re: The bundling of Internet content has begun and its about to get worse

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If ATT buys time Warner and now only att customers can watch game of thrones unlimited for free but everyone else has to pay to watch it and pay extra to watch it as much as they want you're OK with that?

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I'd be ok with that specific case, because who gives a frick about game of thrones... That's a two way street of supply and demand, which is a slippery slope on its own. If people have to pay to see some show(increasing cost of supply), than the demand for it will go down, decreasing ratings.

Overall though, this would be bad for the consumer.

Unlimited with sprint no care

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at&t isn't the only pipe out there. They don't even offer service where I live.

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In my neighborhood, U-Verse internet is the only choice for wired internet. Satellite internet is crap.

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Do you find this acceptable?

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I do not and at no point did I say I was okay with it. I was merely joking in the specific case of having to pay more for game of thrones. I've never seen that show and never will. However, net neutrality is a must and I thought there were laws protecting that, so how could this even be the start of what this thread has proposed?

I don't really have an issue with this at all, seems like capitalism. The big companies can charge more for certain sites, but the reality is that competition will most likely make all this all for nothing.

The big companies are grasping for higher profits in the fair market and the market will dictate how that goes. Its a change certainly, but I don't have an issue with it.

The issues they are going to run into is that most people have 1 good internet option and one or 2 bad options. So they aren't going to be able to have a fair market as the options for people to pick and choose are not there. So if they charge for game of thrones for example, people aren't going to pay for game of thrones they will just wait for it to be free some other way.

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I don't understand why internet users are so unaware of and indifferent to net neutrality issues. Cheers for posting this.

If you're interested, here is an interview with Manuel de Landa on the subject: LINK.

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Thank you that is interesting for sure. I feel like he's picking and choosing when it comes to determining what constitutes a self-organizing entity versus a planned entity. Inevitably he seems to fall back on the presence of the dark and mysterious anti-market capitalists but then he talks about how we (the govt) need to step up and create rules to keep them out. I don't know how he justifies this position as being more organic than just accepting the "anti-market forces" as part of the self-organizing market itself. What I mean is it seems like he ultimately decides whether something is an anti-market force or not based on his own existing biases. Awesome read though!

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In addition to existing offerings by Dish (Sling TV) and Sony (Playstation Vue), the "over the top" market is about to get flooded with an absolute torrent of live TV streaming competitors including Apple, YouTube, Hulu, and Amazon. Ideally, these services would all compete with DirecTV Now based on quality and pricing. But under AT&T's new zero rating umbrella, all of those services will count against AT&T's usage caps, while DirecTV Now won't. Owning the pipe and the content will protect AT&T from the full brunt of increased competition in the space.

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What the hell is the problem here?

AT&T has a data cap - many plans do. If you use their service, it doesn't count against your cap. If you use other services, it does count against the cap. So what?

Obviously it would be great if there was no cap, but if there is going to be a data cap, am I supposed to believe that AT&T should count DirecTV Now the same as everyone else? That is bad business.

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So if they charge for game of thrones for example, people aren't going to pay for game of thrones they will just wait for it to be free some other way.

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You just described why this paradigm is terrible for internet freedom.

Charge for something, and people go elsewhere. ISPs, which are now becoming media companies, offer all of their content for free. People then stick to those websites because they don't want to rack up fees visiting other websites that aren't sponsored.

Had this policy been in full effect 15 years ago...

Walmart is the king of online shopping, and Amazon never becomes successful.

ISP media sites are the king of online video, and Youtube never becomes successful.

Some conglomerate buys Myspace, and Facebook never becomes successful.

AOL and Netscape become the only portals to the internet, and Chrome and Firefox never become successful.

The internet, effectively, comes under the control of ISPs and their cooperate brethren. Instead of a few guys coding up the next big thing in their basement, the ISPs control what becomes successful.

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Assuming the data caps aren't going away, are you suggesting it would be better if TigerDroppings and ESPN both counted against your limit? If the caps are going to be there anyway, I'll take whatever free access they'll allow.

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If there's a data cap, all sites should count against the cap.

Forget about the cap for a second though - would you find it acceptable if your ISP charged you 10 cents per minute to access Tigerdroppings, but not for ESPN?

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Forget about the cap for a second though - would you find it acceptable if your ISP charged you 10 cents per minute to access Tigerdroppings, but not for ESPN?

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You can't just forget about the cap, because without the cap, none of this matters.