Fixing the Internet: pay by the amount of usage

[Double Trouble]

LOL .. what an absurd idea. What would happen when someone outside the US sends spam to someone in the US? We have to pay for bandwidth and have no way to control or stop it.

Every time you want to download an update to your software, or your virus definitions etc etc, get ready to pay. Sounds like a sham to me. Can you imagine how much people with servers or websites would have to pay?? If you don't like some company, just write a script from your school PC to download their home page 50,000 a day Nope, this is an idiotic idea with so many loopholes its not even funny.

 

[luv2chill]

[Samir]This is horrible, this idea.[/Samir]

l2c

 

[McCarthy]

tagej - congrats, you've just reinvented a DoS attack. Only it takes till the end of the month when they get their bill (or hit their daily bandwidth cap) to affect other users.

Really it's a good idea. The loopholes could be overcome for the most part.
Spam - how much bandwidth does spam really use for you right now? Just totalled mine up, 200kb for the past two days over all my email addresses. And I get an average amount. Then again I use download limits and delete messages that exceed 10kb unless it's from someone I know already. And I have DSL.

Patches and updates? Com'on, even the spam was a better arguement. Unless Dvorak used some idiotic number like $1/meg that scared the readers.

Thing is we don't LIKE the idea. Me either. Heck there'd go my gaming, my streaming audio listening, even *cough* occasional mp3 download. Latter would be gone even if I were willing to pay because use-pay pricing would all but kill file sharing networks. And a lot of us LIKE them, even if we don't have a very defendable reason for supporting them.

I wish cable TV was like this. I watch maybe 6 hours of TV a month, for me package pricing sucks bigtime. But on the other side I benefit from package pricing for internet. So I'd go along with Dvorak's idea as long as it's applied to cable/sat tv and the internet at the same time.

But people, let's admit that we don't like this for selfish reasons and not make up silly defenses about offshore spam. There are filters after all. And website hosting companies already charge their customers on a usage basis, true the packages would tighten up, but that's already there.

 

[PCMarine]

Never!

 

[jteef]

Originally posted by: rufruf44

Originally posted by: jteef
and whats going to stop some kid from remotely directing a large DDoS to one of the kids he goes to school with causing say a $5000 monthly bill. are we going to have to start paying for internet insurance too? I have to imagine that somebody has tried this before and probably failed since I am unaware of any major isps who do this now.

jt

I would rather they throw the kid to a real jail for a year or so. Make it example for other script kiddies out there.

does this mean you would rather favor a tax hike to fund the highly skilled police who will be needed to investigate/enforce/prosecute this on a large scale? It still doesn't answer who's going to pay the $5000 bill.

jt

 

[Bluga]

Imagine no nefs!

 

[T2T III]

Dvorak can kiss my ass. I'm happy to pay $45 to get 2mbps/384kbps on my RR with no quota.

If you've been reading his column long enough, you'll see a pattern. Clearly, he's a frustrated individual who is trying to change the world. He's been ranting like a pansie in his column for many, many years. I think there's only about one time that I've agreed with him. Reading this crap brings back the nightmares of when I used to subscribe to PC Magazine.

 

[SSP]

I think AOHELL canada did the same thing back in the days, charging 2-3 bucks an hour. Stupid idea!


I will NEVER pay for porn!!!

 

[desertdweller]

Originally posted by: kranky
John Dvorak's column in PC Magazine this month is about the benefits that would come from charging Internet users by the amount of data.

Spam: Spammers couldn't afford to pay to email spam to 40 million people. And people receiving spam would be less tolerant because it would cost them money to receive it.

Performance: Bandwidth hogs would have to pay a lot more and many of them would just use it less. More bandwidth for everyone.

Fewer DoS attacks: The zombie attacks are carried out by DSL and cable users who's unprotected systems were infected. If their monthly bill would triple, they would be more motivated to do something about security.

More broadband: Broadband sellers could add higher-speed connections everywhere. People will pay for better connections, and might refrain from downloading gigabytes of crap for no good reason because of cost.

The average user would pay less - not more - enabling lower monthly costs for light users. The ISPs could try to keep basic service very cheap and then try to upsell other services.

Realistically, the average user doesn't need anymore than a 56k connection. Thats the reason
broadband hasn't taken off like everyone thought it would; its not needed for checking the news
or your e-mail.

I already pay more for my bandwidth, double the cost of dial-up, and if they put caps on it there would
be no reason for me to continue to pay double the cost of dial-up; I'd just go back to 56k.

I would imagine that most others using broudband would as well.

DD

 

[Sid59]

i dislike. also, no more posting on web forums for those with 20 posts a day.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
Not a bad idea when you really think about it. If we're to be held liable for the gigantic security holes in the software we use, we would certainly have a slam dunk winner against whoever sold it to us. That means every user on earth would wind up in Redmond knocking on M$'s door, summons in hand. They'd either have to learn what they were doing or they'd be sued out of existence. Either way, maybe we'd all get software that didn't require a new security patch every month.

As for the rest of that drivel, the way to fix the internet is to start charging Dvorak for every stupid, unworkable idea he comes up with over his 3 martini/4 bong-hit lunches. Use that money to give every user on earth free internet.

You realize the converse, right? Everyone would also be suing Sun, Cisco, Apple, RedHat, and every other organization that distributes software. There is no such thing as perfect software, not once you pass 1000 lines of code or so. This would basically force these companies to pay for being human.

 

[SuperTool]

Originally posted by: luv2chill
[Samir]This is horrible, this idea.[/Samir]

l2c

[Samir]You are a very, very bad person. [/Samir]
Whose side are you on anyways. Pay per usage? Worst idea EVAR!!!
Are you for Internet taxation too?

 

[Storm]

Im on the fence about this idea... I would like to see a test run of this idea on a big city. And then see people's reactions about a multi-tiered price scheme. This thread in this setting is no way representative of the average internet user. The average internet user doesnt use the internet for more than e-mail and ocassional surfing and shopping. People on ATOT use the internet for those reasons and others.

I think it might work if in the case of denial of service attack, the ISPs dont charge the customer for that day(s). Sure they will lose a little money that day but they will definitely be making more money than they do now. It shouldn't be the customer's fault but the software developers. So instead of the customer trying to push big business, it would pit big business against big business.

As for information limits, I definitely think people moving more than a terabyte a month should get charged. You must be running some type of server thats extremely popular (game or warez). Seriously though which among us moves a terabyte a month? Heres my take. They are broad but I think they are fair.

Information Per Month(in gigs) Price Per Month
<10 $30
10-100 $40
100-999 $50
1000+ $100+??

*$1 for every gig over your limit
Sure in the future they would have to change the tiering as technology moves forward... I think speed should be equal for everyone. Just the amount of data they move should justify how much they should pay.

 

[SludgeFactory]

Originally posted by: Storm
Im on the fence about this idea... I would like to see a test run of this idea on a big city. And then see people's reactions about a multi-tiered price scheme. This thread in this setting is no way representative of the average internet user. The average internet user doesnt use the internet for more than e-mail and ocassional surfing and shopping. People on ATOT use the internet for those reasons and others.

I think it might work if in the case of denial of service attack, the ISPs dont charge the customer for that day(s). Sure they will lose a little money that day but they will definitely be making more money than they do now. It shouldn't be the customer's fault but the software developers. So instead of the customer trying to push big business, it would pit big business against big business.

As for information limits, I definitely think people moving more than a terabyte a month should get charged. You must be running some type of server thats extremely popular (game or warez). Seriously though which among us moves a terabyte a month? Heres my take. They are broad but I think they are fair.

Information Per Month(in gigs) Price Per Month
<10 $30
10-100 $40
100-999 $50
1000+ $100+??

*$1 for every gig over your limit
Sure in the future they would have to change the tiering as technology moves forward... I think speed should be equal for everyone. Just the amount of data they move should justify how much they should pay.

Your prices are too reasonable, the cable companies will never go for that

I think tiered pricing will eventually happen too. The relatively low percentage of "power users" who keep their connection pegged to the max for most of the month are just too easy of a target for the ISP's to resist. They know that a LOT of those users will fork over extra bucks to keep the pipelines open.

The real dilemma for the ISP is to figure out where to set the cap so they don't run too many people away, because losing customers at this point is the last thing they can afford.

 

[Storm]

Originally posted by: SludgeFactory
Your prices are too reasonable, the cable companies will never go for that

I think tiered pricing will eventually happen too. The relatively low percentage of "power users" who keep their connection pegged to the max for most of the month are just too easy of a target for the ISP's to resist. They know that a LOT of those users will fork over extra bucks to keep the pipelines open.

The real dilemma for the ISP is to figure out where to set the cap so they don't run too many people away, because losing customers at this point is the last thing they can afford.

Yea I agree but I wanted to be broad . I think its just finding the right data/price_per_month ratio that everyone will like being the major sticking point.

 

[SludgeFactory]

Originally posted by: Storm
Yea I agree but I wanted to be broad . I think its just finding the right data/price_per_month ratio that everyone will like being the major sticking point.

Yeah, I figure they'll set the tiers pretty low, unfortunately.

If I could actually pull a terabyte of data a month, that would be pretty cool though

 

[RU482]

Fixing the Internet

WTF is wrong with the Internet??? I didn't know there was a problem, works fine for me

 

[luv2chill]

Originally posted by: SuperTool

Originally posted by: luv2chill
[Samir]This is horrible, this idea.[/Samir]

l2c

[Samir]You are a very, very bad person. [/Samir]
Whose side are you on anyways. Pay per usage? Worst idea EVAR!!!
Are you for Internet taxation too?

Erm... I believe I stated that it was a bad idea.

l2c

 

[kranky]

Storm guessed on some possible pricing tiers. Without knowing how it would be charged for, there's no way to know if it will be a good or bad idea. If a person can get 20 Gb a month for $10, what's wrong with that? Dialup users can't suck down tons of data, but they tie up phone lines, so they might not be affected very much.

It would be just like the gasoline tax. People who drive a lot buy a lot of gas, therefore they pay a lot of gasoline tax which is used for road maintenance. No one would favor a system where every person with a driver's license pays a flat $300 a year instead of charging tax on gasoline.

Maybe the way it will come about is new ISPs will startup with a usage-based fee structure. The internet already is pay-per-bit on the backbone anyway. ISPs pay by usage.

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: The Dancing Peacock
aren't some isp's capping bandwith at like 3gb/month?

My DSL ISP is supposed to cap 1GB/mo but everytime I check my DSL bandwidth meter on their website it says 0 used.

 

[ROTC1983]

Originally posted by: ThePresence

Originally posted by: LAUST
Screw That!

Gotta agree with that...