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Comment by skynet-9000 | Hacker News Reader

> some ISPs also wanted to sell "internet lite" packages that are cheaper and only allow you to connect to a fixed set of websites. presumably they would also take money off the back end from those websites that want to be in the list.

In the U.S.? I thought this was only in India with Facebook's non-internet Internet.

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i'm not aware of any ISPs that have taken that step in the US, but since the 2017 repeal it is now a legal business strategy. it has happened in portugal (although that's irrelevant to US law) -- customers get a base package and need to pay extra for the "social media package" (which unlocks twitter and facebook) or the "streaming package" (which unlocks netflix, youtube, etc.) (this is on top of the subscription fees you pay for netflix, etc.).

This proves the point. It is legal, but no one even offered such a package.

if you say so. i think they're waiting to see whether the new administration will overturn. in any case, the main point is about ISPs creating profitable incentive for themselves to keep infrastructure under-developed by making the internet a pay-to-play arena.

follow up: t-mobile has a plan in the US that doesn't charge you for spotify/pandora internet traffic, but does charge you for all other data. that's an "internet lite" plan right there.

https://www.t-mobile.com/offers/free-music-streaming

Point taken. I've seen them do that for Youtube as well -- basically, they don't include Youtube vids in your data plan if you are ok with them degrading the video experience (and you can disable that sort of "feature"). However, this doesn't seem very compelling -- some of the things cable modem providers have done (DPI, injecting SYN or RST's into traffic) can end up far worse, but customers only put up with nonsense like that for so long (unless it's a de facto monopoly in that area).

>customers get a base package and need to pay extra for the "social media package" (which unlocks twitter and facebook) or the "streaming package" (which unlocks netflix, youtube, etc.) According to snopes this doesn't seem to be fully accurate. There was a mobile plan with which you could buy extra data for different services (which I admit is not ideal), but no extra package to "unlock" services.

ok, i did a bit more research on the portugal case. i was going off a tweet with a website screenshot, but found this verge article[1] after reading your comment; and you're right. these sites aren't "blocked" by default, the package addons just give extra data to your plan and that data is specifically for those websites. still not "neutral" (looks like buying facebook data is cheaper than general-use data) but not nearly as dystopian as it seemed.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/22/16691506/portugal-meo-in...

You think they don't want to implement it in the US?

If they wanted, they could have done so.

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