The internet is dead.

[Inazuma]

The only internet I can get is 3mb AT&T DSL which completely sucks or my current Time Warner cable internet, which is actually pretty good. I have 20mb/2mb for $60 a month and there are no restrictions at all, thankfully.

I use almost 1TB of data a month, so if they changed to a pay as you go plan, I'd probably have to pay them like $5000 a month, because they will likely overcharge up the ass for it.

It would force me to download a lot less torrents and watch a lot less Youtube videos, and that would piss me off.

[Flake]

It would force me to download a lot less torrents and watch a lot less Youtube videos, and that would piss me off.

Ironically, this would probably cause you to buy more retail media from legitimate outlets as that would become a more cost effective alternative in the face of the $5000 internet bill you predict you'll have.

There is some humor to be had in this, at least.

[o.pwuaioc]

It would force me to download a lot less torrents and watch a lot less Youtube videos, and that would piss me off.

Ironically, this would probably cause you to buy more retail media from legitimate outlets as that would become a more cost effective alternative in the face of the $5000 internet bill you predict you'll have.

There is some humor to be had in this, at least.

Actually, I, at least, would most likely go without.

[Inazuma]

It would force me to download a lot less torrents and watch a lot less Youtube videos, and that would piss me off.

Ironically, this would probably cause you to buy more retail media from legitimate outlets as that would become a more cost effective alternative in the face of the $5000 internet bill you predict you'll have.

There is some humor to be had in this, at least.

Nope. I'd say fuck it all and just go without it, and then do everything I could to find a better ISP.

I may even look into moving somewhere else that has better internet, depending on the situation.

[dsheinem]

it sucks, but isn't it in their best interest since only a small percentage of customers will complain? I bet they've figured the pros and cons of pay-per-data and ultimately see this as a smart business choice. can you blame them for that? hell, this model is standard practice in many countries. You have every right to cancel service or go elsewhere, but can you blame them for wanting to make more money?

And net neutrality had to do with selling access to certain sites, making certain pages faster to load than others, etc. This seems like a different (if still shitty) thing...

So yes, torrenters and other heavy bandwidth users will get screwed, but my guess is that losing them is smart business for th ISP. If it turns out that customers leave en masse, you can bet they'll go back to the current model. I'm guessing that won't be the case, though...

[Hobie-wan]

I can't find it now but I just read something the other day that it really isn't even the big downloaders that use all the bandwidth during peak times. It is just all of the tons of people doing their normal evening surfing and whatnot.

[dsheinem]

I can't find it now but I just read something the other day that it really isn't even the big downloaders that use all the bandwidth during peak times. It is just all of the tons of people doing their normal evening surfing and whatnot.

No, it is streaming Netflix and the like which eats the most bandwidth these days...

[MrPopo]

I thought the whole net neutrality thing was supposed to protect consumers from this sort of thing happening. Was I wrong about that?

It's getting ridiculous how much the basic cost of living is. It's just expected that the average person have internet access and cellphone, and the rates just keep going up.

As Dsh mentioned, net neutrality is ISPs not being able to throttle you based upon the particular sites you visit. This is simply a throttle once you go above some finite amount of opaque data.

[Hobie-wan]

Well that too, but I meant that the general masses all watching youtube videos and stuff (plus netflix) in the evening was found to add up to a lot more than the minority of people torrenting every movie and game ever 24 hours a day.

[emwearz]

Australia have had usage based billing in place since dial up, my current plan is 500GB a month, I have never even come close to using it all.

It use to suck heaps more when 10mbp connections had 20GB caps and anything more than it cost $100 a month. But the allowances are getting so high, I have not felt capped in years.