300 kb/s sustained 24/7 on your cell phone is a fucking lot of data, man. I wouldn't call any level of use "dickish," but that's a lot of usage. A lot of people in this discussion keep acting like the plan is a home Internet plan. It's not. We're talking about smart phone data plans as per the OP.
The point is, if you get cut off after reaching a limit... it really isn't unlimited, is it?
They aren't getting cut off under the unlimited plan, though. They're being told there is no unlimited plan anymore, so either move to another plan or service will stop. Slashdot has for the entire time I've been a member here been asking for literally this exact thing: truth in advertising. Well this is truth in advertising: there is no more unlimited going forward, so if you don't get a different plan, you will be cut off.
I suppose if you pay for an all-you-can-eat restaurant, you should be allowed to never leave, right? Just camp out there for a year? You've chosen a stupid analogy for your worthless point.
The sig literally refers to a "downvote button." Has Slashdot added one of those recently? I haven't come so often since about 2008 or so, so I am not sure, but isn't it literally impossible to use a downvote button on Slashdot?
It's not a market failure. Frequency bands are a naturally limited resource. A limited resource means inelastic supply, which means as demand goes up, price goes up.
And those people are no longer under a long-term contract but are paying month to month. Verizon is well within their rights legally and ethically to cancel a month-to-month agreement at any time. I don't fault them for this at all. It is wholly different from throttling, which is "you get unlimited! except you're not!"
I know you're just joking, but they are giving unlimited. Now they're saying "we aren't going to give you unlimited anymore and we aren't going to charge you anymore." This is a lot more reasonable and totally different from "we're calling it unlimited but not giving you unlimited," which is what the cable companies do.
My wife and I are a surgeon and a corporate lawyer. We take some baller vacations. I'd still call $1500 an expensive vaction. I wouldn't call it an expensive vacation abroad because that's really on the low end of things if you're two Americans going abroad on vacation (you're looking at, in a dream of dreams, $1,000 just on the cheapest tickets you can find to a country you picked just because it's the cheapest destination right now, and that's without including food, housing, and things to do—certainly for two people to fly across an ocean for vacation, they'd really have to penny pinch to come in under $1500 total). But it's certainly an expensive vacation if you're just talking about vacations in general.
Or maybe he's cool with cheating strangers but not friends. Behavior is not fully described by extremely simple statements. It's a bit like saying "if your grandfather would kill a Jap he'll kill you too."
Which is irrelevant to what the thread is discussing (whether content is good, not whether Netflix-made content is good).
As an aside, not that it's terribly important, but PB is called "Original" on the Netflix service itself, so a cord-cutter in the US ought to be forgiven for not knowing it was on the BBC before.
Citation needed for "all" these "wins" for not maximizing profits to the exclusion of everything else. I do this for a living; you're absolutely full of shit. For one thing, the business judgment rule makes it very hard to do such a thing. Courts routinely defer to directors' and execs' individual decisions rather than let activist shareholders sue for something so insane as "earned a few pennies less than they could have if they'd done XYZ."
Here is a very liberal business law professor at one of the top schools for scholarship in the country explaining it for you:
corporate directors are protected from most interference when it comes to running their business by a doctrine known as the business judgment rule. It says, in brief, that so long as a board of directors is not tainted by personal conflicts of interest and makes a reasonable effort to stay informed, courts will not second-guess the board’s decisions about what is best for the company — even when those decisions predictably reduce profits or share price
and
the business judgment rule gives directors nearly absolute protection from judicial second-guessing about how to best serve the company and its shareholders
and
Delaware (like other states) applies the business judgement rule to protect directors of corporations that reduce profits and share price when directors claim this will ultimately help the corporation
It's actually the free market that is creating these perverse incentives, not government judicial interference:
it is . . . modern executive compensation practices — not corporate law — that drive so many of today’s public companies to myopically focus on short-term earnings
What she means by that is that execs get compensation based largely on stock performance, so they are incentivized by the free market, not be the law, to maximize stock value.
it states clearly in company's articles of incorporation, on penalty of the directors being struck off and imprisoned and/or the shareholders suing them, that they MUST maximise profits
As a corporate lawyer who writes and interprets the stuff you're talking about, I've always been confused where this myth comes from, that corporate directors can GO TO JAIL for not maximizing profits above all else. It's certainly not true no matter how many dumbass grunt paranoia weirdos think it is.
From a very recent Supreme Court case: “Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.” (Hobby Lobby)
LOL tell me about it. Remember that woman a couple years ago who was pretending to be black and the Internet went apeshit and got her fired? And what about the Harvard professor who was pretending to be Native American and the Internet went apeshit and got her—oh, wait, never mind. They demanded Hillary name her her Vice Presidential running mate.
Slashdot Mirror
Various colonies were founded on religion, but this nation certainly wasn't.
dude seriously what in the fuck, does everyone have a UID >5M now?
300 kb/s sustained 24/7 on your cell phone is a fucking lot of data, man. I wouldn't call any level of use "dickish," but that's a lot of usage. A lot of people in this discussion keep acting like the plan is a home Internet plan. It's not. We're talking about smart phone data plans as per the OP.
Verizon is ethically and legally required to provide cell phone service to everyone. Got it.
Also, no, wireless carriers are pretty much never in a monopoly situation. Where in the US can you only get cell phone service through Verizon??
They aren't getting cut off under the unlimited plan, though. They're being told there is no unlimited plan anymore, so either move to another plan or service will stop. Slashdot has for the entire time I've been a member here been asking for literally this exact thing: truth in advertising. Well this is truth in advertising: there is no more unlimited going forward, so if you don't get a different plan, you will be cut off.
I suppose if you pay for an all-you-can-eat restaurant, you should be allowed to never leave, right? Just camp out there for a year? You've chosen a stupid analogy for your worthless point.
The sig literally refers to a "downvote button." Has Slashdot added one of those recently? I haven't come so often since about 2008 or so, so I am not sure, but isn't it literally impossible to use a downvote button on Slashdot?
It's not a market failure. Frequency bands are a naturally limited resource. A limited resource means inelastic supply, which means as demand goes up, price goes up.
Which is 100% irrelevant to the subject we're talking about here. Please don't confuse the issues. It ruins the discussion.
And those people are no longer under a long-term contract but are paying month to month. Verizon is well within their rights legally and ethically to cancel a month-to-month agreement at any time. I don't fault them for this at all. It is wholly different from throttling, which is "you get unlimited! except you're not!"
I know you're just joking, but they are giving unlimited. Now they're saying "we aren't going to give you unlimited anymore and we aren't going to charge you anymore." This is a lot more reasonable and totally different from "we're calling it unlimited but not giving you unlimited," which is what the cable companies do.
Your witty statement does not appear on point. Care to explain it?
*haughtily makes broad and unsubstantiated assumptions about the text of contracts he's not privy to*
My wife and I are a surgeon and a corporate lawyer. We take some baller vacations. I'd still call $1500 an expensive vaction. I wouldn't call it an expensive vacation abroad because that's really on the low end of things if you're two Americans going abroad on vacation (you're looking at, in a dream of dreams, $1,000 just on the cheapest tickets you can find to a country you picked just because it's the cheapest destination right now, and that's without including food, housing, and things to do—certainly for two people to fly across an ocean for vacation, they'd really have to penny pinch to come in under $1500 total). But it's certainly an expensive vacation if you're just talking about vacations in general.
$5/mo gets you Sling TV, which includes ESPN and something like 15 or 20 other channels streaming online.
Or maybe he's cool with cheating strangers but not friends. Behavior is not fully described by extremely simple statements. It's a bit like saying "if your grandfather would kill a Jap he'll kill you too."
Which is irrelevant to what the thread is discussing (whether content is good, not whether Netflix-made content is good).
As an aside, not that it's terribly important, but PB is called "Original" on the Netflix service itself, so a cord-cutter in the US ought to be forgiven for not knowing it was on the BBC before.
LOL so dull with all their recent Emmy nominations and legitimate critical acclaim.
UT is one of the best law schools in the nation according to the only ranking system that matters (USNWR).
You're pretty fucking dismissive of UT when it's one of the top universities in the world, let alone the nation.
Citation needed for "all" these "wins" for not maximizing profits to the exclusion of everything else. I do this for a living; you're absolutely full of shit. For one thing, the business judgment rule makes it very hard to do such a thing. Courts routinely defer to directors' and execs' individual decisions rather than let activist shareholders sue for something so insane as "earned a few pennies less than they could have if they'd done XYZ."
Here is a very liberal business law professor at one of the top schools for scholarship in the country explaining it for you:
and
and
It's actually the free market that is creating these perverse incentives, not government judicial interference:
What she means by that is that execs get compensation based largely on stock performance, so they are incentivized by the free market, not be the law, to maximize stock value.
As a corporate lawyer who writes and interprets the stuff you're talking about, I've always been confused where this myth comes from, that corporate directors can GO TO JAIL for not maximizing profits above all else. It's certainly not true no matter how many dumbass grunt paranoia weirdos think it is.
From a very recent Supreme Court case: “Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.” (Hobby Lobby)
Probably because we've heard of the tragedy of the commons before.
LOL tell me about it. Remember that woman a couple years ago who was pretending to be black and the Internet went apeshit and got her fired? And what about the Harvard professor who was pretending to be Native American and the Internet went apeshit and got her—oh, wait, never mind. They demanded Hillary name her her Vice Presidential running mate.
Huh. Funny how that works.
Notably, Fred Phelps and his kooky followers have killed zero people in the name of their religion.