re: $12 A Month For Facebook – Sprint Tramples Over Net Neutrality With New Prepaid

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I think you have too much faith in this free market

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i'm not even talking about principles in such general terms. why do you keep going back to this near strawman?

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in which the major players are free to pick, choose, and exclude their own competition.

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and, like the part you quoted said, this would almost assuredly lead to the market punishing these parties

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90% of homes out there will hear, "pay an extra $5 to get facbook faster and free up your connection to other sites!" and will think it's the next greatest thing from the internet overlords.

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But that's not what this deal is. The deal is pay an additional $12 to get unlimited (not faster) access to Facebook.

Unless you are posting new pics from your phone to your wall literally every couple of minutes, 24/7, this is not an appealing deal to anyone, let alone 90% of households.

Ah gotcha

I think you, Kork and the others have a legit point, I just don't think this particular plan is the harbinger of death it's being made out to be. On a scale of most threatening to completely benign, I the TMo music freedom deal is a little worse because we're taking music (where data actually matters).

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y'all still arguing this?

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Like I mentioned before, these issues tend to get treated as religion. Fortunately (or unfortunately?), we will probably get to see how this one plays out as net neutrality goes away.

Here is my prediction:

1. Obama has been convinced to abandon his stance on net neutrality to appease big business with their big dollars -- check

2. Net neutrality wanes, ISPs and mobile carriers test the waters of discrimination -- check

3. Bootstrapping innovative new online services and apps becomes much, much more difficult -- 1-2 years

4. Innovative apps and the growth and jobs they create move overseas where success is not hampered by big business controlling the internet -- 2-3 years

5. US economy and job market start to look worse and worse compared to the rest of the developed world -- 3-4 years

6. Big business and their now smaller dollars blame Obama anyway for allowing our economy to tank

7. HRC toward the end of her term finally does what Obama didn't have the balls to do and gets net neutrality rules put in place

8. The economy turns around and really starts booming just in time for an R to take the credit somewhere around 2022

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Are you not arguing for free market principles as opposed to government regulation and intervention?

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yes but i'm giving specific examples and you're just responding with "[general term] is your religion" without responding to the examples

you're not addressing anything. in response to specific examples, you're just stating: free market solutions are bad. government is good.

if that's your philosophy, then fine, but don't act like it's a point made in response to what i wrote

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Punish how?

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by consumers (that you have such disdain for) not purchasing their goods/services and moving towards better offerings from other companies

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You even believe that you speak for most consumers when you say that packages like the ones mentioned in the OP are a good thing.

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not specifically. i'm saying that a range of options, like what is mentioned in the OP, can be beneficial to consumers

i'd rather let them decide what they think is best for them. you've specifically stated you don't care what works for them or what they choose. in fact, you've essentially stated that you fear letting consumers of the market set the market

i'm not speaking for consumers. i'm giving what i think would happen in specific hypothetical scenarios you allude to, but in general my argument is that we don't know how consumers will react, but it likely won't be in a way that you or i would (as power users)

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You feel that it is a positive to pay for the privilege of excluding other services from fair competition?

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nothing is unfair in the ability to compete. all are free to contract with each other. that's fair

and if the person benefits from that privilege and it is in line with what product/service they desire, then yes, it's good

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There won't be any consumer backlash unless the minority like me convince the majority like you that this type of favoritism is going to do serious harm to our economy.

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and your arguments about this are patently absurd. you've stated that companies will no longer market tech innovations to the largest economy in the world (and a market of 300M people). are you backing down from that absurd claim, or is it still the backbone of your argument?

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We just need to realize that underneath the surface, thousands (millions?) of would-be entrepreneurs with great products are just going to get shoved aside before they even get off the ground, due to the uneven playing field and the inability to pay to play with Facebook, Twitter, etc.

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i don't believe this at all. there are always titans, and new tech always takes over. remember when AOL dominated the landscape? now, will the big tech conglomerates buy up new tech? of course they will, but that's no different than today's landscape. i don't know why you think this will stop. why do you think this will stop?

she's already getting cannibalized by her own party 2 years out. i just don't see how she survives a primary and election, esp if Rand gets the GOP nom. Political-election talk ON [OFF]

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yes but i'm giving specific examples and you're just responding with "[general term] is your religion" without responding to the examples

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Your examples are not at all analogous to the issue.

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you're not addressing anything. in response to specific examples, you're just stating: free market solutions are bad. government is good.

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Nope, free market solutions are good in the vast majority of cases. Surely you can agree that there are cases, though, where free markets aren't "good" and regulation is necessary, right? If you agree, great, let's focus on this particular market and forget about the fluff. If you don't agree, well, then you already heard what I said about religion.

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by consumers (that you have such disdain for) not purchasing their goods/services and moving towards better offerings from other companies

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I don't have disdain for consumers. On the contrary, I think they (myself included) would be making a good purchasing decision by going with one of the plans outlined here. My point, though, is that what is good for a consumer (singular) right now is not necessarily good for consumers (plural) down the road. As I already said a couple times, it's easy to make attractive offerings. But the best offerings from the consumer's perspective are likely to be terrible for the industry down the road. Consider if AT&T were to merge their Uverse video services with their mobile services. Unlimited mobile video streaming, for a decent price.. great, right? Nope, because Netflix and others would be severely handicapped, at any price, since their streaming would be capped. The catalog of content, quality of video and service, price... none of that matters to this huge customer base if they can only use your service for 1 hour per month. Tough to beat unlimited.

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i'm saying that a range of options, like what is mentioned in the OP, can be beneficial to consumers

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We already have a huge, gigantic range of options. It's called the fricking internet, and yes, it is quite beneficial to consumers. Let's try not to destroy what makes it great, ok?

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i'd rather let them decide what they think is best for them. you've specifically stated you don't care what works for them or what they choose. in fact, you've essentially stated that you fear letting consumers of the market set the market

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See my Uverse example to see how easy it is for ISPs/carriers to distort the market. I don't fear letting consumers set the market, I fear consumers not having the proper set of choices to choose from in order to set the market.

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i'm not speaking for consumers. i'm giving what i think would happen in specific hypothetical scenarios you allude to, but in general my argument is that we don't know how consumers will react, but it likely won't be in a way that you or i would (as power users)

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I guess we will find out sooner or later, eh?

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nothing is unfair in the ability to compete. all are free to contract with each other. that's fair

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In your narrow, dare I say again "religious", view of the market, it is fair if all are free to contract with each other. I guess you and I just differ on where the line should be drawn between legal contract and collusion, and what "fair" really means.

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and your arguments about this are patently absurd. you've stated that companies will no longer market tech innovations to the largest economy in the world (and a market of 300M people). are you backing down from that absurd claim, or is it still the backbone of your argument?

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I wouldn't say it is the backbone, but it is a major component of the argument. Again, I guess we will just have to wait and see, hm?

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i don't believe this at all. there are always titans, and new tech always takes over. remember when AOL dominated the landscape? now, will the big tech conglomerates buy up new tech? of course they will, but that's no different than today's landscape. i don't know why you think this will stop. why do you think this will stop?

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Because the rules are changing?