Comment by null000 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by null000 | Hacker News Reader

What I want to know is: Why is this suddenly a problem now? It was already done when T-mobile made Pandora/a few other music services not count against your data cap - everyone seemed happy about it then, and much of the press enthused over T-mobile's innovativeness and daring.

It also bothers me that I haven't seen any arguments that explain why this is bad in light of the fact that it's supposed to be based on infrastructure requirements, rather than payments, company affiliation, or otherwise. Instead of being used to squeeze small guys out of the picture, it looks more like a platform for getting more exposure and traffic than you would otherwise. It doesn't really pose a threat (except in slippery slope-esque situations) to the things that net neutrality claim to be protecting.

Can't we all just be happy that, in a world of data caps, there's a company trying to chip away at the things you have to choose between spending data on? Does everything REALLY have to be a direct threat to the internet? Admittedly, I'd much rather see "no data caps ever" (there are plans for that, and they are pretty cheap on t-mobile) but I'm generally against letting perfect get in the way of good.

The most eloquent explanation of the problem of incentives this creates I've seen is that it dosen't incentivise your isp to provide the fastest, best service. Instead in a world where this is an accepted practice, in incentivises your ISP to provide awful, inadequate service to everyone that isn't paying them for special treatment.

Eg, they will keep data caps tiny, because its better for them if every service with a lot of data usage comes to them to pay for a bypass. This is categorically massively punishing to smaller players without money and connections.

In a nation where most people are served by what is effectively a non-competeing cartel of companies, allowing strong anti-user incentives to exist is a very bad idea, because they wont just be out-competed by a less exploitative company.

Perfect isn't being the enemy of good in this case, "good enough" is being the enemy of things meaningfully improving, ever.

Instead in a world where this is an accepted practice, in incentivises your ISP to provide awful, inadequate service to everyone that isn't paying them for special treatment.

This is a valid concern when the carrier asks for money in exchange for "enhanced" fast lane service. However, in this case T-Mobile is undermining that argument completely by offering "any website or mobile app that offers streaming video [to] opt into its program with no charge. And T-Mobile users can turn off Binge On at any time." (Emphasis mine.)

In a nation where most people are served by what is effectively a non-competeing cartel of companies, allowing strong anti-user incentives to exist is a very bad idea, because they wont just be out-competed by a less exploitative company.

I generally agree with you about non-competing cartels of any stripe, but this particular case seems like it was designed to be consumer-friendly to T-Mobile's short-term financial detriment. Perhaps additional two data points will help:

1) Carriers (both fixed and wireless) that are not #1 in market share will sometimes engage in loss-promotions or tactics to gain subscriber share. The question often turns into "how long can X sustain this strategy, and how many subscribers will they lose when they're forced to downgrade offerings?"

2) American carriers are at war with each other, to the benefit of end subscribers.

Net neutrality has always been a solution in search of a problem. The theory has always been that the big bad ISPs will destroy the internet for the little guy.

Any FCC implementation of net neutrality should make sure customers are being harmed or some other anti-competitive actions are occuring.

But telling Tmobile they can't allow free video on their network is an unwarranted intrusion into their business model. Should the government tell Google they have to charge for Gmail?

>Should the government tell Google they have to charge for Gmail?

Mis-analogize much? Google isn't exactly an ISP like TMobile is. Also, email is text based and uses near-to-no bandwidth compared to video.

You could come up with reasons why Google shouldn't be allowed to give away Gmail. They use their search monopoly. They monetize it by spying on the contents of the email.

It's not a 1 to 1 parallel. I mostly meant why do you think Tmobile's business plan should be controlled by the FCC but Google should do what it wants.

>I mostly meant why do you think Tmobile's business plan should be controlled by the FCC but Google should do what it wants.

The FCC controls TMobile's business plans in the way the FBI controls organized crime. If the principles of the Internet are to be maintained, traffic prioritization as a monetization scheme needs to be carefully monitored and most likely snuffed out.

Their business model is supposed to be to provide access to all data, not to act as a gatekeeper and decide what sort of data people should consume. I don't think your comparison to Google is at all analogous to what is going on here.

Who says their business model to provide access to all data equally. That certainly hasn't been the way they've operated. The used to charge tons of money for text's data while voice data was considerably cheaper.

They're not acting as a gatekeeper in the strict sense of the word, because T-Mobile is allowing customers to opt-out of the zero-rating services and have the data count against their data buckets.

Most issues with gatekeepers are what they don't allow people to consume; in this case, they're not placing a restriction.

If people wish to stand their ground on principle, this particular carrier is giving them the option to do so by opting completely out of the program (at least according to the article).

"Free video" is not really a problem, as long as it applies to all video.

But let me ask you something. Do you think the rules that force telephone companies to connect to everyone are a bad thing? I think the way that's been handled is good, and that forcing data caps to apply equally is pretty similar.

The regulation that forced telephone companies to connect to everyone is good in my books. That is an accessibility concern. If you're going to use that as the analogy, I'd say the content accessibility concern over wireless networks (in this case, T-Mobile) is also being met.

Data caps still apply to all T-Mobile wireless subscribers also, although I can see that the spirit of your argument is that carriers shouldn't try to exert influence over data endpoints (typically referred to as "content"). But, using your same POTS analogy, does this mean that 1-800 toll-free numbers should have been banned or regulated out of existence? The interesting point is that in this case, T-Mobile is working around the FCC Net Neutrality laws by making it clear that this is a free program for specific content partners to participate in; it's like "free toll-free" for content that might appeal the most to consumers (streaming audio and video).

Good question about toll-free numbers. I think the difference is that a business pays their phone provider to do toll free service. It's closer to buying a better line to the internet than it is negotiating with individual consumer ISPs for preferred service. Competition rather than the ISP taking advantage of being the only path.

A lot of the classic telecom regulations were taken at a time when the telephone company had a legal monopoly over all customers. Everyone had to sign up with AT&T.

So there were very good reasons the government got to dictate their business models. It was quid pro quo.

But I don't think interchangeability is the same as treating them equally. AT&T had to connect you to anywhere globally, but it didn't have to do it for the same price. Local vs. long distance vs. international.

Some cellphone companies even had "pick 5 free number" plans. Nothing bad happened.

Plus the internet seems to achieve total interactivity without it being mandated. Though a lot of the backbone internet came from regulated telecomms. Maybe I can't count on the internet developing in a free for all.

> Local vs. long distance vs. international.

That fits in with saying that broad categories are fine, but you can't charge extra for me to call specific stores.

The internet is doing pretty well, but you get ridiculous things like ISPs wanting Netflix to pay to peer even though all the traffic is initiated on the ISP end.

Behold, the problem net neutrality has searched for: Bell Mobility circa 2013 [1]. For $5, you could buy either 10 hours of Bell Mobile TV™ or ~1.5 hours of Netflix (not including your subscription) [2]. Assumptions below. The story has a happy ending, in that the Canadian equivalent of the FCC wound up forcing them to change their pricing after four or five years [3]. Whoo. What's a few million dollars between friends.

Make up your own mind as to whether you want this to be your future.

Assumptions:

1 Mbit/s video streams

Data purchased in 5GB ($35) chunks. Note that, if purchased in 500 MB chunks, one can watch 15 minutes of Netflix, which is laughable and therefore not presented due to shock value.

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20121220034331/http://www.bell.c...?

[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20130102055752/http://www.bell.c...

[3]:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/bell-denie...

It isn't "suddenly a problem now". Many of us said the exact same thing when T-Mobile announced their music plan. But we were drowned out by the excitement of people who didn't seem to know any better.

It's unpopular to say this but "unlimited data" is not necessarily a consumer-friendly policy. We talk about data caps like it's a way to extort more money. But corporations have budgets they need to fill. If not data overages, they'd just raise your base plan pricing or add more fees. Unlimited data doesn't really reduce how much consumers pay.

The difference... is how that money is distributed. For unlimited data plans, everyone pays the same. Which means the dude who torrents 50 gigs over 4G pays the same as my great aunt, who barely knows how to dial her phone. (But data plans are required for smartphones.)

Tiered data is the first step towards making people who use their service more, pay a larger share of the money that, let's face it, our carrier is going to collect from us anyways. It's just hard for many of us in the tech circle to accept that. Because we're 1%ers. We use a disproportionately larger segment of data than everyone else. Should we pay more than people who barely use their phones? Absolutely.

I'm not saying carriers don't overcharge, I'm not saying carriers don't add a lot of unnecessary fees. I'm not saying we don't have scary ISP monopolies in places where the government really should step in. But what I am saying is that metered data vs. unlimited data isn't the fight we want to pretend it is. And "unlimited data" plans with their restrictions against hosting a server on wire lines or against tethering on wireless is distinctly opposed to the values of net neutrality. And setting aside what services are free to use and not free to use furthers that not net neutral goal.

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