First, we had phone companies that controlled everything, then they were broken up into regional ones. Then we had deregulation and competition for local and long distance carriers. Now we have a whole mess with xDSL where you can sometimes end up making separate contracts with your phone company and your ISP. The xDSL service providers can shop around for the cheapest use of the network, and customers can shop around for the cheapest service provider and the cheapest local phone carrier.
The ultimate goal seems to be more competition, more customer choice, and cheaper service. I see this "bandwidth commodity" idea as simply continuing the trend to it's ultimate end. We (the end users) get more options and cheaper rates, with admittedly, more confusion. But in the end, we come out ahead. I say go for it, take deregulation to it's logical end; that's what this seems to be.
GoodNoise is supporting the development of the free, open source, GPLed, MP3 player, FreeAmp. Check it out at http://www.freeamp.org/ and contribute something!
Im my extremely limited study of economics, I have realized that it's mostly psychology. A depression or recession is 90% psychology; if, in the middle of a depression, everyone suddenly believed that the economy was doing well, it would recover instantly. All economic beliefs are self-fufilling prophesies (on a large scale, of course).
Since the beginning of money, it has always been backed by a government, or at least a very powerful central authority. Evantually, I predict it moving away from that to a system where everyone respects the currency, and it doesn't have to be backed by anything physical. The US took the dollar off the silver standard a few decades ago (can't remember the exact year). This virtual property thing is just a continuation of that trend.
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First, we had phone companies that controlled everything, then they were broken up into regional ones. Then we had deregulation and competition for local and long distance carriers. Now we have a whole mess with xDSL where you can sometimes end up making separate contracts with your phone company and your ISP. The xDSL service providers can shop around for the cheapest use of the network, and customers can shop around for the cheapest service provider and the cheapest local phone carrier.
The ultimate goal seems to be more competition, more customer choice, and cheaper service. I see this "bandwidth commodity" idea as simply continuing the trend to it's ultimate end. We (the end users) get more options and cheaper rates, with admittedly, more confusion. But in the end, we come out ahead. I say go for it, take deregulation to it's logical end; that's what this seems to be.
Interesting tidbit:
GoodNoise is supporting the development of the free, open source, GPLed, MP3 player, FreeAmp.
Check it out at http://www.freeamp.org/ and contribute something!
Im my extremely limited study of economics, I have realized that it's mostly psychology. A depression or recession is 90% psychology; if, in the middle of a depression, everyone suddenly believed that the economy was doing well, it would recover instantly. All economic beliefs are self-fufilling prophesies (on a large scale, of course).
Since the beginning of money, it has always been backed by a government, or at least a very powerful central authority. Evantually, I predict it moving away from that to a system where everyone respects the currency, and it doesn't have to be backed by anything physical. The US took the dollar off the silver standard a few decades ago (can't remember the exact year). This virtual property thing is just a continuation of that trend.