MrPopo wrote:Is everyone here too young to remember early dial up rates?
No, but I don't want to go back to those dark ages.
Believe me, I had AOL.
Get off my lawn!
Try 300 baud with a Westridge Modem and BBS connections on a C64. Local phone calls had to be verified to be sure you were in the local and more importantly not outside a toll charge zone. The one advantage was no Spyware!
MrPopo wrote:Is everyone here too young to remember early dial up rates?
I kinda miss all the noises.
Since this signature affects old posts, I'm leaving a message here in case anyone searches for my username. This account died in early 2013. I am no longer a fundamentalist.
Don't add to my problems by pretending my past views are still held in the present. I do not have any patience for that. Feel free to ask me what I think now.
J T wrote: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.
The requirements for "basic" living going up seem to be the problem to me. 15 years ago we didnt have internet bills, cellphone bills, or texting bills. Thats a $200 per month cost of living increase even without inflation.
As much as I love torrents, looking for Scarlett Johanson n00dz and so on, it's really not necessary for me. Email is necessary, but I can just check that at work, or on my phone.
If this happens (and caps aren't huge enough to give me room to dl my stuff at will) then I'll just become an email checker, and that's it.
J T wrote: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.
The requirements for "basic" living going up seem to be the problem to me. 15 years ago we didnt have internet bills, cellphone bills, or texting bills. Thats a $200 per month cost of living increase even without inflation.
Cellphone can be seen as a replacement for landlines of young adults these days, as very few of my coworkers have a land line anymore. But you're right about things like the internet.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
The big issue is, as many people mentioned, the ridiculous monopolization of the internet industry. I can't recall exactly where I read it, but there's a great article on how internet became so good in England in particular. To summarize, basically they had one or two service providers for everyone, they got crappy service at high rates (sound familiar?). Then AT&T and a couple other US companies wanted in on service there, but needed access to the main internet companies pipes to deliver their internet. A huge political battle erupted, with AT&T fighting for competitiveness (holy crap really?), and eventually a certain politician that used to work for the main English company shamed them into conceding, and they were forced to allow other companies to use their pipes. What resulted was today's incredible internet service, where just about every goddamn company provides internet; even grocery stores! So Grandma and Grandpa can get a slower internet for dirt cheap to check their email, and the epic torrenting/gaming types can get ridiculously fast internet for dirt cheap, though obviously more than Grandma and Grandpa.
So in a bizarre twist, AT&T saved England's internet for the consumer, and caused everyone to get good rates and blazing fast internet. AT&T's excuse for why they don't do a similar thing in the states is that our country is "too big." Or in other words, they have the monopoly here, so they don't want to screw it up. So, we get screwed by our telecom industry, while other countries get saved by it. Bizarre right?
Oh and Hobie, I saw the same thing you did, that the "peak users" aren't really the ones causing any problems, it was on Engadget and Gizmodo within the last week I believe, can't quite find the article though.
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