The service is optional from all sides: both the consumer and the content provider. It gives me, as a user of the general internet, more control over what I do with the internet. Not less.
It may be better if there was RFC for devices to register their bandwidth preferences that Netflix and other video services implemented, but there's not. Perhaps BingeOn is a route towards that.
Not mine. Sure Bloomberg, Wikipedia & other top-tier payers' windows open fast, but I find most "not popular" sites hang and drag on opening new tabs/windows... long enough for me to open a Bloomberg tab/window to "prime the pump", so to speak. Tethering to a laptop, I can watch local library or .gov window attempting to load with no in/out network traffic for 15-20 seconds. Everytime I open Bloomberg or Google, multiple previously loading tabs/windows recommence instantaneously.
Are you sure that content providers are opting in? I've read that services like youtube are being throttled, while not benefiting from being included in the 'free streaming' services.
And Legere was implying that Google may have bribed EFF to attack T-Mobile on Google's behalf, suggesting that Google wasn't happy; I assumed this is because Google is not happy that T-Mobile is throttling youtube (presumably) without their consent.
There's a lot more going on here than "the pipes are filtering our data" and being blind to that means that the problem is going to unaddressed for longer.
If we allow data metering of any sort at all, then BingeOn things have to be ok. If we want to ban all provider-based data caps on wireless networks, I'm not sure exactly how that would work. And its not just data metering over wireless networks, pretty much all hosting solutions are billing based on the amount of data transferred.