 BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | reply to djrobx
Re: water and electricity should be unmetered. said by djrobx:Actually there are plenty of places where you play a flat rate for utilities, typically included in a rental agreement. Friend of mine lived in an apartment in West Hollywood and he could use as much electricity as he pleased. Good for him 99.9% of everyone else doesn't live that way.
Its simple math really. Yes, there is a small percentage of "hogs" who will use more than their fair share. There are enough "lighter" users who will happily subsidize them in exchange for the privilege of not having to worry about doing something wrong / getting infected with a virus and getting slammed with a huge bill. I seriousy doubt if you told most people that their bill is double what it should be because of a small minority of users gobbling of bandwidth, that they be HAPPY about anything.
Also a virus eating up bandwidth? Sounds like the dog ate my homework. Even if true you'd rather have thousands if not millions of people be blissfully unaware that a virus in their comuter wasting god knows untold amounts of bandwidth which affect EVERYONE. Because if they were aware they get rid of the virus and thus your point would be moot. If someone is so dumb that they leave their computer unportected to the point that a virus can eat up hundreds of GBs a month in bandwidth then maybe they don't deserve internet access at all.
As redholm's excellent post points out, it's far easier for average joes to get a grip on what's making their electric meters spin than it is to figure out what's racking up bandwidth charges.
Yes let's dumb down the world. At anyrate if I asked the "average joe" what a kilowatt is he wouldn't have a clue. If I asked him how much his electric company charges per kilowatt he wouldn't have a clue. If I ask him how much electricity his fridge, water heater and TV used each month he woudn't have a clue. If I asked him how much electricity would a 60 watt bulb use in a month if left on 24 hours a day he wouldn't have a clue.
Most people have cell phones. That's metered. People seem to get that. |
