http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/05/comcast-plans-data-c...
We are the 98%! And charging the heavy users more makes our service cheaper.
Some of the people complaining here are elites – in technical and economic terms – and want poorer, less-sophisticated people to subsidize their outlier usage. And they're dressing this desire-for-handouts up in a righteous anger!
If they don't have competition, regulation can't always simulate the same consumer benefits, for a number of reasons. The regulators are often at the mercy of the regulated company. (The FCC, for example, is all telecom/lobbyist/party-functionary lawyers.) The regulated company tends to do fine, as their model and margins get frozen into slow-moving regulatory law. Smaller/newer companies with other models and technologies can't as easily fit into the regulatory mold, which often even bans them from offering the high-value (differentiated) services that could offer a competitive toehold. Can't have some upstart skimming off the cream from the now-tamed monopolist!
Which is why in all cases new competition, not formulaic rules from DC lawyers, should be the policy priority.
I think this argument conflates whether Comcast is too expensive with whether usage-based pricing is necessarily unfair.
Put another way, why is it ok to charge less for a capped speed but it isn't ok to charge less for a capped monthly transfer?
The best kind of rate raises are rate raises that don't look like a rate raise but effectively is one.
> Put another way, why is it ok to charge less for a capped speed but it isn't ok to charge less for a capped monthly transfer?
Because the monthly cap is far too low and the usage fees are ridiculously expensive. Combined with the fine print 95% of customers are worse off with a monthly capped transfer.
So is the complaint that usage fees are inherently wrong, or that Comcast is simply too expensive?
I don't agree that the price needs to have any relation to the wholesale cost, though. It's just price discrimination. Expensive shampoo doesn't cost more than cheap shampoo because of the ingredients.
Price discrimination is ok, if it in addition to providing a premium product also makes the good or product more affordable and available to another class of customers, thus creating a consumer surplus. Classic example: air travel.
Comcast's offering is a sham. It makes broadband more expensive for everyone. This is inherently worse.
For families the numbers seem sillier.