 nwrickertsand groperPremium,MVM
join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL
kudos:7
 ·AT&T U-Verse
| The reverse is true If we switch to billing-by-the-byte, the Internet will wither and die.
If there is a switch to billing by the byte, then the first thing I will do is install AddblockPlus. I can tolerate advertising with slightly increases download times. But I won't have any advertising that is paid for on my dime.
The Internet is largely funded by advertising. This harebrained idea, if implemented, will dry up the advertising. And then what will be left?
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AT&T dsl; Westell 2200 modem/router; SuSE 10.1; firefox 2.0.0.8 |
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 espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2
 ·Clear Wireless
| said by nwrickert:I can tolerate advertising with slightly increases download times. But I won't have any advertising that is paid for on my dime. Most people still pay for cable or satellite television even though the programming still contains commercials which affects the viewing of their shows.
said by nwrickert:The Internet is largely funded by advertising. This harebrained idea, if implemented, will dry up the advertising. And then what will be left? I think there would be articles written about how the average person could only save maybe a couple pennies on transport costs by blocking ads, and the majority of users wouldn't bother with installing ad blockers anyway. Content providers would need to seek another means of collecting revenue, such as Wikipedia's funding drive or BBR's premium member subscription. I have every confidence the ecosystem of the Internet would find a way to rebalance. |
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nwrickertsand groperPremium,MVM
join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL
kudos:7 Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
| Most people still pay for cable or satellite television even though the programming still contains commercials which affects the viewing of their shows. They don't pay by the byte. They mostly pay a flat rate for a package of channels. And people do complain about commercials on pay-per-view channels.
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AT&T dsl; Westell 2200 modem/router; SuSE 10.1; firefox 2.0.0.8 |
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Reviews:
 ·Comcast
·Charter
| reply to nwrickert
said by nwrickert:If there is a switch to billing by the byte, then the first thing I will do is install AddblockPlus. I can tolerate advertising with slightly increases download times. But I won't have any advertising that is paid for on my dime. The Internet is largely funded by advertising. This harebrained idea, if implemented, will dry up the advertising. And then what will be left? This hypothesis is flawed. If you surfed for 24 hours a day you wouldn't come close to the amount of BW 1 HD video download uses. Ads (although annoying) are not a major contributor to consumption. |
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espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Clear Wireless
| reply to nwrickert
said by nwrickert:They don't pay by the byte. They mostly pay a flat rate for a package of channels. And people do complain about commercials on pay-per-view channels. Even so, if you compared ad time as a percentage of program time on pay TV against ad bytes as a percentage of total bytes transferred in 99.9+% of cases the television ad impact would be several orders of magnitude greater. The money value of the time you and I have spent discussing this very point could easily pay for a years worth of bandwidth transport costs. |
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nwrickertsand groperPremium,MVM
join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL
kudos:7 | It's not the percent, it's the principle involved. |
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| reply to nwrickert
said by nwrickert:And people do complain about commercials on pay-per-view channels. Would someone be patient enough to 'splain something I've never quite "got" about cable?
You're billed X number of dollars per month for your subscription, then they show ads during the programming. Is your subscription fee used exclusively to maintain the physical network, with the ad revenue being pure profit for the cable companies?
I guess I've always been puzzled about the cable revenue model because it seems to me they're constantly double-dipping by billing for for a subscription....then hammering you with commercials, too. |
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 KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
 ·AT&T DSL Service
| reply to espaeth
said by espaeth:Most people still pay for cable or satellite television even though the programming still contains commercials which affects the viewing of their shows. Ah, but that's because TV isn't pay-per-byte, or pay-per-second, but billed in flat rate tiers.
Let me put it this way. If had to pay for TV say for every second it was receiving a picture (pay-per-view) I surely would not be happy paying for 20 minutes of commercials to get thru a 1 hour show... That's 1/3rd of the bill spent on crap I never wanted in the first place.
If the Internet goes to pay per byte it is DEAD. Expect massive class action lawsuits over things like bugs requiring large patch downloads on your dime, lawsuits over unwanted traffic such as port scans, SPAM, virus, spyware, advertising, unauthorized file transfers, PC's "Phoning home" on your dime, etc etc
Since every one of these activities damages you financially in a pay-per-byte model, you already have legal proof of harm which makes winning the lawsuit dirt simple.
Soon, the providers and content providers would all be out of business.
Screw pay per byte. I'm not paying for your "stuff" I don't want...
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"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!) |
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espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Clear Wireless
| said by KrK:If the Internet goes to pay per byte it is DEAD. Expect massive class action lawsuits over things like bugs requiring large patch downloads on your dime, lawsuits over unwanted traffic such as port scans, SPAM, virus, spyware, advertising, unauthorized file transfers, PC's "Phoning home" on your dime, etc etc You're so focused on the details of usage-based billing that you're missing out on the big picture. You're paying for these things TODAY, the only difference is that it isn't being specifically broken out. Pay-by-the-byte isn't literally billing by the byte, it's just the catch phrase used to describe usage-based billing. The reality is that any system implemented will have no financial impact on the overwhelming majority of broadband subscribers. The cellular industry model of selling blocks of units would most likely be the method of implementation. This could be made less scary by starting to publish your monthly usage on your bill in advance of implementing such a system. For 4-5 months you see that your usage is 15-35GB/mo, and then the company announces that it will go to usage based tiers, and now instead of unlimited for what you are paying you will get 50GB/mo. The company can include a little blurb about how some subscribers use vastly more resources than the average subscriber, and rather than driving up the costs for everyone they are establishing a system where those who want to consume lots of bandwidth can do so if they pay for it. With the information nicely presented in that fashion, converting to usage-based billing would be reasonably pain-free to implement.
said by KrK:Since every one of these activities damages you financially in a pay-per-byte model, you already have legal proof of harm which makes winning the lawsuit dirt simple. The problem with that argument is that the financial "harm" you describe wouldn't justify the laywer fees. Of the companies that do usage-based billing today, the most exorbitant overage fee that's been seen is $3 per GB. So if you had to download a 250MB patch and it pushed you over your standard bandwidth allotment, that would contribute a massive $0.75 to your bill.
Countries like Australia already exclusively use the usage-based billing model today, and the Internet is far from dead there. You can fear it if you wish, but I think if you did some research into how these systems have been implemented already you would find there is really very little to worry about. |
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| You're a little off in your reasoning.
If the model was to change you may be right in that a lot of people wouldn't notice it for the first few months. But lets say that little Johnny finds out about all these cool new games that he wants for Christmas and decides to download a bunch of demos. Now all of a sudden you go over your limit by an extra 20GB and little Johnny cost you $60 (by your calculations). This doubles your bill and makes you adverse to try out things beyond your normal usage.
Another example, would be people trying out Internet based TV. It's just starting to become popular with programs like Joost. I tried it out and while they need some more content, I think it's a great idea and shows a lot of potential for the future. I keep track of how much bandwidth I use in a month and I found out that my usage skyrocketed after I started using that program. It's not surprising considering how much bandwidth downloading a TV show is but under a per-byte billing system this new technology likely never would have been considered viable.
When people pay for a monthly fee for a service (Cable TV, Internet, Cell Phone) they expect it to be a certain amount every month. If it changes or widely fluctuates then they will often change their habits or get rid of the service all together, if that's viable.
Countries like Australia already exclusively use the usage-based billing model today, and the Internet is far from dead there. You can fear it if you wish, but I think if you did some research into how these systems have been implemented already you would find there is really very little to worry about. You should do a little more research. They do lots of things to mitigate the problems there. Things like mirroring content that people want so they don't get charged usage when they get it directly from their ISP. Only the ISP can choose to remove it for any reason. A story from just a few days ago reported that the ISP stopped distributing Open Office download as it would compete with a new service they were going to offer. »tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/20···noffice/
Also, consider that not much in new Internet technologies come out of Australia vs. the US. We have a lot of innovation. This is due to little regulation and lots of bandwidth. The more bandwidth we have available to the end users the more new technologies and uses you will see released onto the Internet. |
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Ulmo
join:2005-09-22
San Jose, CA Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
| reply to nwrickert
said by nwrickert:If we switch to billing-by-the-byte, the Internet will wither and die. If there is a switch to billing by the byte, then the first thing I will do is install AddblockPlus. I can tolerate advertising with slightly increases download times. But I won't have any advertising that is paid for on my dime. The Internet is largely funded by advertising. This harebrained idea, if implemented, will dry up the advertising. And then what will be left? What if your usage only cost $1 per day, and let's say you read one web site per minute so that would be, in 4 hours, $0.004 per web page, including all of its ads and pages? Would that still cause you to install adblocker to try to save a few more cents every day? Do you bend over to pick up pennies, or nickles? Or just dimes and quarters? |
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nwrickertsand groperPremium,MVM
join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL
kudos:7 Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
| It's not the $.004, it is the principle.
The internet works on cooperation. One site will provide backup DNS services for another. One site will mirror another site for file downloads.
With per-byte billing, you will have to pay fees to your ISP for being a nice guy, and that will significantly reduce the cooperation.
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AT&T dsl; Westell 2200 modem/router; SuSE 10.1; firefox 2.0.0.8 |
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