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Comment by izacus | Hacker News Reader

No, my attitude is "I should be able to do with my 5GB dataplan whatever I wish because that's what I pay for and the carrier has no business dictating why my hardware can or cannot do.". And since I live in EU that is an actual reality - my carrier provides the voice and data service and my phone does what I tell it to and I can choose whichever phone I want. Free market as it should be.

Which is why it baffles me beyond all limits just why so many smart Americans go out of their way to defend corporate practices that hurt them as customers.

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I'm not American, I'm European, so you're really putting the ass in assume there. And frankly the moralising so many Europeans are so quick to engage in is an embarrassment.

This really isn't complicated. If your carrier contract doesn't forbid tethering but they sold you a phone that does, take it up with them, that sounds messed up and rare. If your contract forbids tethering then you're just trying to weasel your way out of a market you voluntarily entered in to. That's the opposite of the free market.

Read your contract. You don't pay for a "5GB data plan". You pay for a "5GB data plan to be used on your mobile only". Violating your contract is not "free market".

What does "to be used on your mobile only" even mean? Does it mean you can't transfer any data downloaded on the phone to anywhere else? That's ridiculous. Or perhaps it means the connection must be via your phone, which is definitely the case if you are tethering. A data plan is an Internet connection. However you look at it, it's a gross violation of net neutrality principles to say what you can or cannot do with the data transferred through it.

It means what you know it means.

Again, I'm not from America. My contract does not say anything so idiotic. I can use my paid data as I wish.

Why are you trying so hard to support your telcos decision to make your life worse?

I'm not from the US either. And those policies are there to reduce congestion, that's all.

"reduce congestion" is just a weasel way of saying that the providers sell beyond their capacity. I understand overbooking is a very common practice, but it is based on risk assessment -- and providers shouldn't be able to dodge all risk for their decision by disavowing their responsibility in single-sided "contracts".

Yes, of course they sell beyond their capacity. This is the real world we live in.

If everybody in your neighbourhood turned their faucets on at once, water supply would simply stop working. So?

Nice straw man you have there "If everybody in your neighbourhood turned their faucets on at once, water supply would simply stop working. So?"

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