalization". Americans cannot compete with countries whose economies are less developed than ours in terms of price. Companies are cutting off their legs to feed their faces. American corporation are RESPONSIBLE for the current economic situation, and now that they've grown fat off the land, they want to cut us out because they can outsource to a third-world country? A country where our salaries CANNOT EVER be competitive without a complete and utter CRASH of our economy?
I'm not sure how you can possibly believe this is a good thing.
I love how you talk about the government entity, perpetuating the myth that government can exist independent of people. Americans ARE their government, no matter how complacent and uninterested they become, and every moment you have a complaint about your government in action is a moment you are deluding yourself. You HAVE the power to make things happen, but I doubt most of the Americans here remember what the inside of a voting booth looks like.
Our press is full of cynics, looking to nail the government to the wall for ANY possible infraction, just to sell a couple papers. The mean ol' evil government (READ: YOU) has it's hands tied in more ways than you can imagine. Sure, it probably engages in a few back-alley deals around the globe, but it must tread lightly at home, and if you don't like the way it's treading, replace the swimmers with someone else. If you spent half as much time voting and dedicating your resources to making sure that other people did the same as you do whining about government and government conspiracies, you'd find that you had a whole hell of a lot less to whine about.
You won't hear ME pontificating about free market. I'm a "ra ra, America first!" type, and I believe there should be harsher penalties and requirements for allowing products primarily marketed in the United States by American companies to be developed overseas. Heck, I'll be ever more harsh...force companies that get their American tax breaks and kickbacks to deal only with companies that offer competitive salaries to US companies.
Instead of starting at workers, they should be making cuts from the top down. That $8M bonus that exec made this year could have paid for 160 salaries, or 120 if you're being conservative. And that's if you just have 1 Exec making that kind of excess.
When I got my new iPod, it came with music already loaded. A ton of it was indy or little-heard music that turned me on to a ton of stuff. This is Apple we're talking about, and I'm sure if you realize this, but it's 'trendy' to listen to 'indy' music.
I understand the legality issues. Obviously, if it were illegal, they would already have been sued by now. The truth is, they are cutting a fine line, but have the money to put law on their side.
Obviously, I'd prefer they advertise properly. But if it's not ILLEGAL to advertise unlimited and mean "unlimited within reason", than everyone MUST advertise like that. Those who do not are left without customers, and you cannot survive as an ISP catering to only the top 2% of downloaders, since there are no lower end users to absorb the high cost of providing the backbone. Until it's illegal for everyone to use this terminology, it will never stop.
And in America, I'm sure you're familiar with how hard we're just CRACKING DOWN on corporations these days.
The problem is, once a company starts to claim 'unlimited', they have suddenly changed the market. If you had to choose between the cheaper unlimited option, the more expensive unlimited option, or the metered option, almost EVERYONE would take the cheap unlimited without reading the fine print. There is no real middle market for internet access. Most people would rather go cheap and hope they get away with it. If I told you that you could pay $49.95 for 20GB/mo. of downloads at 1.5Mbps, and the guy next door offered $49.95 UNLIMITED ACCESS, for most people, it wouldn't matter what "unlimited" meant. Because, to 90% of people, they'll never even come close to spiking the connection, so it's truly unlimited for them.
They have 24-7 unlimited access. ISPs are forced to buy it from the backbone providers, and it usually goes at a premium. 1.5Mbps constant down couldn't be offered for less than you buy it from the backbone provider, so why bother?
The options are there. You can't sit at an all-you-can-eat buffet all day from morning to night and expect that they won't throw you out. But for 99% of people there, they are getting 'all-you-can-eat'. Just because a small minority choose to take it to an extreme doesn't mean that it's not true.
They already have that. It's called a T1 line. Funny, you're not running out to get that T1 line right now, are you? I mean, you just said you'd pay a premium for true unlimited access, right? You can probably get a full T1 including the circuit to your home for $399/mo. if you live in a handful of major cities, or up to 5 times that anywhere else.
You're right, consumers don't demand to be lied to. They simply flock to the biggest, boldest headers that promise them the most for the least without thinking about how that's possible, and then moan when they later realize there was fine print they didn't bother to read. Consumers want the deal, they always want the deal. They bitch in coffee shops about jobs moving to foreign countries but would flip if you raised the price of Commodity X even $1.00 to keep those jobs in America.
Because people don't realize that what they pay for is part of what they are. It's not just a consumable good, it's a part of your culture. They pretend that Jim the Person is not the same as Jim the Shopper. Jim the Person cares about the plight of 3rd world sweatshop workers. Jim the Shopper busts a nut over those new Nike Cross-Flex Magic Air Jordan Smart Bow Hot Trainers that make him feel so fly on his company basketball courts. You make that choice everytime you demand bigger, better, faster, and more for LESS, LESS, LESS, without thinking of the social complexities behind a purchase.
Every priced a 768k fractional T1, ie, that backbone bandwidth? YOu know, the kind that gives you unlimited download at 768k all day, every day, without limitation?
$250 is a cheap estimate. Likely double that.
Is that what most people pay for their 768k connection? Probably not. And an ISP can't get it any cheaper. So, false advertising or not, a persons options are "deal with it" or "no more cheap high speed access".
And YET, you choose to redefine the word "Access" to mean "bandwidth", even though they are two different words. If your webhost says that your website is 'universally accessible', would that mean they shouldn't implement bandwidth limitations? Explain to me why you believe that webhosts and ISPS would pay different prices for their internet access? Except in rare cases, they don't.
While I understand your position, a couple of things:
You are not using the service the same as Johnny. THerefore, you are expecting GREATER service than Johnny, since Johnny is using the service within the standard limits of common sense. Johnny uses it one month at a high level, and you use it for 12. This is NOT the same service.
"Not My fault your business plan can't make you money..."
This is how EVERY ISP works. None of them will ever be able to provide you with unlimited 1.5Mbps access 24-7 without limitations. If you want that, then buy the pipe density yourself. The truth is, you get 1.5Mbps access (sometimes faster), and it is always on. Unlimited ACCESS and Unlimited BANDWIDTH are not the same things. Most internet services provide the former, and having dealt with even the most horrific of ISPs (such as SBC DSL), even provide the latter for all but the most unreasonable of customers. If you download porn 24-7, when do you have time to WATCH all that porn. A lot of people who use these connections like this confuse "can" and "need". They go beyond what they even WANT, and even if it does everything they possibly think of, they go out and find new things to do JUST SO THEY CAN USE THEIR BANDWIDTH.
They're like that guy who eats ALL the free food in the break room. Hey, it was there, right? But he forgets that it's there for everyone, and not just him.
Having seen a lot of feedback here, I'm not sure that I understand what it is that people want. Here are the things that people have said: "Don't offer speed if you can't deliver" and "don't offer unlimited if you can't deliver". Let's take a look at the way that most ISPs work, and then address those.
Your standard ISP pays not for bandwidth, but for pipe density. T1, T3, DS3, OC3, etc. They pay for 1.5Mbps up/down 24-7 if they need it. NOw, obviously, this costs them much more a month than your 1.5Mbps download connection, by an order of magnitude of 20 or so. If you're on a dial-up service, most ISPs don't pay much to maintain infrastructure, unless they are also the phone company. It's some servers, a few banks of digi-cards, and a local dial-in number. In the case of high speed access, they generally also have to pay to maintain lines and equipment along the lines, such as repeaters and routers. A few web servers, a couple of mail servers, and you're an ISP.
Now, here's where the issue comes in. Normally, an ISP expects that some people will use high-speed very sparingly, probably depending on it for a few small critical tasks and the rest is email. And then they know there will be a few gamers and downloader making up some slack. This is expected by your broadband ISPs.
The problem comes in when you have someone who demands to use their connection for 1.5Mbps, all day, every day. The same connection, bursting, might serve six or 7 heavy usage customers, or 40 light usage customers, but now you have one single customer, attempting to consume $500 worth of download bandwidth for $50.
Obviously, there should be some sort of common sense applied here. Capping the top speed lower would be a poor idea, because those who download the occasional large file or movie trailer or whatnot enjoy access to the full speed. Changing the access hours seems silly, since some people play games for hours a day but never come close to consuming full bandwidth. Does it seem right to penalize this MAJORITY of the customers because a very small percentage of customers who seem to be of the opinion that if you have a 1.5Mbps connection, you MUST use all of it. If you gave them more bandwidth, they would simply find something else to do with it, not content unless they are pushing their connection as hard as possible, obviously lacking any idea of the economics behind it all.
Some have said that hard limits should be imposed in the contratct. This makes me sad, because it means that you are telling the company that they cannot trust their users, that they cannot use reasonable judgement, or expect that from you. Sometimes, you might have customers who never go over the limit, but might have a school project one month that pushes their usage up high once. As an ISP, I'd prefer to be able to use my discretion in this situation rather than hear the "told you so" of users crying about "lax enforcement of rule".
For instance, if you take 10 users, and 9 of them use 100M a day, and one user devours 3G a day, then the average is 390M, but 9 of your users fall under that.
I believe you're thinking of the "Median". For statistical purposes, this is better than averaging because it ignores extreme scores. The Median is the middle number in a number series. IN this case, since there are an even number of cases (10), it would be the average of the 5th and 6th, or 100M in this case.:)
Depending upon the number of VERY low bandwidth users, it is hard to tell which would produce a more favorable cap.
....I'm not exactly sure what you're saying. I'm *not* a conspiracy theorist, but you would be a bald-faced liar if you tried to tell me that law and justice are NOT increasingly becoming a commoditized industry. There is no recourse for the common man against the corporation, and many corporations can sue you, and unless the suit is COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY FROM LEFT FIELD WITHOUT A SINGLE SHRED OF MERIT, which is unlikely, you have no recourse to seek greivance from them. Most judges will tell you that you're not guilty, but "from the evidence", the company was justified in at least pursuing it.
Corporations increasingly run the show in this country, and that's a shame. They have more rights than a person, now, and that's also a shame.
So, what you're saying is that you're not given NEARLY enough time to fully evaluate the legitimacy of every patent that crosses your desk, and your pay and job depend on rushing through as many hastily read patents as possible?
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I normally agree with you on the 'slippery slope' argument. For the most part, I think the idea that that government or people will give or take too much when you engage common sense is a precedent more dangerous than a slippery slope would likely be.
However, in this instance, Congress HAS attempted to pass amendments that would extend FCC regulation to cable television, subjecting it to the same standards as broadcast television. And from what I can tell, it only failed to pass by a hair width margin.
This is a situation where some sort of community action would be best. Your congressman works for you, and most of us are very bad managers, letting our employee have free reign without any oversight. Time to hold OURSELVES accountable for the decisions that THEY make.
I would say that the 'general public' find fart and belching in public more rude and offensive than most of the profane words. While I can't imagine people running around shouting 'cunt' all the time, most of the other words are well within bounds, and would likely not raise an eyebrow. The government seems to try very hard to restrict the flow of society, but it amazes me how it does so in the wrong direction, by shielding us from free speech and sexual expression while filling our television screens with violence and hatred.
I can agree with this to a limited degree. Personally, I believe it's our RESPONSIBILITY as citizens to educate ourselves as thoroughly as possible on these things. But, with 9-5 more like 7am-9pm for some folks, I understand that it's not always possible. I wasn't necessarily attempting to discount OSS, but was pointing out that perhaps there were better and more relevant things that we could be focusing on, and not getting too mired in a game of Six Degrees of Linus Torvalds.
I'm fairly sure that the poor and starving, or the victims of earthquakes, or oppressed writers and artists, or the politically open-minded, probably couldn't care less about source code. They need access to support structures, relief fund informations, open discourse, free exchange of ideas. The people who would be most helped by just some source code probably are the ones who need the least help.
I figured I should take the time to reply to some of these:
I do agree with you that Digital Righs Management and even copyright law itself have managed to entwine themselves far more deeply into our everyday lives than the authors could have imagined. The unfortunate aspect is that very few people could tell you what DRM stands for, let alone what it means, or what it's political and social implications both immediate and long-term are.
Also, remember that when the hardware and the DRM are embedded, it won't matter what OS you are running. You will either have the hardware to read the digital content legally, or will illegally create methods to read it, and illegality is what we want to avoid. Political education on the subject of DRM, and how it applies to everyday people, is really the button you want to push.
Unfortunately, unless we're willing to make the effort for this push, it won't matter what Iran does. It's hard for me to appreciate our way of life, when we no longer have it and the Iranians do. The effort will start at home.
Perhaps we are placing just a little TOO much faith in the POWER of OSS. I realize that it can heal the sick, feed the hungry, and make politicians honest, but maybe just this once, it's completely irrelevant.
We should be focusing more on the content then the delivery method. IN countries like Iran, overcoming and undermining the harsh edicts of the mullah is probably slightly more important than what version of SCO-Derivative Unlicensed(TM) *Nix verion they are running. I realize that talking about free software is important and innocuous, but whenever I see things like this pop up arbitrarily, I want to make sure you're not missing the point.
If the president were found banging a dead 14-year-old hooker in the Vatican, I get the feeling some people here would either blame it on SCO, Microsoft, Bill Gates, the RIAA, or wonder what version of Apache the Vatican is running. (It's 1.3.27, to save you some trouble).
This has got to be the DUMBEST ongoing argument that I have ever heard. People seem to argue that 'the rich' should be unburdened, to create jobs and prosperity for all mankind!
Look around. Are you reading these corporate reports? We're in a recovery! There is profit everywhere. Almost every company is making money, fully in the black, and many of them are meeting estimates! Year-over-year growth, higher productivity.
And layoffs. Layoffs, mind you, not to BECOME profitable, and not even to slake off lower than expected profits, but to maximize profits and "shareholder value". And who benefits most from maximized shareholder value? Well, that would be the executives of the company, and other rich people who happen to own significant chunks of stock. And the last time I checked, we were in the slowest job recovery market in recorded HISTORY, so your argument holds flat.
The problem you're having is that you're wrapping this in the wrong direction. Rich people don't create jobs. Healthy and employed markets with high productivity and steady profit create rich people. And middle class people. Obviously, to create a lot of middle class people, the rich people have to get slightly less rich, and there-in lies the problem with our greedy profit-taking investment and executive climate right now. Everyone is in it for the short-term investment. Make a quick buck on stock, or be CEO for 3-5 and escape on your golden parachute, regardless of how you performed.
The rich people aren't doing anything for anyone but themselves right now.
Programs are segregated into /bin/ /usr/bin/ /usr/local/bin, /sbin etc for good reasons, however it is not difficult to make your own directory for things that you add, as long as you put it in the path.
/bin... style directory structure, and even users more familiar with Windows probably couldn't keep it all straight. You could convert middle of the road users, people who are fairly knowledgable and can learn, but why would they switch? Most of them use programs in Windows, and don't care to learn the Linux equivalent if it's not present there. Who wants to relearn an office app? Or an image editing application? Linux gives middle of the road individuals NO reason to switch. If these same people had STARTED their computer lives with Linux, it probably wouldn't have mattered, but now they are 'locked in' to Windows.
The problem is, most normal end-users don't even know what that sentence MEANS. They don't even BEGIN to know what that sentence means. I can tell you that as a support tech, there is a large segment of the population that doesn't even LEARN Windows. And generally seems incapable of doing so. Their minds are somehow blocking. I've been on a call where I've walked someone step by step through going to Control Panels literally a dozen times. And the thirteenth time, they still ask "Where was that again?". And it's not even counter-intuitive. Start -> Settings -> Control Panels. Pretty simple, really. You could recite it like a nursery rhyme. But they just can't do it.
No user like this will remember the
So that leaves the hardcore computer folks, which you separate instantly into "gamers" and "non-gamers". Gamers are out. Which leaves us with hardcore non-gamer computer folks. Mostly these are sys-admins, tech support folks, network admins, programmers, some engineers...and these people already use Linux.
Linux adoption continues to ramp up in these domains. But there STILL is no REASON to switch to Linux. There still is no compelling application or set of applications to pull people over. And without a REASON, it will simply continue as it is.
And this is why I don't believe in "globalization". Americans cannot compete with countries whose economies are less developed than ours in terms of price. Companies are cutting off their legs to feed their faces. American corporation are RESPONSIBLE for the current economic situation, and now that they've grown fat off the land, they want to cut us out because they can outsource to a third-world country? A country where our salaries CANNOT EVER be competitive without a complete and utter CRASH of our economy?
I'm not sure how you can possibly believe this is a good thing.
I love how you talk about the government entity, perpetuating the myth that government can exist independent of people. Americans ARE their government, no matter how complacent and uninterested they become, and every moment you have a complaint about your government in action is a moment you are deluding yourself. You HAVE the power to make things happen, but I doubt most of the Americans here remember what the inside of a voting booth looks like.
Our press is full of cynics, looking to nail the government to the wall for ANY possible infraction, just to sell a couple papers. The mean ol' evil government (READ: YOU) has it's hands tied in more ways than you can imagine. Sure, it probably engages in a few back-alley deals around the globe, but it must tread lightly at home, and if you don't like the way it's treading, replace the swimmers with someone else. If you spent half as much time voting and dedicating your resources to making sure that other people did the same as you do whining about government and government conspiracies, you'd find that you had a whole hell of a lot less to whine about.
Actually, your analogy is slightly flawed.
It's like getting arrested for a crime, but getting released without punishment because, hey, you're not doing it right now.
You won't hear ME pontificating about free market. I'm a "ra ra, America first!" type, and I believe there should be harsher penalties and requirements for allowing products primarily marketed in the United States by American companies to be developed overseas. Heck, I'll be ever more harsh...force companies that get their American tax breaks and kickbacks to deal only with companies that offer competitive salaries to US companies.
Instead of starting at workers, they should be making cuts from the top down. That $8M bonus that exec made this year could have paid for 160 salaries, or 120 if you're being conservative. And that's if you just have 1 Exec making that kind of excess.
When I got my new iPod, it came with music already loaded. A ton of it was indy or little-heard music that turned me on to a ton of stuff. This is Apple we're talking about, and I'm sure if you realize this, but it's 'trendy' to listen to 'indy' music.
I understand the legality issues. Obviously, if it were illegal, they would already have been sued by now. The truth is, they are cutting a fine line, but have the money to put law on their side.
Obviously, I'd prefer they advertise properly. But if it's not ILLEGAL to advertise unlimited and mean "unlimited within reason", than everyone MUST advertise like that. Those who do not are left without customers, and you cannot survive as an ISP catering to only the top 2% of downloaders, since there are no lower end users to absorb the high cost of providing the backbone. Until it's illegal for everyone to use this terminology, it will never stop.
And in America, I'm sure you're familiar with how hard we're just CRACKING DOWN on corporations these days.
The problem is, once a company starts to claim 'unlimited', they have suddenly changed the market. If you had to choose between the cheaper unlimited option, the more expensive unlimited option, or the metered option, almost EVERYONE would take the cheap unlimited without reading the fine print. There is no real middle market for internet access. Most people would rather go cheap and hope they get away with it. If I told you that you could pay $49.95 for 20GB/mo. of downloads at 1.5Mbps, and the guy next door offered $49.95 UNLIMITED ACCESS, for most people, it wouldn't matter what "unlimited" meant. Because, to 90% of people, they'll never even come close to spiking the connection, so it's truly unlimited for them.
They have 24-7 unlimited access. ISPs are forced to buy it from the backbone providers, and it usually goes at a premium. 1.5Mbps constant down couldn't be offered for less than you buy it from the backbone provider, so why bother?
The options are there. You can't sit at an all-you-can-eat buffet all day from morning to night and expect that they won't throw you out. But for 99% of people there, they are getting 'all-you-can-eat'. Just because a small minority choose to take it to an extreme doesn't mean that it's not true.
They already have that. It's called a T1 line. Funny, you're not running out to get that T1 line right now, are you? I mean, you just said you'd pay a premium for true unlimited access, right? You can probably get a full T1 including the circuit to your home for $399/mo. if you live in a handful of major cities, or up to 5 times that anywhere else.
Go to it!
Oh god, you're so fucking wrong it burns.
You're right, consumers don't demand to be lied to. They simply flock to the biggest, boldest headers that promise them the most for the least without thinking about how that's possible, and then moan when they later realize there was fine print they didn't bother to read. Consumers want the deal, they always want the deal. They bitch in coffee shops about jobs moving to foreign countries but would flip if you raised the price of Commodity X even $1.00 to keep those jobs in America.
Because people don't realize that what they pay for is part of what they are. It's not just a consumable good, it's a part of your culture. They pretend that Jim the Person is not the same as Jim the Shopper. Jim the Person cares about the plight of 3rd world sweatshop workers. Jim the Shopper busts a nut over those new Nike Cross-Flex Magic Air Jordan Smart Bow Hot Trainers that make him feel so fly on his company basketball courts. You make that choice everytime you demand bigger, better, faster, and more for LESS, LESS, LESS, without thinking of the social complexities behind a purchase.
Every priced a 768k fractional T1, ie, that backbone bandwidth? YOu know, the kind that gives you unlimited download at 768k all day, every day, without limitation?
$250 is a cheap estimate. Likely double that.
Is that what most people pay for their 768k connection? Probably not. And an ISP can't get it any cheaper. So, false advertising or not, a persons options are "deal with it" or "no more cheap high speed access".
And YET, you choose to redefine the word "Access" to mean "bandwidth", even though they are two different words. If your webhost says that your website is 'universally accessible', would that mean they shouldn't implement bandwidth limitations? Explain to me why you believe that webhosts and ISPS would pay different prices for their internet access? Except in rare cases, they don't.
While I understand your position, a couple of things:
You are not using the service the same as Johnny. THerefore, you are expecting GREATER service than Johnny, since Johnny is using the service within the standard limits of common sense. Johnny uses it one month at a high level, and you use it for 12. This is NOT the same service.
"Not My fault your business plan can't make you money..."
This is how EVERY ISP works. None of them will ever be able to provide you with unlimited 1.5Mbps access 24-7 without limitations. If you want that, then buy the pipe density yourself. The truth is, you get 1.5Mbps access (sometimes faster), and it is always on. Unlimited ACCESS and Unlimited BANDWIDTH are not the same things. Most internet services provide the former, and having dealt with even the most horrific of ISPs (such as SBC DSL), even provide the latter for all but the most unreasonable of customers. If you download porn 24-7, when do you have time to WATCH all that porn. A lot of people who use these connections like this confuse "can" and "need". They go beyond what they even WANT, and even if it does everything they possibly think of, they go out and find new things to do JUST SO THEY CAN USE THEIR BANDWIDTH.
They're like that guy who eats ALL the free food in the break room. Hey, it was there, right? But he forgets that it's there for everyone, and not just him.
Having seen a lot of feedback here, I'm not sure that I understand what it is that people want. Here are the things that people have said: "Don't offer speed if you can't deliver" and "don't offer unlimited if you can't deliver". Let's take a look at the way that most ISPs work, and then address those.
Your standard ISP pays not for bandwidth, but for pipe density. T1, T3, DS3, OC3, etc. They pay for 1.5Mbps up/down 24-7 if they need it. NOw, obviously, this costs them much more a month than your 1.5Mbps download connection, by an order of magnitude of 20 or so. If you're on a dial-up service, most ISPs don't pay much to maintain infrastructure, unless they are also the phone company. It's some servers, a few banks of digi-cards, and a local dial-in number. In the case of high speed access, they generally also have to pay to maintain lines and equipment along the lines, such as repeaters and routers. A few web servers, a couple of mail servers, and you're an ISP.
Now, here's where the issue comes in. Normally, an ISP expects that some people will use high-speed very sparingly, probably depending on it for a few small critical tasks and the rest is email. And then they know there will be a few gamers and downloader making up some slack. This is expected by your broadband ISPs.
The problem comes in when you have someone who demands to use their connection for 1.5Mbps, all day, every day. The same connection, bursting, might serve six or 7 heavy usage customers, or 40 light usage customers, but now you have one single customer, attempting to consume $500 worth of download bandwidth for $50.
Obviously, there should be some sort of common sense applied here. Capping the top speed lower would be a poor idea, because those who download the occasional large file or movie trailer or whatnot enjoy access to the full speed. Changing the access hours seems silly, since some people play games for hours a day but never come close to consuming full bandwidth. Does it seem right to penalize this MAJORITY of the customers because a very small percentage of customers who seem to be of the opinion that if you have a 1.5Mbps connection, you MUST use all of it. If you gave them more bandwidth, they would simply find something else to do with it, not content unless they are pushing their connection as hard as possible, obviously lacking any idea of the economics behind it all.
Some have said that hard limits should be imposed in the contratct. This makes me sad, because it means that you are telling the company that they cannot trust their users, that they cannot use reasonable judgement, or expect that from you. Sometimes, you might have customers who never go over the limit, but might have a school project one month that pushes their usage up high once. As an ISP, I'd prefer to be able to use my discretion in this situation rather than hear the "told you so" of users crying about "lax enforcement of rule".
DISCLAIMER: I work for a mid-sized ISP.
Not in a situation like this.
:)
For instance, if you take 10 users, and 9 of them use 100M a day, and one user devours 3G a day, then the average is 390M, but 9 of your users fall under that.
I believe you're thinking of the "Median". For statistical purposes, this is better than averaging because it ignores extreme scores. The Median is the middle number in a number series. IN this case, since there are an even number of cases (10), it would be the average of the 5th and 6th, or 100M in this case.
Depending upon the number of VERY low bandwidth users, it is hard to tell which would produce a more favorable cap.
....I'm not exactly sure what you're saying. I'm *not* a conspiracy theorist, but you would be a bald-faced liar if you tried to tell me that law and justice are NOT increasingly becoming a commoditized industry. There is no recourse for the common man against the corporation, and many corporations can sue you, and unless the suit is COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY FROM LEFT FIELD WITHOUT A SINGLE SHRED OF MERIT, which is unlikely, you have no recourse to seek greivance from them. Most judges will tell you that you're not guilty, but "from the evidence", the company was justified in at least pursuing it.
Corporations increasingly run the show in this country, and that's a shame. They have more rights than a person, now, and that's also a shame.
Call me Mistress Cleo, but the cards say that the answer to that is, "Yes".
So, what you're saying is that you're not given NEARLY enough time to fully evaluate the legitimacy of every patent that crosses your desk, and your pay and job depend on rushing through as many hastily read patents as possible?
How could I have ever doubted the system.