| Understand their reasoning and you can develop an argument. The reason they are capping speed has nothing to do with wanting to charge per gigabyte...though if they met little to no resistance they would do just that.
They are seeing sites like joost, netflix, hulu and surfthechannel pop up all over the web and are making the first in a long series of steps that ideally will still allow them to control the content of streaming media. Who would pay 75 dollars a month for cable that I am forced to use a DVR for (also purchased through them in many cases) when I can't control what comes on or when. Why would we pay that money for programs we don't ever watch or even support when we can 'on demand' anything at anytime through the internet?
The cap is only the first step. They know that the internet is the wave of the future for delivery of entertainment, and they will develop their own methods for this same on demand delivery, making sure that if you get content through the internet, they get the revenue from the advertisements and the subscription...and not some third party site from china. This is not rocket science, and it is not an overriding desire on their part to screw the consumer over, though it may sure feel like it. This is competition, plain and simple.
The reason these are the companies in the driver's seat for internet service in the first place is because much of the infrastructure was already in place. The only way you are going to force them to stay with the same model they are currently using is to get them to refocus their efforts where they belong (providing a la carte services through their current cable transmission method). It will need to be such an attractive alternative that people will stop needing the internet for their entertainment needs.
Seeing however, that this will happen on a cold day in hell, there will simply need to be other businesses that perfect internet access through alternative medium. (Wireless or otherwise) |
