Comment by firasd
10 years ago
The problem is once you've tried this "impure" method there is no turning back. Once an ISP finds out they can offer some apps free but make other apps count towards data usage, the whole nature of the internet changes. Note that zero-rating is just one aspect of what mobile networks want to do; before the explosive activism in March, they were being more flagrant and trying to charge extra for each WhatsApp message or add extra charges for Skype calls.
>The problem is once you've tried this "impure" method there is no turning back. Once an ISP finds out they can offer some apps free but make other apps count towards data usage, the whole nature of the internet changes.
No it doesn't. There used to be free WhatsApp + Facebook/Twitter access over 3G/GSM here in Brazil for a year or so, NOTHING changed, except the poor could communicate with their friends for free and people spent less. Then came net neutrality* and now people have to pay to STILL only use social networks to communicate, like they did before the free plans and like they'll keep doing. Get a bus here and all you see people doing is chatting via WhatsApp or Messenger, even though they can access whatever they want for the same price.
As some other commenter mentioned, NN crusaders frequently seem like people who can afford data plans and have no contact with reality on a moral crusade about something they have no idea how it would or wouldn't work IRL.
* there are still some plans where you get "free WhatsApp", but you have to pay for the plan itself and the "free Whatsapp" part has something to do with your data cap ending and still being able to use services with low bandwidth.
Okay a few things:
1) I understand that people want free WhatsApp (etc), but I can't base internet policy on crowning WhatsApp as a free service. Indeed my whole position is that ISPs should not price-discriminate based on apps.
2) The fact that people used WhatsApp, Facebook & Twitter when they were zero-rated and continued to do so even when they are paid doesn't detract from my point about zero-rating being a unique advantage, quite the opposite.
3) Picking three services with strong network effects over the course of a few years is not what I meant about the fundamental nature of the internet. The point is that before WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter got popular, during their early growth, these apps and their users benefited from net neutrality. If apps become zero-rated over the long term their incumbency changes the nature of the internet from the state it was in when they were released.
If it weren't for NN, you wouldn't have any of those apps that you're so fond of. Once you have to pay to reach people, it becomes cost prohibitive to start any large scale for startups.
If it weren't for NN, you wouldn't have any of those apps that you're so fond of. Once you have to pay to reach people, it becomes cost prohibitive to start any large scale for startups.
> The problem is once you've tried this "impure" method there is no turning back.
AOL and CompuServe are good counter-points.
Why is there no turning back? Why not let people choose for themselves instead of limiting choices you don't think are good for them?
So you’re fine with the idea that every time you load news.ycombinator.com your ISP charges you $0.10 extra, but if you load TMZ.com it’s free? That would not be “the internet” in my books, and I’m glad that across the world, from Obama & the FCC to India, people are standing steadfast to endorse net neutrality.
As for why there’s no turning back: for most of the internet’s history we’ve had ‘de facto’ net neutrality so we can codify the regulations without disruption. As soon as ISPs get habituated to pricing usage based on the app, it will be difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.
> That would not be “the internet” in my books
Which is why you are free to take your business to another ISP that does no such shenanigans.
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As with Bittorrent, the solution may simply be VPNs.
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Isn't that happening on T-Mobile as we speak in US, and yet people are moving in droves cutting their broadband to mobile Internet. I am for Net Neutrality in general, course correction is and has been always a part of regulation and I acknowledge it is slow, but let it play out.
Yeah T-Mobile just started doing this—decades after the web was created—and it’s already causing problems (Youtube counts towards data, and Netflix doesn't, so now Google is concerned that T-Mobile is downgrading Youtube resolution.)
I promise you that in this sort of Internet, Facebook would have had an even more uphill contest against MySpace. Mark should let Indians have the same Internet he had.