This is simple, folks.
The FCC is pushing to assume regulatory powers over the 'net with what's called "Net Neutrality."
If adopted, large-scale 'net users who download huge files will be charged at the same price as small-scale web-browser types (your basic news-reader/blogger.)
That's like saying that 40-ton semitrailers should not pay more for road wear/tear than some guy in a Taurus.
Worse, it establishes FCC (read: policital) control over the 'net, which has done very well, indeed, without help from Nancy and Harry and B. Hussein.
You want to download the entire film library of Universal Studios? Pay for it.
Your analogies are off the mark. It's not about quantity of bytes and charging per byte. It's about what's in the bytes. They want you to pay more for data with greater perceived value.
ReplyDeleteFor example, if you've figured out how to make your computer act like a TV and receive programs over the Internet instead of paying for cable, they'll want to charge you as if you were paying for yesteryear's cable TV.
If you've signed up for a subscription to a cheap Internet-connected box that acts like a telephone, they want to charge you like you were an old-style telephone, even if it only sips data at a rate in comparison to the firehose used by some web sites. Who are you to decide that only the "basic news-reader blogger" is the most humble and appropriate use of the Internet?
The government has been intertwined in the Internet since its inception. The huge telecom providers are in bed with them, too. Decades of subsidy!
This will matter more to the average person as your TV and telephone begin to blur with your computers, and all these services get delivered over the one data pipe that comes to your house.
And as long as you're talking about the FCC overseeing your data, do you really feel much better knowing that Charter or Time-Warner or ATT will be closely inspecting your data traffic, judging at what rate to charge?
It's only going to lead to the increased use of encryption, and then the criminalization of encryption, at the request of all those telecom lobbyists who need to protect the business model.