This occurred to me today: the past 20 years of internet access has been predicated on free data. As in, when you bought Internet you got unlimited data usage. However, this is objectively going away as data caps are implemented. Mobile carriers have already made the switch (now you get unlimited talk/text, with a data cap) and ISPs are doing so as well. Metered data is the past (late 80s/early 90s where you'd call in and use your minutes), and future, of the Internet.
This has profound implications:
1. 4k (or 16k, or whatever) won't go mainstream. HD only happened because people didn't ever think about the cost of a 1 mb video vs a 4 mb video.
2. adblocking will continue to go mainstream, since it offers the user a direct benefit (less data usage and faster loading)
3. AAA videogames will either have to come down in size, or people will stop buying them. The rise of Steam (a place where alternative, smaller games are offered) is the first step to this
free internet services like google, youtube and gmail will stick around but the way people interact with them might change. If data costs money, then people will think about each click in terms of "is this worth 50 cents to view?"
>>55300333
Only americucks have data caps
Interesting thoughts. However it all predicates on the fact that more stringent data caps will be the trend.
It's dependent on market trends, there are some worrying things. In the US Comcast has a 1TB data cap now, which is enough for a moderate amount of 4K video but worrying for people who drop video and watch online streaming at such a resolution. Some smaller ISPs have data caps, but currently Verizon FiOS doesn't have caps, and TWC/Charter had to agree to not implement them for several years as part of merger conditions.
My ISP does not have them now (Optimum Online/Cablevision), but they just got bought by a french company (Altice) notorious for data caps in Europe, and Altice implemented data caps on the other ISP they own in the US (Suddenlink) already.
The future probably is data caps to punish those who use the internet for more than light browsing and cut the cords to make up for profit lost on TV packages.
The interesting bit is that the ISPs are in a bit of a rock and a hard place by thinking they could exempt their own streaming services and squeeze out others with data caps, but then the courts have thus far backed Title II certification, meaning if ISPs don't want to be liable for what content users transfer (illegal images, copyright violations, etc.) then they can't fuck with the traffic. This will probably mean less direct ISP sponsored streaming services and more data caps in the interim to try to protect cable as a viable source of entertainment.
When we get really fucked is if someone comes up with a robust and reliable replacement for cable packages, and no, SlingTV doesn't count (you can only view it one device at a time making it useless for a household, and it's still missing a lot of sports). When that happens, data capping is inevitable. If most normies are willing to continue spending $100 a month or so on cable, caps will probably still exist but be much higher.
>>55300364
It's either that or Net Neutrality dies. ISPs are businesses, not charities. Either data usage is metered, or they are able to gouge websites for customer access. Someone has to pay: either the consumer, or the producer. As it presently stands, FCC rules are "producer-friendly" in the sense that websites/companies are protected. They get a guaranteed level playing field for customers. The ISPs have no problem with this as they already use metered rates for their telephone services.
This is how the chips fell. Businesses have more money to protect their interests than individual Internet users do.
>>55300382
figure that the highest data users are going to be:
- people that buy multiple AAA games a year
- people that watch more than 2-3 hours of video a day
- people that listen to music more than 2-3 hours a day
Most of the Internet (in aggregate) isn't this. Email, wikipedia, blogs etc are all fairly light datawise. The people who will get hurt the most are those that want bandwidth-heavy things (AAA vidya, video, music).
>not using Boost or Metro PCS and getting unlimited high speed data
This is all your fault, stop feeding greedy jews. Verizon wireless exists because people unironically use them as a carrier.
fuck off americans
>>55300626
Blu-ray discs hold 50 gb of data, or about a 2-hour video. So assuming people consumer 2 hours of video every day, that's 7 Blu-rays a week, or about 30 per billing cycle. That's 1500 Gb, or 1.5 Tb data. If people consume 4 hours a day (like most Americans do), then that's 3 Tb.
I think the larger question is how PPV and sports games will fit into this, because eventually all the major leauges are going to figure out that they can make more money selling stream access online. But, if they do it in only 1080p or 4k, then they are going to force consumers to get higher-rate ISP packages to allow for the increased data use.
>>55300662
America is the Internet. You're on an American website, right now.
>>55300640
Verizon also has better coverage, as does AT&T. Remember that most of the country lives outside the northeast.
>>55300333
data has always cost money who the heck is getting free internet?
>>55300710
until a few years ago, data typically came free with your phone plan. Then at some point, the amount of data users grew larger than the amount of phone users, so data is starting to be metered while phone services become (more or less) free
>>55300730
the death of payphones and the rise of wifi hotspots are physical proof of this in the real world
>>55300544
>ISPs are businesses, not charities.
Just FYI, the ISP market isn't specifically designed to fuck the customer in the ass in every country around. There are places where internet access is much faster, much cheaper and completely uncapped and that came about as a result of actual competition.
>>55300818
Those are also countries where internet access is subsidized by the local government. Also, most countries did not get Internet until after the US, as kept their nationalized telco monopolies until the mid 90s (America killed AT&T in 1982). Taxpayers paid for it and not consumers.
>>55300683
lmao, let me guess, you believe the usa has the most freedom, privacy, democracy etc right?
Let me guess more, you are on this board without having programmed once in your life right?
>>55300848
>kept their nationalized telco monopolies until the mid 90s
That's what happened where I live, as a direct consequence infrastructure is quite modern and competition over the last 10 years alone increased the bandwidth you can get for cheap by at least 10x.
>>55300696
Thank you panjeet, 10 cents have been deposited into your account.
>>55300912
America has more e-freedoms than you, if only because of the First Amendment. It's illegal to post "hate speech" to websites in europe, but not in America.
Which is why the US leaving ICANN's leadership up to other countries will probably result in online free speech eroding away. Such is already the case in Russia and China, the tools are already there for european countries to adopt.
>>55301076
at the expenses of taxes paid by your parents, which otherwise would have went into their estates (which you will eventually come into possession of)
Internet via cables in the ground will never be data capped, only bandwidth capped. It cost ISPs who own their own infrastructure like less than a cent per gigabyte a customer uses. What they're really spending money on is customer service and technicians to fix or upgrade the infrastructure.
Compare this to companies that offer satellite internet. Do you know how expensive it is for AT&T to launch and maintain their dozens of satellites in orbit above us right now? Well I can tell you they pay a shit ton more per gigabyte than what cable Internet providers pay, which is why they have to have data caps and the cost for say a 10 gigabyte plan is so expensive.
C'mon guys, let's use our brains here for a moment.
>>55301345
Companies will try to get people to pay for whatever they think they can charge and get away with. Cable internet providers already have data caps in areas where they have a captive market.
>>55301332
I'm pretty sure that government subsidies weren't offered for ISPs/telcos where I live, I was too young to know anything about that shit when it happened and I don't have any easy to find source about policy back then, but I certainly never heard of the government doing anything like that.
>>55301488
nationalized/monopoly telco service -> price gouging -> less money for you
>america gets data caps
>europe gets 100 gbits connections
kekkekekekekekkkkkkkkkeeeeeeeek
>>55301779
It hasn't been monopolized for like 20 years though.
>>55300696
>>55300640
You can deny this but as a frequent traveler T-Mobile and Sprint BLOW outside major cities.
>>55301812
however http://nigger.com/ cannot be registered in europe
>>55301947
Depends the location.
YMMV goes for sprint, verizon, t-mobile and all the other irrelevant carriers you know.
>>55300544
this is entirely not true
There are three reasons an ISP implements a data cap:
>to discourage streaming
TWC and Comcast would much rather have you shell out $60 for cable than $10-40 to pay for streaming services that they don't get a cut of
>because they can
The TelCo industry, due to large startup costs and the fact that it is basically infrastructure, lends itself to local monopolies. In that case they can kind of charge whatever they want as long as people will pay for it. This can coexist with option 1; by making going over your limit extremely expensive, they can make it seem like a "better deal" to buy cable. But it's a better deal in the sense that the $8 jumbo popcorn at the movie theatre is a better deal than the $7 small popcorn. The worse deal is only there to make you think you're getting a good deal on the other product.
>to allow you to give everyone more bandwidth than they can use
This is like giving everyone a fast car for cheap and then charging $20/gal for gas. When someone really needs to get somewhere fast, they can. But it discourages everyone from driving all the time, so less gas is used overall. This kind of makes sense, but not really when you realize that people are still going to use up all their bandwidth at similar times (e.g. at 8pm on a Sunday). This is the excuse ISPs give for when they really are metering for one of the first two reasons.
There are several good ways to prevent this: nationalization of internet, declaring internet as a utility (basically telling ISPs to stfu, laws will set many restrictions on pricing), and not allowing companies to be both internet and cable providers.
>>55300354
This. No such thing has data caps in Switzerland.
>>55303965
Not all companies have data caps to be honest.
See >>55300640
>>55300333
Companies have been sued over data caps. The reason wireless companies implement them is that the spectrum is limited. The data cap is the primitive way of preventing bandwidth hogging. Once wireless carriers upgrade their shit they can implement qos traffic shaping instead.
>>55300382
Oh shit, optimum got bought out? If they try to pull this data cap shit on me I'm dumping their ass double quick, luckily I still have some choice.
>>55304865
Yeah they got bought by the frogs. If you have a choice take advantage of it. I have Optimum or DSL so I'm fucked if they pull this shit, I will make as much noise as possible to convince them to grandfather me into a cheap unlimited plan if they do attempt that shit.
>>55304886
Oh well, they were getting too expensive anyway. Data caps for internet, what the fucks the world coming too? It feels like we are slowly being cucked by all sides...
>>55304920
I pay $55/mo for 101mbps internet - not amazing by some standards but for uncapped and uncucked by interconnect issues for shit like Netflix I think it's not bad. I'm really worried what Altice will bring to optimum/cablevision.
>>55304176
>Companies have been sued over data caps. The reason wireless companies implement them is that the spectrum is limited.
It is but can easily be used efficiently, this is how companies like Boost mobile are able to give actual unlimited high speed data to customers. Instead of trying to give everyone 100Mbps they share the bandwidth amongst users, ie give everyone ~4-6 Mbps. LTE towers have ~100Mbps of total bandwidth and this can further be increased with carrier aggregation.
>The data cap is the primitive way of preventing bandwidth hogging. Once wireless carriers upgrade their shit they can implement qos traffic shaping instead.
They're already beeb doing that since LTE.
The only reap reason data caps exist is because carriers want to have the biggest bandwidth dick in town. So Verizon will give you 1GB at 1TB/s and then slow you down to 1kbps until your next bill cycle. Because people live in constant fear of using up their data they watch 100x20 res youtube or disable images when they surf the web. This allows Verizon to provide 1TB/s speeds especially when people are brave enough to do a 1MB speed test.
>>55300333
Are data caps still a thing? I have Comcast and I don't have a cap kek
>>55306027
*yet
>>55300333
>Shit: The Post
