Another way your ISP is gonna try to get into your wallet....

[LiberalHeart]

Link goes to a story about a "test" Time Warner plans. They'll charge according to internet usage, not a flat rate in a test to be conducted in Texas -- and other companies will be watching. The idea is to make the "heavy users" pay more instead of having the light users carry the load for them:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22707271/

[spotbird]

1. In the short term

all the heavy users will just change providers.

In the long term, people will just use the internet less.

[LiberalHeart]

2. What gets me that these companies put videos out there...

...wanting people to view them, then they get bent out of shape because we do?

I doubt I'd use the net less if charged more. I think they call this "addiction" ... so I wonder how time spent online versus downloading large files would compare, price-wise, under this plan.

[Mist]

3. That's got me thinking: users will avoid videos that are basically

advertising, or come-ons to enroll in something or buy something. That's going to piss off advertisers big time. Anyone using the internet to basically advertise will have to have it out with the ISPs.

[in_cog_ni_to]

4. Isn't that what AOL use to do? I seem to recall having to pay for time used when I first started on

AOL. They SUCK, BTW...and I stopped using them years ago, but to get them to drop my account was another freakin' battle with those people. They REFUSED to cancel my account until I told them flat-out...I will NOT be using AOL anymore and if you bill be again, I will sue you! That shut her up and she finally canceled my account after an hour of arguing about it. Anyway, I do believe this is how they charged in their early days.

[LiberalHeart]

7. Yes, they did do that.

So did Prodigy, if I recall correctly. I'd forgotten about that. But there was -- for me, anyway -- a lot less to do on the net back then. I remember that awful Navigator icon spinning and getting nowhere, and having no luck finding anything other than what looked like old bulletin board discussion areas. Gawd, that was a long time ago.

I, too, had a battle with AOL to get free of them. The jerk on the phone kept reading from a script and I kept telling him to stop. He'd just go back to the top of the script and begin again. He called me rude for interrupting him. But, bless his heart, he did cancel the account eventually.

[unpossibles]

5. I'd be fine with it as long as they credit me for all the times their stupid service slows down

and it's not my fault.

[Lint Head]

6. The powerful are fearful of giving the common person control

of new technological media sources. It threatens their fascist totalitarian corporate ideology. The truth is a powerful weapon in the hands of the common people when it comes to destroying corporate criminals and corporate entities that want to subjugate the people. :dem: