See, what they are doing is aiming for the stars. I think they'll be extremely happy if these new features result not only in happy customers, but, say, 10-20% fewer deaths in Volvos.
What will be interesting is if it turns out that this causes a 10-20% increase in minor accidents (rear-ending and the like), or if people perceive the unwanted deceleration as a lack of control. Even if that perceived lack saved them from a much worse situation, or if the minor auto body damage saves them from death, popular response may be negative, and they might have to pull the features despite their success.
I once stopped dating a woman because she refused to buckle her seat belt. I said she could do whatever she wanted in her own car, but if I was driving, I wanted to reduce the likelihood that I'd have a mangled corpse on my hands if something unforeseen happened.
Her reasoning? She didn't want to mess up her clothing. I decided that I couldn't have someone that vain and short-sighted in my life. The break-off was easy, though, since she decided my refusal to drive with her un-belted was a control issue, so we both went away happy.
It was not, shall we say, stupendously hard. A little common sense and some patience was all it took. I expected that I'd be looking at something a little tougher than I used as clues in the scavenger hunt at my 10th birthday party.
There may indeed be communities where houses are closer together, but I think it has more to do with the fact that Intel is out there, and a couple of other tech companies, and that the cities where the 20+ Mbps service are available (Hillsboro, Beavertron) understand the value of keeping employees who work locally local, and understand that being right on the river and the I-5 corridor and a major train line or two, they've probably been able to give enough right-of-way to some of those telcos to build whatever fiber they needed.
If they could just pull a little of that fiber a few miles east, I'd be thrilled. Last year I had some problems with my DSL, and when the Qwest guys came out, they saw that the paper insulator had worn through on the line that was feeding my whole block. Paper? Yeah, apparently they used paper up 'til 25 years ago or so, or that's what he said, and so he gave it a temporary fix, and then a week later, they came out and replaced the line, all the way back to SE 39th, where the telco lines were apparently more up-to-date, with more modern materials.
Actually, in writingmy post, below, I realized there's a slightly different way to look at this. I agree with you, but there's a less emotionally-charged way of saying it than that they "just want to double dip."
That is to say, just like any corporation, they want to maximize profits.
My stance on net neutrality has always been that I'm for it, and that if the corporations who run the telcos can't make enough profit from the way things are, they should go ahead and raise rates to the point where they are able to charge an honest fee for access and provide that access without complaint that one service--google, torrents, etc--is getting more requests from their customers than others. Maybe in addition to raising rates, they could have more graduated options so that people who don't want to (or can't) spend a lot of money on net access can still get on.
But the truth is, these are businesses, and I'm sure they've run all the numbers. Increase rates and you'll see a drop-off in customers. Increase complexity of the billing plans and you'll get more questions, meaning more support and administrative costs. Even if your competitors follow suit so they don't get too many of your fleeing customers, that has the downside of increasing the possibility of investigations into and lawsuits concerning price fixing and other non-competitive behavior.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not on their side; I'm a closet socialist myself, and I question the concept of the corporation as it exists today. However, if you accept corporations as they are, you have to accept that the people who run them need to grow the business, maximize profit and minimize expenses in order to fulfill their duties to the shareholders.
This anti-net-neutrality BS bay be bad for society, but the officers of the companies in question see it as good for their shareholders, so they have to pursue it.
Of course, one way we could change this would be to form a shareholder bloc and buy up large portions of these telcos and make it known how we feel about net neutrality. Then those officers would be beholden to us and they'd have to stop or be ousted.
They expect to continue to drink fruity beverages on a beach somewhere, because their clients are either locked into a two year contract, or there are no reasonable competitors to go to who have not implemented the same anti-competitive policies.
In my neighborhood, the two real choices are Qwest and Comcast. Five miles to the west, it's Qwest and Verizon FIOS. It's worth noting that where FIOS is available, Qwest offers 20 Mbps connections while they do not in my neighborhood. Typical duopolistic practices.
I know there are other options, but most third-party options like SpeakEasy are more than incrementally more expensive. If I switched to them, I'd be paying three times as much in terms of bandwidth costs. I think I'd be willing to pay $50 a month for my broadband, but $89 for 1.5/768 is enough of a pain point that they'd probably win that battle.
my interconnect connection would be more affordable if Scott Cleland payed for my bandwidth costs
That's true! Now that his article has been put into the Slashdot spotlight, he needs to pay more to all of the ISPs whose customers' connections were momentarily filled up with his data!!!
While it is possible for a mac user to write a troll about macs, it's also possible for someone who doesn't like trolls to troll. I am guilty of that latter charge. I proffer my apologies and hope there has not been any lasting harm done.
Also, I have no idea why your well constructed post is -1 Troll and the lazy troll you are replying to is +5 Funny.
Well, to use a lazy troll response, "You must be new here!" Moderation by the masses is a fickle mistress. It's OK by me, though, I knew I was going to lose some karma with that post. Thanks for the compliment on my construction!
But but but... Don't be a troll. If you have something to say that provides constructive feedback to the discussion rather than simply throwing out an implied insult to "fanbois", don't post.
At least you could have the guts to post a real insult if you have one. Like, "This flies in the face of the whole, 'it just works!' fanboi-ism. I believe that Apple has more style than substanc, and one day, this house of cards will collapse just like the failed policies of the Bush administration."
I don't agree with that statement, but if you're going to pick a fight, pick a freakin' fight! Now where did I put that Zoloft?
I don't know what I was thinking, but I misread your post as saying that "Oprah has been doing this kind of stuff...". I was wondering, WTF, is she getting into the patent troll business too?
It's totally true. I have bought so much more music since iTMS came out, and everyone in the supply chain gets a few pennies with each purchase that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Why would I pay $10.00 for 12 songs where I only want three of them? I'll pay $3.00, thank you very much, and spend my other $7.00 elsewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
See, what they are doing is aiming for the stars. I think they'll be extremely happy if these new features result not only in happy customers, but, say, 10-20% fewer deaths in Volvos.
What will be interesting is if it turns out that this causes a 10-20% increase in minor accidents (rear-ending and the like), or if people perceive the unwanted deceleration as a lack of control. Even if that perceived lack saved them from a much worse situation, or if the minor auto body damage saves them from death, popular response may be negative, and they might have to pull the features despite their success.
I once stopped dating a woman because she refused to buckle her seat belt. I said she could do whatever she wanted in her own car, but if I was driving, I wanted to reduce the likelihood that I'd have a mangled corpse on my hands if something unforeseen happened.
Her reasoning? She didn't want to mess up her clothing. I decided that I couldn't have someone that vain and short-sighted in my life. The break-off was easy, though, since she decided my refusal to drive with her un-belted was a control issue, so we both went away happy.
Yeah, so might my dog.
Right. Like, duh.
I just started with what was obviously a URL, made a few guesses about that and everything else fell into place in about 2 minutes.
It was not, shall we say, stupendously hard. A little common sense and some patience was all it took. I expected that I'd be looking at something a little tougher than I used as clues in the scavenger hunt at my 10th birthday party.
Yay XKCD reference!!
O god... watching Pam Anderson change from the pretty girl-next-door to monster of modern science she is.
There may indeed be communities where houses are closer together, but I think it has more to do with the fact that Intel is out there, and a couple of other tech companies, and that the cities where the 20+ Mbps service are available (Hillsboro, Beavertron) understand the value of keeping employees who work locally local, and understand that being right on the river and the I-5 corridor and a major train line or two, they've probably been able to give enough right-of-way to some of those telcos to build whatever fiber they needed.
If they could just pull a little of that fiber a few miles east, I'd be thrilled. Last year I had some problems with my DSL, and when the Qwest guys came out, they saw that the paper insulator had worn through on the line that was feeding my whole block. Paper? Yeah, apparently they used paper up 'til 25 years ago or so, or that's what he said, and so he gave it a temporary fix, and then a week later, they came out and replaced the line, all the way back to SE 39th, where the telco lines were apparently more up-to-date, with more modern materials.
Actually, in writingmy post, below, I realized there's a slightly different way to look at this. I agree with you, but there's a less emotionally-charged way of saying it than that they "just want to double dip."
That is to say, just like any corporation, they want to maximize profits.
My stance on net neutrality has always been that I'm for it, and that if the corporations who run the telcos can't make enough profit from the way things are, they should go ahead and raise rates to the point where they are able to charge an honest fee for access and provide that access without complaint that one service--google, torrents, etc--is getting more requests from their customers than others. Maybe in addition to raising rates, they could have more graduated options so that people who don't want to (or can't) spend a lot of money on net access can still get on.
But the truth is, these are businesses, and I'm sure they've run all the numbers. Increase rates and you'll see a drop-off in customers. Increase complexity of the billing plans and you'll get more questions, meaning more support and administrative costs. Even if your competitors follow suit so they don't get too many of your fleeing customers, that has the downside of increasing the possibility of investigations into and lawsuits concerning price fixing and other non-competitive behavior.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not on their side; I'm a closet socialist myself, and I question the concept of the corporation as it exists today. However, if you accept corporations as they are, you have to accept that the people who run them need to grow the business, maximize profit and minimize expenses in order to fulfill their duties to the shareholders.
This anti-net-neutrality BS bay be bad for society, but the officers of the companies in question see it as good for their shareholders, so they have to pursue it.
Of course, one way we could change this would be to form a shareholder bloc and buy up large portions of these telcos and make it known how we feel about net neutrality. Then those officers would be beholden to us and they'd have to stop or be ousted.
They expect to continue to drink fruity beverages on a beach somewhere, because their clients are either locked into a two year contract, or there are no reasonable competitors to go to who have not implemented the same anti-competitive policies.
In my neighborhood, the two real choices are Qwest and Comcast. Five miles to the west, it's Qwest and Verizon FIOS. It's worth noting that where FIOS is available, Qwest offers 20 Mbps connections while they do not in my neighborhood. Typical duopolistic practices.
I know there are other options, but most third-party options like SpeakEasy are more than incrementally more expensive. If I switched to them, I'd be paying three times as much in terms of bandwidth costs. I think I'd be willing to pay $50 a month for my broadband, but $89 for 1.5/768 is enough of a pain point that they'd probably win that battle.
my interconnect connection would be more affordable if Scott Cleland payed for my bandwidth costs
That's true! Now that his article has been put into the Slashdot spotlight, he needs to pay more to all of the ISPs whose customers' connections were momentarily filled up with his data!!!
Thank you. Um, I'm here all week!
While it is possible for a mac user to write a troll about macs, it's also possible for someone who doesn't like trolls to troll. I am guilty of that latter charge. I proffer my apologies and hope there has not been any lasting harm done.
Also, I have no idea why your well constructed post is -1 Troll and the lazy troll you are replying to is +5 Funny.
Well, to use a lazy troll response, "You must be new here!" Moderation by the masses is a fickle mistress. It's OK by me, though, I knew I was going to lose some karma with that post. Thanks for the compliment on my construction!
Could you have maybe said that shorter?
Yes.
But but but... Don't be a troll. If you have something to say that provides constructive feedback to the discussion rather than simply throwing out an implied insult to "fanbois", don't post.
At least you could have the guts to post a real insult if you have one. Like, "This flies in the face of the whole, 'it just works!' fanboi-ism. I believe that Apple has more style than substanc, and one day, this house of cards will collapse just like the failed policies of the Bush administration."
I don't agree with that statement, but if you're going to pick a fight, pick a freakin' fight! Now where did I put that Zoloft?
Maybe Hanes with their underwear?
Clearly, you have never been to Japan.
It is much easier for them to sit back and complain about other people/Government
Yeah! Gosh darned government!
I don't know what I was thinking, but I misread your post as saying that "Oprah has been doing this kind of stuff...". I was wondering, WTF, is she getting into the patent troll business too?
It's totally true. I have bought so much more music since iTMS came out, and everyone in the supply chain gets a few pennies with each purchase that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Why would I pay $10.00 for 12 songs where I only want three of them? I'll pay $3.00, thank you very much, and spend my other $7.00 elsewhere.
Punch cards? Feh! It's all about wax cylanders.
Yeah, it's easy. Just put the tape in your dataset and type, "LOAD 'IE',8,1"
> print $x."\n"; "I told them so1" Hrm.
So there's no conspiracy? That's what they want us to believe... Who are you, doomicon, if that *is* your real name?