Article View: alt.internet.wireless
Article #320Re: NEWS: Free Wi-Fi still a goer in San Fran'
From: Bill Z.
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:55
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:55
37 lines
3391 bytes
3391 bytes
John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> writes: > On Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:09:50 -0400, jayjwa <jayjwa@vdrl.ath.cx.invalid> > wrote in <x7d4lqt381.fsf@vdrl.ath.cx>: > > >The first home Internet connections were like that. I remember years > >ago when AOL made its big start. The usage was metered and you'd have > >one eye on the clock, one on what you were doing. Several of my first > >accounts were like that. You'd get so many "hours" of use, and beyond > >that, you'd pay through the nose for each minute/hour/unit over > >time. Flat-rate was when Internet took off. Before that, people used > >to get pissed at stuff like a 6-line signature because their usage was > >metered. This was more by connection time and you are talking more > >about data size, but the idea is the same: some ticker running out on > >you. Let's move forward, not backwards. > > That makes no sense. The market only works when price signals are > related to actual cost, and flat rate pricing is clearly broken. Unfortunately, metered pricing is broken too. How would you charge for email, for example? Should the user pay per byte to receive spam? Should the sender pay and if so, how do you bill the sender? If someone whose computer is hijacked ends up with an astronomical bill one month, the likely result will be a customer who decides that the Internet isn't worth it. The other problem is that you can't determine how much data you are getting in advance - try to do that with a web page whose server is using chunked encoding. If you can't determine the price before buying it, a market-based approach simply doesn't work. Bill -- My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB
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X-Google-Thread: 104fd2,ba5de5a729aa12e1 X-Google-Thread: fa874,ba5de5a729aa12e1 X-Google-Attributes: gid104fd2,gidfa874,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!out02a.usenetserver.com!news.usenetserver.com!in04.usenetserver.com!news.usenetserver.com!nlpi057.nbdc.sbc.com!prodigy.net!flpi088.ffdc.sbc.com!prodigy.com!flpi107.ffdc.sbc.com!flpi147.ffdc.sbc.com.POSTED!79589bed!not-for-mail Sender: nobody@nowhere Newsgroups: alt.internet.wireless,ba.internet Subject: Re: NEWS: Free Wi-Fi still a goer in San Fran' References: <4gk254dckmcce9si8g1if64bmq08jm9v1p@4ax.com> <8763sdjef7.fsf@nospam.pacbell.net> <pcSdnUOBS_aqps7VnZ2dnUVZ_vadnZ2d@posted.southvalleyinternet> <48542aaf$0$17237$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net> <HisRoyalRadioHigness-6E2B47.13553714062008@news.announcetech.com> <819i545fe2h55o2p71gfhoul5ois99ut4l@4ax.com> <x7d4lqt381.fsf@vdrl.ath.cx> <4ig574pe8mom5kkcl78p4qkev75uf9jdf1@4ax.com> From: nobody@nospam.pacbell.net (Bill Z.) Message-ID: <87fxqlgk4y.fsf@nospam.pacbell.net> Lines: 37 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.4 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.233.20.69 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: flpi147.ffdc.sbc.com 1215485455 ST000 209.233.20.69 (Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:50:55 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:50:55 EDT Organization: at&t http://my.att.net/ X-UserInfo1: Q[RGGSCE@JUYBQH]^JKBOW@@YJ_ZTB\MV@BNMRQIMASJETAANVW[AKWZE\]^XQWIGNE_[EBL@^_\^JOCQ^RSNVLGTFTKHTXHHP[NB\_C@\SD@EP_[KCXX__AGDDEKGFNB\ZOKLRNCY_CGG[RHT_UN@C_BSY\G__IJIX_PLSA[CCFAULEY\FL\VLGANTQQ]FN Date: 07 Jul 2008 19:55:09 -0700