Ben Premium Member join:2007-06-17 Fort Worth, TX |
Ben
Premium Member
2007-Nov-28 11:30 pm
Who In Their Right Mind Gets Pay-per-Use Data Transfer?It just costs too much, in every case of it I've seen.
Artificially low caps are bad enough, but at least in those cases you either lose your Internet or get a slower connection for a little while, but aren't overcharged. It's still flat rate.
Once, someone made the argument of "why is pay-per-use bandwidth a problem, when your utilities are usually pay-per-use?" One key difference is that with utilities, you have supreme control over usage, it's all on your end. Only you decide if you turn on that light, run that faucet, or make that phone call. So why is the Internet different? You decide what sites you visit, right? I'll tell you why it's different, and why comparing the Internet to most utilities is comparing apples to oranges.
In the case of the Internet, data transfer is used whenever your Internet connection is used, regardless of whether that data is useful or not. Even if an unauthorized connection hits your firewall, you still receive data before your firewall rejects it. Plus, don't get me started on SPAM, which everyone gets from time to time, no matter how good their filter happens to be.
I have a better comparison. The SMS message, which was derived from pagers. In most cases you pay to receive, as well as send. Thing is, you can't control how many you receive, short of blocking them all together. So in essence, you're paying for something you have no control or something you have to pay for, and since it's pay per use you have no idea how much it's going to cost. The only solution, in most cases is to either A) not have a mobile phone/pager, or B) block them comprehensively. Fortunately, you can block SMS and see little to no difference. In the case of Internet, to block it or not have it defeats the purpose.
I see pay-per-use as being a last resort, for someone who absolutely *must* have Internet and has absolutely *no other options.* I know it's one of those things where I just won't stand for it. So far, I've never bought a connection with caps or pay-per-use, and I'm not going to start.
Plus, consider the fact that people generally have no idea how many KB or MB a website happens to be. I know it's something I'm not going to know. In addition, even if one did know, their estimates quickly become outdated. Nothing else is quite like computers and data, which keeps getting more bloated as time goes on.
I don't see how this can fly. The trend I see is towards flat-rate pricing, not away from it. Consider the telephone. Twenty years ago flat-rate pricing was very uncommon, though it did exist. Nowadays, for a home phone it's very easy to get flat-rate pricing for domestic calls, and only have pay-per-use for International calls. With my home phone, it doesn't cost me any more whether I call NJ, OR, or my neighbor next door. It's great since I can talk for hours on end if I want, and I only have to consider my schedule, and not have to think about the associated costs. |