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Comment by voodootrucker | Hacker News Reader

I would argue from a "well regulated market" perspective that is not justified either. A byte's a byte.

I would not disagree :) and i think they came up with unlimited data plans just to label bytes in the future. And they are already doing that. You can already buy a plan with 10gb Facebook + 10gb whatever you want. Makes me sad.

A byte you will certainly use is much more expensive than a byte you are unlikely to use. If we mandated a single price it would get more expensive for non-tetherers.

A byte for your use is not the same as a byte for someone else's use. Setting up a hot spot for other people could be viewed as reselling the service (even if you don't charge for it).

It's still creating restrictions that go against the "natural" behavior of the medium. That's why they need sophisticated tech solutions to enforce it - it's not natural to label bytes, it's not natural to even talk about using the connection yourself vs. reselling the service.

Copyright laws are restrictions that go against the "natural" behavior of any digital medium. Yet we still imple,ent and enforce them. That's what restrictions are, a way to turn ugly reality into a situation that's more felicitous for everyone.

Yup. That's why copyright laws ended up being a total dumpster fire. They're a desperate attempt at making digital data behave as if it were Gutenberg-era books. Not only they fight uphill against the medium, but by refusing to be grounded in reality, they opened themselves to abuse - and thus became captured by the rent-seekers from various industries.

If you aren't profiting, you aren't reselling.

If they're going to offer "unlimited data", then they should give exactly that. If you want to share it with the whole neighborhood, that's your business. If that's a technical problem for them, then they shouldn't be offering "unlimited data" in the first place.

But this is cartel behavior. Apple and Google are acting against their customer's interest to appease a 3rd party. The DoJ should get on this ASAP. Let's hope enough people get on board with EW's plans to break these guys up and regulate them.

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