By the way...
There are only a few options here for the ISPs. One is to build out as you say and charge everyone. Another is to build out some more and charge most people the same, but make the limits more explicit. Nudging the higher bandwidth consumers into higher price brackets. [...] IOW, it's either increased pricing for some who actually use the bandwidth or increased pricing for everyone. ... you missed the third option: keep the same price and network capacity, but lower the rate caps.
That is, let's say the ISP has 100 Mbps available, and they're providing "unlimited" service capped at 5 Mbps to 400 customers, under their old estimate that an average customer would use 5% of their available bandwidth.
Now BitTorrent comes along, and soon the average customer is using 10% of their available bandwidth. Instead of doubling their network capacity to 200 Mbps, the ISP can halve the per-user cap to 2.5 Mbps, keeping overall usage the same without spending a dime or raising their rates.
(Well, it isn't quite that simple, since in reality everyone hasn't increased their usage equally, so the lowered cap wouldn't affect them all equally. But there is some number where the ISP could set the cap to keep usage under control without having to add capacity or raise prices.)
Of course, ISPs don't want to do this. They want to keep advertising big numbers. But the fact is, people use more bandwidth than they used to, and that demand isn't doing away, so something has to change: the ISPs need to either add capacity and/or raise their prices, or stop advertising service levels they can't provide at the current prices.
If the ISPs are going to conform to your plan of "building out to match the demand," that involves a capital cost which they will have to recoup through increased pricing. Yes, of course it does. The ISPs should've been planning for that all along, since it isn't really a surprise that people use more bandwidth now than they used to. And I think they have been planning for it: Comcast has raised the cap a few times over the past few years, without raising their monthly rates, so presumably some of that monthly charge already goes to building more capacity.
But if demand is rising faster than they expected, and they have to raise their rates to maintain their network, then so be it!
"Eating the loss" only goes so far before the company goes out of business and is replaced by a company that charges what their product is worth. You're asking for everyone else to subsidize YOUR usage ya filthy hippie. Huh? You must be thinking of someone else. I haven't asked for anyone to "eat the loss" or subsidize anything.
Oh, and BTW, some of us knew what we were getting when we subscribed to our service like.. a decade ago. We knew we were paying for shared service, but we bought it anyway because it met our needs Yup. I think that describes all of us here.
I certainly know that I'm paying for shared service, and that the bandwidth they advertise might not always be available -- I don't call to complain about slow downloads or uploads, because I know they'll say "we don't guarantee anything" and they'll be right. But when that bandwidth is available, I expect to be able to use it.
Yes it's twice as expensive I pay 60$ a month for 2/2Mb. But I have no limits, and they do not throttle Bit torrent. At least verizon doesn't. I have downloaded hundreds of GB so far this year. Just in the last week I have downloaded around 30. Well, that's interesting.
Maybe it's a regional thing, because I just looked at Verizon's BroadbandAccess plans and they only offer two here: one with a 50 MB monthly limit ($39.99/mo), and another with a 5 GB monthly limit ($59.99/mo).
Once you hit the limits, it's 99 cents for each additional megabyte on the 50 MB plan, or 49 cents on the 5 GB plan. So, if you download 30 GB this week and then don't use it at all for the rest of the month, your bill will be $12,603.99 (plus a few miscellaneous fees).
If you can get that for only $60 a month, you're getting one hell of a deal. Don't expect it to last!
What you're actually paying for is a kind of time-share bandwidth thing. Based on a profile of an average user who wants spurts of high speed (to make web pages responsive) but doesn't actually need that data rate anywhere near 100% of the time. [...] If your use profile doesn't conform to that estimate, for instance, if you're actually using a fairly constant bandwidth, then you need to upgrade your service to a plan that figures that in. Close, but not quite.
Consider what it actually means to have a "profile of an average user". The ISP knew from the start that some people would use their bandwidth in short bursts (e.g. web surfing). Others would use it in other ways, like watching YouTube or Netflix for hours at a time, or listening to internet radio. Some people would use it for P2P or gaming.
The "average user" profile comes from combining all those different user profiles together. Many people will use 1% of their available bandwidth, say, and a few will use 90%, and when you average them together according to how common you think those profiles will be, you decide that the average user will only use maybe 5% of the bandwidth they're paying for.
But everyone still fits into the picture. If you're the guy using 90% of your available bandwidth, that's fine, because the ISP already took you into account when they decided how much capacity to build. You're not obligated to hold back or switch to a different service: they knew there would be some number of people using a lot of bandwidth, who'd be balanced out by a much greater number of people using only a little.
Now, as time goes by, higher bandwidth applications like BitTorrent are getting more popular. That means the ISPs have to adapt, because their old estimates are no longer accurate. Instead of the "average user" using 5% of the bandwidth he's paying for, maybe now the average is 10%, so the ISP has to have twice as much capacity.
That's the risk of oversubscription: it only works as long as your estimate is accurate, and when actual use changes, you have to update your estimate and adjust your capacity. Again, they knew they were taking that risk when they chose to oversubscribe their lines.
Some ISPs want to have it both ways, though. They want to keep their oversubscription model, but they don't want to adjust their capacity to keep up with changing usage patterns, so instead they try to force their customers to comply with the old, outdated estimates. We shouldn't let them get away with it.
You actually paid for "up to xxx Kbps" Then he should be able to use "up to xxx kbps" for whatever he wants, whether it's email, YouTube, FTP, or BitTorrent.
We all understand that the figures quoted for these "unlimited" plans are maximums, and just because you're paying for up to 1 Mbps upstream doesn't mean there'll always be 1 Mbps upstream for you to use. But you should still be able to use whatever is available.
And if the network is so overloaded that people are routinely unable to hit 1 Mbps, the ISP should either add more capacity or adjust their marketing to be more in line with the amount of bandwidth that actually is available.
Times change, and people on average use more bandwidth now than they used to. In the future, they'll probably use even more. That means the oversubscription equation is changing, and it's going to keep changing. If an ISP wants to oversubscribe their capacity, that's fine, but they have to keep up with changes in usage patterns.
1) You have satellite... Satellite is not a serious alternative to cable or DSL. The latency alone makes it almost worthless for gaming, VPN, chat, etc.
2) You probably even have wireless from another telco What, cellular internet access? Ha ha ha. Not only does it cost twice as much for a fraction of the speed, but the carriers also have some frightening limits on the type and amount of traffic you can use with it.
In the mid 1960's I worked for McDonalds. I was paid the minimum of $1.35/hr. Since a burger at that time was $0.19 that comes out to about 7.1 burgers per hour. Today, if memory serves, minimum is $5.40 and a regular burger is about 0.99. That comes out to 5.4 purgers per hour. You're thinking of the federal minimum wage (which is $5.85, actually) - but most states have a higher minimum wage. For example, in Washington, the minimum wage buys more than 8 burgers per hour.
In any case, the difference between the federal minimum wage then and now (in terms of burgers/hour) only illustrates that the federal minimum wage has failed to keep up with inflation. That's why so many states have passed higher minimum wage laws.
The reality is that the product pricess are increased to cover the increase in the costs. Thus the increase is paid by the consumer. Right, but the set of consumers is not the same as the set of minimum-wage earners. The burger flippers' pay raise comes from the pockets of everyone who buys burgers. Obviously it's not a win for everyone, but it's not supposed to be.
Yes of course one can simply use filtering and capping to do so. However you have to take into consideration that he would then have to install, maintain the filtering solution and remember it is only because of a couple of torrent users that this is necessary. You've got it backwards. They're already installing those expensive filters just to interfere with BitTorrent.
Lowering the bandwidth cap wouldn't require any of that; it's just a number they can tweak in the cable modem configuration. (Of course, then they'd have to tweak it in their advertising material too, which is what they want to avoid!)
Monitoring a customer's total use and charging for overage is probably something they can do with the equipment they already have, but if not, it'd still be cheaper than these custom BitTorrent filters, which have to inspect the data stream and track a bunch of per-user and per-connection state, rather than just bumping a counter for every packet that goes by. (But, again, they'd have to advertise "$50/mo for X GB and $1 for every additional Y GB", which is so much less flashy than "$50/mo for UNLIMITED(*) use".)
What ISPs are we talking about? I'm talking about Comcast and others who directly interfere with the BitTorrent protocol.
To tell you the truth, I have no idea if Cox was measuring bittorrent bandwidth or everything else--I imagine it was everything else. Yes, exactly. That's the kind of policy I'm suggesting should be adopted by Comcast and their ilk. Count the number of bytes you send, regardless of what program you're sending them with.
The thing I think you're not getting is that it does not matter if it's FTP or email or Bittorrent or whatever that is using the bandwidth--you're absolutely right about that. The difference is that the totally vast majority of big bandwidth users are using bittorrent. Yes, today they are. Five years ago, they weren't, and a few years from now, they might not be -- especially if the filters become more effective. People will switch to something else that the filters don't catch.
Chasing after whichever file sharing program happens to be most popular right now is a waste of time. It's a moving target. The real problem is bandwidth scarcity, and that isn't moving anywhere: limiting bandwidth will always be 100% effective, and it's completely fair, and it's cheaper and easier to implement because you don't have to inspect the data stream.
The only downside is ISPs would have to advertise smaller numbers and/or admit that their service isn't "unlimited", and that's what they want to avoid.
I'll bet that with real world numbers it is a net loss specially after you consider that if all of the "grunts" get a raise, the stock holders will want to see an increase in profits. Well, all I can say is your speculation doesn't line up with what actually happens when the minimum wage is raised. This isn't some fantasy scenario: the minimum wage has been increased and has not been a net loss. Quality of life goes up, not down.
One reason is that a surprising number of jobs already pay higher than minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage doesn't increase the cost of all labor, only the most unskilled labor.
The basic reason ISP's are targeting bittorrent is simple. 90 to 95% of the traffic is copyright violation. Well, yes and no. The ISPs aren't liable for their customers' copyright violations, so it's not like they're going after pirates to cover their own asses.
They are, however, betting that pirates will be less likely to complain. No one wants to stand up and say "you're interfering with my illegal torrents", just like no one wants to stand up and say "you're interfering with my porn", even though we all know both of those are major reasons why people pay for broadband in the first place.
So, the ISP can keep advertising "unlimited" service, while cutting off all the customers who are most likely to use that bandwidth and also least likely to make a scene about being cut off.
I'm sure Usenet is their next target. I doubt it. Downstream bandwidth isn't a big concern for these ISPs. Comcast provides their customers with a free, limited Giganews account, and (IIRC) Comcast customers also get a discount on a regular Giganews account.
I'm not sure I really see the distinction? Assuming (and it IS an assumption) that the ISPs reserve the right to throttle or cap, what does it matter if its one protocol or the whole connection? The problem is that it punishes low and moderate BitTorrent users, while letting excessive users of other protocols off scot-free.
Heck, I'd RATHER it be one protocol, so if I exceed my bittorrent allotment, at least web/email/etc are still snappy. There is no "BitTorrent allotment". They always block or interfere with BitTorrent, whether you're using it a little or a lot. Meanwhile, someone else can do the same transfers with FTP, IRC, rsync, or any other program, and they don't get hassled. Where's the sense in that?
Actually I really doubt that IMAP/POP would manage to saturate any connection. You might be able to fill a slow upload speed, but my guess is server latencies would significantly limit what you can do. Not to mention in your scenario, your download amount is not going to be that substantial. You'd be using SMTP, not IMAP/POP: upstream usage is what ISPs like Comcast care about.
BitTorrent doesn't use a lot of downstream bandwidth compared to other applications, anyway. You can get faster downloads from a well-hosted web site or a good Usenet service.
Well, in effect they are. If you make the assumption that anyone using bittorrent heavily enough to actually affect the network performance is not going to be happy with a bandwidth cap below what they want to use and would just change ISP anyway, then it more or less amounts to the same thing. You're assuming there's another ISP they can switch to, one that will offer the same unmetered service at the same low price, even though the first ISP found it impossible. But high bandwidth use is something that every ISP will have to deal with eventually.
If the ISP is able to less for a high quality connection because they don't cater for heavy downloaders/uploaders, then they'll be more attractive to the non-downloaders. Why choose between those customers? Offer the same base package to everyone, with a monthly cap, and charge the heavy uploaders for their extra use. As long as you charge them more than it costs you, you're coming out ahead, right?
More like clearing the 18 wheeler trucks off the main road to relieve traffic congestion. A BitTorrent packet, unlike an 18 wheeler, doesn't cause any more congestion on its own than any other packet.
Too many torrent packets may cause congestion, yes. But too many of any packets will cause exactly the same congestion. What matters is how much data is being sent, not what program is sending it.
I would also very much dispute that ISP filtering isn't effective. I have no data to back this up, but would ISPs really be doing it if it wasn't to their advantage? Yes, because the marketing aspect is what they care about.
Filtering is less effective than metering bandwidth, in the sense that it will punish some people who shouldn't be punished (moderate BitTorrent users) and give a free pass to some people who shouldn't get one (excessive users of other protocols). But it allows the ISP to still claim they're providing a high level of service -- with the unwritten caveat that you can't use the applications that benefit from that level of service.
Imagine an "all you can eat" buffet where they kick you out if you go back for seconds of anything except saltines and water. That's a fundamentally dishonest business model, and the only reason to implement it is to draw people in with an offer that's too good to be true.
You know, you might be theoretically right here, but I honestly don't think you could (and certainly not in any remotely realistic workload) max out any DSL/Cable/+ connection doing email. In a "realistic workload", probably not. But you could certainly put your email client in offline mode, queue up a few thousand emails with big attachments, and then send them all at once. Presto: you're now using up as much bandwidth as you possibly can, at least until the queue is emptied.
The difference is that it's exceedingly rare--virtually impossible even!--for someone to use up as much bandwidth as they regularly do using BitTorrent/P2P. Thus, the ISPs target the most popular p2p algorithm, bittorrent. Yes, but that's a stupid way to deal with excessive bandwidth use. It's like looking at heavy traffic on the roads to and from the beach, and deciding to "solve" the traffic problem by closing the beach.
It's stupid for a few reasons. One reason is that it puts the cart before the horse: the network is there to serve users, not the other way around. The public works department needs to adapt to the fact that drivers want to go to the beach, and ISPs need to adapt to the fact that their customers want to share files.
Another reason is that it's just not a very effective solution. Filtering one specific application is more difficult and costly than imposing an overall bandwidth cap, and it sets off an arms race as new versions of the application evade the filters, and new versions of the filters detect the application again. And if the filter ever becomes 100% effective against one application, people will just switch to another one, starting the whole cycle over.
If people are using too much bandwidth, then restrict their bandwidth usage or charge them for it. It's just that simple. The only reason ISPs are wasting their time with these filters is so they can keep advertising an impossibly high level of service, knowing that none of their customers will actually be able to use it.
Bit Torrent is a bandwidth hog and attempts to evade filtering rather well. BitTorrent only "hogs" as much bandwidth as the human user causes it to. It's no different in that sense from any other application: other P2P systems, YouTube, email, whatever. If you want to spend all day uploading email attachments at full speed, you can do that, and you'll use just as much bandwidth as if you were seeding torrents at full speed.
On the other hand, you can set a low rate limit in your torrent client, and/or set it to stop seeding once it reaches a certain share ratio, and you'll only use a moderate amount of bandwidth.
There's absolutely no need to treat BitTorrent differently from any other application. You don't need to use "filtering"; just limit bandwidth. If a customer is using too much bandwidth, charge him for the overage or lower his cap. It doesn't matter whether he's running BitTorrent, LimeWire, or just sending a lot of emails: all that matters is his total usage.
Perhaps you could clarify which parts you think support your argument. Your first link -- which is the same as your third link -- doesn't have much to say about the impact of pornography on minors specifically, but what it does say seems to undercut your argument. For example (emphasis added):
The main concern [in Japan], however, was not against videos but against sexually explicit comic books available to children. Conservative groups and the media began to call for government action to stem the rising tide of pornography they saw occurring. [...] Most significantly, despite the wide increase in availability of pornography to children, not only was there a decrease in sex crimes with juveniles as victims but the number of juvenile offenders also decreased significantly. [...] I believe it part of natures' evolutionary heritage that sexually erotic scenes be part of any individual's development. Since until recent times, privacy has been a luxery only afforded to the very few and then to the very rich. Only in modern times are children expected to develop without witnessing their parents or others, and certainly animals, in sexual activities. And it concludes:
The concern that countries allowing pornography and liberal anti-obscenity laws would show increased sex crime rates due to modeling or that children or adolescents in particular would be negatively vulnerable to and receptive to such models or that society would be otherwise adversely effected is not supported by evidence. Your second link is an article specifically about Internet porn's effect on minors. It notes a correlation between more frequent viewing and certain "sexual attitudes".
But it would be a mistake to draw the conclusion you seem to be drawing. The main problem is that it doesn't show causality. Do people develop certain attitudes because of viewing porn, or do they view more porn because they already have those attitudes? The latter seems more likely to me, but this isn't evidence for either possibility.
Another problem is that, well, if the worst they can point to is "attitudes", what's the big deal? It's a shame when people objectify the opposite sex, but that's hardly grounds for censorship. If you're going to accept censorship on the basis that it people from holding attitudes or opinions you wish they didn't hold, you're going to have to accept a lot more censorship than just this.
As I stated, Manufacturing has moved off-shore strictly to get competitive low labor rates. That's not because of the minimum wage, though: factory workers typically make more than minimum wage anyway.
Even then, You are only half right. Now the unskilled work in the service sector. Like having a McJob. Yup. Those are the people who benefit from a higher minimum wage.
You can look in the doors of the housing projects when driving by on cooler nights...and see them loaded with people doing nothing but watching tvs (some pretty big)....and they are hanging out in the projects all day....they are being subsidized for hanging out and watching tv, and not working. And what do you think they would be doing otherwise?
If someone is determined not to add any value to society, you can't force them. Put them out on the streets and they'll either die or they'll turn to violent crime to survive. Would you rather spend ten times as much to keep them locked up?
You haven't seen the salient evidence. All right, then, where is it? You say you've researched the topic and found this evidence, so I assume you wouldn't mind sharing it.
Children are impressionable, and things like graphic violence and pornography aren't good for them. [...] Children have no context to put such images in. Er... what "context" do they have to put any other image in?
Why would an image of a gunfight or a couple having sex need more context than an image of a castle, a giraffe, the Sistine Chapel, or anything else?
Censorship is almost always a bad thing, except when the sensibilities of children are at stake. It's a bad thing even then. People like to talk about various things (usually nudity) as being "harmful to children", but there's really no evidence that it is. Blocking minors' access to material that they choose to seek out is no better than blocking adults' access.
You know....we've got plenty of people that are already currently being subsidized by the govt. and not working...those on welfare. [...] There are plenty of people that need manual work in the US...just gotta get them off their lazy asses and quit giving them handouts that require no work at all. Your comment shows a shocking ignorance of how welfare actually works in the US. You generally can't collect it without looking for a job, you generally have to have a family to support, and even when you can collect anything, it's only for a limited time.
Reagan's "welfare queens" were a myth even when he was in office; there's no excuse for still believing in them today.
Then the Libs would insist that they are not getting minimum wage. (Which is what sent manufacturing off-shore in the first place). False. Raising the minimum wage has generally not increased unemployment.
The lawfulness of your possession of the copy is contingent on your agreement to the license terms, because those are the terms under which the lawful owner of the copyright is willing to provide you a copy. But I'm almost certainly not getting my copy from the copyright holder - I'm getting it from some guy making minimum wage at Best Buy or CompUSA. He doesn't make me agree to any terms; he just asks for money. And as soon I give him the money and take possession of the box of software, I own a copy of that software.
Section 117 just defines a right you have if you lawfully acquire a copy with no additional agreement. If I sell you a copy of software with no conditions, section 117 says you implicitly have the right to make backups and copies into RAM because those are necessary to use your copy. Exactly, and in reality, that's how software is sold: with no conditions. You exchange money for a box containing a disc, and that's it.
Slashdot Mirror
That is, let's say the ISP has 100 Mbps available, and they're providing "unlimited" service capped at 5 Mbps to 400 customers, under their old estimate that an average customer would use 5% of their available bandwidth.
Now BitTorrent comes along, and soon the average customer is using 10% of their available bandwidth. Instead of doubling their network capacity to 200 Mbps, the ISP can halve the per-user cap to 2.5 Mbps, keeping overall usage the same without spending a dime or raising their rates.
(Well, it isn't quite that simple, since in reality everyone hasn't increased their usage equally, so the lowered cap wouldn't affect them all equally. But there is some number where the ISP could set the cap to keep usage under control without having to add capacity or raise prices.)
Of course, ISPs don't want to do this. They want to keep advertising big numbers. But the fact is, people use more bandwidth than they used to, and that demand isn't doing away, so something has to change: the ISPs need to either add capacity and/or raise their prices, or stop advertising service levels they can't provide at the current prices.
But if demand is rising faster than they expected, and they have to raise their rates to maintain their network, then so be it! "Eating the loss" only goes so far before the company goes out of business and is replaced by a company that charges what their product is worth. You're asking for everyone else to subsidize YOUR usage ya filthy hippie. Huh? You must be thinking of someone else. I haven't asked for anyone to "eat the loss" or subsidize anything. Oh, and BTW, some of us knew what we were getting when we subscribed to our service like.. a decade ago. We knew we were paying for shared service, but we bought it anyway because it met our needs Yup. I think that describes all of us here.
I certainly know that I'm paying for shared service, and that the bandwidth they advertise might not always be available -- I don't call to complain about slow downloads or uploads, because I know they'll say "we don't guarantee anything" and they'll be right. But when that bandwidth is available, I expect to be able to use it.
Maybe it's a regional thing, because I just looked at Verizon's BroadbandAccess plans and they only offer two here: one with a 50 MB monthly limit ($39.99/mo), and another with a 5 GB monthly limit ($59.99/mo).
Once you hit the limits, it's 99 cents for each additional megabyte on the 50 MB plan, or 49 cents on the 5 GB plan. So, if you download 30 GB this week and then don't use it at all for the rest of the month, your bill will be $12,603.99 (plus a few miscellaneous fees).
If you can get that for only $60 a month, you're getting one hell of a deal. Don't expect it to last!
[...]
If your use profile doesn't conform to that estimate, for instance, if you're actually using a fairly constant bandwidth, then you need to upgrade your service to a plan that figures that in. Close, but not quite.
Consider what it actually means to have a "profile of an average user". The ISP knew from the start that some people would use their bandwidth in short bursts (e.g. web surfing). Others would use it in other ways, like watching YouTube or Netflix for hours at a time, or listening to internet radio. Some people would use it for P2P or gaming.
The "average user" profile comes from combining all those different user profiles together. Many people will use 1% of their available bandwidth, say, and a few will use 90%, and when you average them together according to how common you think those profiles will be, you decide that the average user will only use maybe 5% of the bandwidth they're paying for.
But everyone still fits into the picture. If you're the guy using 90% of your available bandwidth, that's fine, because the ISP already took you into account when they decided how much capacity to build. You're not obligated to hold back or switch to a different service: they knew there would be some number of people using a lot of bandwidth, who'd be balanced out by a much greater number of people using only a little.
Now, as time goes by, higher bandwidth applications like BitTorrent are getting more popular. That means the ISPs have to adapt, because their old estimates are no longer accurate. Instead of the "average user" using 5% of the bandwidth he's paying for, maybe now the average is 10%, so the ISP has to have twice as much capacity.
That's the risk of oversubscription: it only works as long as your estimate is accurate, and when actual use changes, you have to update your estimate and adjust your capacity. Again, they knew they were taking that risk when they chose to oversubscribe their lines.
Some ISPs want to have it both ways, though. They want to keep their oversubscription model, but they don't want to adjust their capacity to keep up with changing usage patterns, so instead they try to force their customers to comply with the old, outdated estimates. We shouldn't let them get away with it.
We all understand that the figures quoted for these "unlimited" plans are maximums, and just because you're paying for up to 1 Mbps upstream doesn't mean there'll always be 1 Mbps upstream for you to use. But you should still be able to use whatever is available.
And if the network is so overloaded that people are routinely unable to hit 1 Mbps, the ISP should either add more capacity or adjust their marketing to be more in line with the amount of bandwidth that actually is available.
Times change, and people on average use more bandwidth now than they used to. In the future, they'll probably use even more. That means the oversubscription equation is changing, and it's going to keep changing. If an ISP wants to oversubscribe their capacity, that's fine, but they have to keep up with changes in usage patterns.
In any case, the difference between the federal minimum wage then and now (in terms of burgers/hour) only illustrates that the federal minimum wage has failed to keep up with inflation. That's why so many states have passed higher minimum wage laws. The reality is that the product pricess are increased to cover the increase in the costs. Thus the increase is paid by the consumer. Right, but the set of consumers is not the same as the set of minimum-wage earners. The burger flippers' pay raise comes from the pockets of everyone who buys burgers. Obviously it's not a win for everyone, but it's not supposed to be.
into consideration that he would then have to install, maintain the filtering solution and
remember it is only because of a couple of torrent users that this is necessary. You've got it backwards. They're already installing those expensive filters just to interfere with BitTorrent.
Lowering the bandwidth cap wouldn't require any of that; it's just a number they can tweak in the cable modem configuration. (Of course, then they'd have to tweak it in their advertising material too, which is what they want to avoid!)
Monitoring a customer's total use and charging for overage is probably something they can do with the equipment they already have, but if not, it'd still be cheaper than these custom BitTorrent filters, which have to inspect the data stream and track a bunch of per-user and per-connection state, rather than just bumping a counter for every packet that goes by. (But, again, they'd have to advertise "$50/mo for X GB and $1 for every additional Y GB", which is so much less flashy than "$50/mo for UNLIMITED(*) use".)
Chasing after whichever file sharing program happens to be most popular right now is a waste of time. It's a moving target. The real problem is bandwidth scarcity, and that isn't moving anywhere: limiting bandwidth will always be 100% effective, and it's completely fair, and it's cheaper and easier to implement because you don't have to inspect the data stream.
The only downside is ISPs would have to advertise smaller numbers and/or admit that their service isn't "unlimited", and that's what they want to avoid.
One reason is that a surprising number of jobs already pay higher than minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage doesn't increase the cost of all labor, only the most unskilled labor.
They are, however, betting that pirates will be less likely to complain. No one wants to stand up and say "you're interfering with my illegal torrents", just like no one wants to stand up and say "you're interfering with my porn", even though we all know both of those are major reasons why people pay for broadband in the first place.
So, the ISP can keep advertising "unlimited" service, while cutting off all the customers who are most likely to use that bandwidth and also least likely to make a scene about being cut off. I'm sure Usenet is their next target. I doubt it. Downstream bandwidth isn't a big concern for these ISPs. Comcast provides their customers with a free, limited Giganews account, and (IIRC) Comcast customers also get a discount on a regular Giganews account.
BitTorrent doesn't use a lot of downstream bandwidth compared to other applications, anyway. You can get faster downloads from a well-hosted web site or a good Usenet service.
Too many torrent packets may cause congestion, yes. But too many of any packets will cause exactly the same congestion. What matters is how much data is being sent, not what program is sending it. I would also very much dispute that ISP filtering isn't effective. I have no data to back this up, but would ISPs really be doing it if it wasn't to their advantage? Yes, because the marketing aspect is what they care about.
Filtering is less effective than metering bandwidth, in the sense that it will punish some people who shouldn't be punished (moderate BitTorrent users) and give a free pass to some people who shouldn't get one (excessive users of other protocols). But it allows the ISP to still claim they're providing a high level of service -- with the unwritten caveat that you can't use the applications that benefit from that level of service.
Imagine an "all you can eat" buffet where they kick you out if you go back for seconds of anything except saltines and water. That's a fundamentally dishonest business model, and the only reason to implement it is to draw people in with an offer that's too good to be true.
It's stupid for a few reasons. One reason is that it puts the cart before the horse: the network is there to serve users, not the other way around. The public works department needs to adapt to the fact that drivers want to go to the beach, and ISPs need to adapt to the fact that their customers want to share files.
Another reason is that it's just not a very effective solution. Filtering one specific application is more difficult and costly than imposing an overall bandwidth cap, and it sets off an arms race as new versions of the application evade the filters, and new versions of the filters detect the application again. And if the filter ever becomes 100% effective against one application, people will just switch to another one, starting the whole cycle over.
If people are using too much bandwidth, then restrict their bandwidth usage or charge them for it. It's just that simple. The only reason ISPs are wasting their time with these filters is so they can keep advertising an impossibly high level of service, knowing that none of their customers will actually be able to use it.
On the other hand, you can set a low rate limit in your torrent client, and/or set it to stop seeding once it reaches a certain share ratio, and you'll only use a moderate amount of bandwidth.
There's absolutely no need to treat BitTorrent differently from any other application. You don't need to use "filtering"; just limit bandwidth. If a customer is using too much bandwidth, charge him for the overage or lower his cap. It doesn't matter whether he's running BitTorrent, LimeWire, or just sending a lot of emails: all that matters is his total usage.
[...]
I believe it part of natures' evolutionary heritage that sexually erotic scenes be part of any individual's development. Since until recent times, privacy has been a luxery only afforded to the very few and then to the very rich. Only in modern times are children expected to develop without witnessing their parents or others, and certainly animals, in sexual activities. And it concludes: The concern that countries allowing pornography and liberal anti-obscenity laws would show increased sex crime rates due to modeling or that children or adolescents in particular would be negatively vulnerable to and receptive to such models or that society would be otherwise adversely effected is not supported by evidence. Your second link is an article specifically about Internet porn's effect on minors. It notes a correlation between more frequent viewing and certain "sexual attitudes".
But it would be a mistake to draw the conclusion you seem to be drawing. The main problem is that it doesn't show causality. Do people develop certain attitudes because of viewing porn, or do they view more porn because they already have those attitudes? The latter seems more likely to me, but this isn't evidence for either possibility.
Another problem is that, well, if the worst they can point to is "attitudes", what's the big deal? It's a shame when people objectify the opposite sex, but that's hardly grounds for censorship. If you're going to accept censorship on the basis that it people from holding attitudes or opinions you wish they didn't hold, you're going to have to accept a lot more censorship than just this.
If someone is determined not to add any value to society, you can't force them. Put them out on the streets and they'll either die or they'll turn to violent crime to survive. Would you rather spend ten times as much to keep them locked up?
Why would an image of a gunfight or a couple having sex need more context than an image of a castle, a giraffe, the Sistine Chapel, or anything else?
Reagan's "welfare queens" were a myth even when he was in office; there's no excuse for still believing in them today.