How Much Bandwidth Do You Consume Per Month? > By the byte--- HELL NO (And here's why)

By the byte--- HELL NO (And here's why)

I made an earlier post saying that I don't like the idea of paying by usage, at least with respect to the Internet.

You bring up an important point, one that I didn't think of.

I know that I would personally be upset by having to pay even more for pop-ups, SPAM, and Microsoft's (and other company's) mistakes.

I also thought of another thing: What if some mal-ware infects your computer, and uses a bunch of data transfer. That could be an enormous bill, through no fault of your own.

To compare it to something else, consider pager messages, or SMS. Most carriers charge money to receive them, as well as send them. It's also possible send them via E-mail or through websites. Can you see the abuse potential? If you can't, consider it's possible to write a script that sends automated E-mails.

What if a theoretical script was written that sent 100 messages a day? That's roughly 3,000 messages a month. At $.10/msg., that's $300 more that month.

To solve this problem, just use text-message block.

I use this example because it's a case where it's pay-by-use and you have no control. You can't decide to receive some messages and not others, although you can comprehensively block all messages.

One poster who replied to my original message stated that the other things people use are on a pay-by-use basis, and no one has complained. Well, his examples were all things where you have absolute control. Electricity and phone calls were a couple examples that poster cited. But unlike SMS and Internet, you have absolute control over whether a light is turned on, or whether you make that phone call.

Exactly.

I also posted another situation: Malware botnets scanning your IP range. Now, let's say you were patched and firewalled, so your PC was safe. Great....but on pay per byte model, you'd still be billed for the bandwidth used by all the infected machines scanning your range trying to infect you.
--
"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!)

reply to KrK

reply to benc