SvennoJ said:
DonFerrari said:
Data cap cover the quantity used... but if you can have also a choice on the services and pay less using less or more using more it even out and make people that focus their usage pay less in the end.
In Brazil we have very few ISPs because the regulation prevent competition so they say the neutrality protects the user.... but it protects more the interest of the few companies. Not sure how it goes over there.
But it really isn't much different than having a combo where the "unlimeted" or any higher plan is cheaper when bought with a streaming service.
|
How does the regulation prevent competition?
Here we already saw the effects of getting around net neutrality in the form of zero rating. A particular streaming service makes a deal with a particular isp to make their data not count to the data cap. Meanwhile the streaming service raises the price for everybody but promotes this deal with the particular isp. So other streaming services are disadvantaged and people using that streaming service on a different isp are disadvantaged as well. Wouldn't you say net neutrality protects the user in that case?
And consider this
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/as-us-prepares-to-gut-net-neutrality-rules-canada-strengthens-them/
I just wanted to add a bit of history here so that people understand why the CRTC cracks down so hard on net neutrality.
In 2005, workers for the telecommunications company Telus were on strike. Some of these workers set up a website that including discussions suggesting jamming Telus's phone lines and showed pictures of people who crossed the union picket lines. Note that whether or not you think that's a shitty thing to do, it was a legal thing to do.
Telus responded by completely blocking their subscribers from accessing that website.
In doing that, Telus (a major telecom here) violated net neutrality in the most spectacular way possible by blocking a website because they disagreed with the protected speech it was engaging in. That led the CRTC to start taking net neutrality very seriously, and it made opposition to that push virtually impossible by completely undermining the most frequently repeated argument against net neutrality ("we don't need it because nobody's violating it anyways") and demonstrating why it's important all in one fell swoop.
|
Regulation is considered an entry barrier among Porter Forces... regulation represents a cost and possibility to limit the number of competitors.
There is a problem when you do 1-1 analysis instead of scope; yes the other streaming services were at disavantage on that ISP. But customer could go to other ISPs and streaming looking to the best option to him, and other ISPs could have other deals.
Whenever you raise the price (or fail to lower it) you open yourself to have your competitor getting over you. That is another of the forces of Porter... when you look to even a market that is almost monopolistic as the console makers, Sony opened itself to X360. And X1 opened to PS4. So over time those practices get someone to see an opportunity and offer ilimited service for the price of the ones that limit, or full access for price of the ones that fragment. Because if the company that fragment or limit is abusing on profit it won't be that hard for the opponent to offer those and still profit.
