 Noah VailSon made my AvatarPremium
join:2004-12-10
Lorton, VA
kudos:1 | When Businesses Combine Together to Deny Consumer Choices What do we call that?
Can you say collusion?
I knew that you could.
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | How are consumers being denied choice? |
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 funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5 | said by openbox9:How are consumers being denied choice? If your incumbent ISPs do not subscribe, you cannot either.
This is typical of Cable TV or satellite but it's pretty unusual for the Internet or telephone.
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- District of Columbia -- KJ7RL |
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | Ok, so choose not to subscribe to your incumbents' services if they aren't providing products that you desire. Where's the denial of choice? Personally, I hope ESPN learns a painful lesson from consumer backlash towards their overpriced products, but as long as consumers keep paying, ESPN will keep jacking rates. |
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funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5 | said by openbox9:Ok, so choose not to subscribe to your incumbents' services if they aren't providing products that you desire. Where's the denial of choice? Given that it's ESPN360, it's easy for me to say "I'm with you" here. As an Internauter, I don't like this business model, but it's ESPN's right to fail (hopefully) at it. 
But this isn't the only example. At the end of last year, when Bright House and TWC were negotiating with Viacom at the last minute, Viacom threatened to block INTERNET access to its sites unless those Cable TV providers successfully negotiated. We'll never know if that was an empty threat, because Bright House and TWC did get a contract with Viacom (details sealed, of course).
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Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- District of Columbia -- KJ7RL |
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | And until the consumers of content flip a big old bird to the content owners, these tactics will continue. Unfortunately most consumers aren't willing to give up their MTV and ESPN...even if they have to pay out the nose for the privilege. |
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| Well just what do you consider content. What happens when ISPs decide to promote one companies content via thier best effort traffic shaping over another companies because company [A] reached an agreement with the ISP and company [B] has not. Plus, now you have ISPs endorsing online video content. They can not legitimately argue in favor on caps by signing an agreement with an online video content provider!
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BF69~~~Please stop suffocating gerbils! |
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | said by S_engineer:What happens when ISPs decide to promote one companies content via thier best effort traffic shaping over another companies because company [A] reached an agreement with the ISP and company [B] has not. Preferential treatment of like data for reasons as you've highlighted is when net neutrality regulation becomes a necessity. I don't think you'll see that from ISPs for fear of spurring heavy handed government regulation.said by S_engineer:Plus, now you have ISPs endorsing online video content. They can not legitimately argue in favor on caps by signing an agreement with an online video content provider! Why not. Just because an ISP has signed an agreement with a content provider doesn't mean that you as a customer has to visit that site. Save your allotted data transfer for something that you're interested in. |
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| But part of the argument that ISPs have used to ration the consumers usage is the influx of online video chews up too much bandwidth. This undercuts every argument that they've used.
What happens if everybody all at once decides to use 360 at the same time on a shared node?
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BF69~~~Please stop suffocating gerbils! |
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:2 | If they've instituted caps to help control the rampant growth of online video, I'd say that ISPs have nothing to worry about...the caps are already in place  |
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