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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   33351 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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Peters said. "Broadband customers, who drive this increased usage, already pay for the development of the network through their subscription fees. Requiring entertainment companies—both streamers and broadcasters—to pay more on top would mean ISPs effectively charging twice for the same infrastructure."

It seems natural to me that customers pay for the product that comes to them. If I get something trucked to me, I assume the cost of road tax (for upkeep of the road that the truck uses) will be included in whatever I pay the trucking company.

Or another example, when people talk about large companies 'emitting CO2' to imply it's their fault rather than ordinary people's, they do so to provide services we demand. The aluminium they smelt, chemicals they produce all go to an end-user eventually. It's not as though they're emitting CO2 for fun. Ultimate responsibility lies with the demand, not the supplier. If we charged the producers as well as the consumers for emitting CO2, we'd effectively just be charging consumers twice since producers can only push the cost onwards or reduce production.

If we discovered that Netflix was doing something ridiculously silly like using inefficient file-compression and increasing the amount of bandwidth used, then there would be some basis to complain. Or if energy companies were using extremely inefficient, expensive, unreliable sources of energy that necessitated costly construction of new power line infrastructure and the closure of power-intensive industries like aluminium plants, then there would be reason to impose punitive action against them.

If we discovered that Netflix was doing something ridiculously silly like using inefficient file-compression and increasing the amount of bandwidth used, then there would be some basis to complain.

A post above yours says that they basically are.

I think you've misread it.

Netflix wanted to rent space in local datacenters to reduce the necessary bandwidth. Comcast shut them down.

That post says the opposite of your claim.

That post says that Comcast refused to let Netflix reduce its bandwidth usage unless Comcast gets paid.

Actually, it's worse than that. Comcast refused to let Netflix reduce its bandwidth usage at any cost. And then managed to get Netflix to pay them extra for that bandwidth usage.

It seems natural to me that customers pay for the product that comes to them. If I get something trucked to me, I assume the cost of road tax (for upkeep of the road that the truck uses) will be included in whatever I pay the trucking company.

I pay both Comcast for the pipes and Netflix for the content that comes over the pipes. If Comcast starts charging Netflix for delivering what I already them pay for, that might be shrewd business on Comcast's part, but I'm not going to like a Netflix fee hike to cover what I'm already paying for.

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