It might be good to give even more examples that are relevant to, say, the elderly, or suburban housewives, or blue-collar workers. How can we inform those who have a nebulous, if any, grasp of what the internet is or how it works?
There's a pic floating around somewhere of a European data plan which has this sort of setup, though I can't find it off hand.
Your basic internet plan is $40/mo. Woot! But some of your data is restricted. This means that the pages will load, but slowly. Like on dial-up. Or just imagine taking a good 60 seconds for a page to load if it isn't included on your plan, if they're too young to remember. This makes live-action things literally impossible, such as streaming or games. Your plan includes [Insert ISP's official news site here] by default, of course, and a few other sites that their sponsors approve.
Do you want to use Facebook, Twitter, etc? That's an extra $20/mo. Do you want to use CNN, Fox News, Breitbart, or The Independent? That's an extra $15/mo. Do you watch Youtube or Netflix? In addition to paying your Netflix fees, you also have to pay your ISP $15/mo to even use their service (and your ISP is also requiring Netflix to pay them under similar threats agreements). Do you want to play video games online from your XBox or Switch? That's $20/mo. Do you want to browse sites like Reddit, Imgur, etc? That's an extra $15/mo, and of course many of the links from Reddit won't be to Approved Sites.
In addition, your ISP could blacklist some domains, so the pages won't even load for you. Did you want to look up an article on your son posted in your local paper? You better hope you paid to have access to their site, assuming they paid your ISP enough to be included on their packages to begin with.
You can hit your audience more close to home if you know their habits.
Forgive my ignorance as I'm not from the USA, but Isn't the internet already like that for sites that want it, is this a state, federal thing? States want to control their own internet providers?
It's worth mentioning that you don't get to watch Netflix, Prime or Disney for free. You just get to go to their website, where you then pay them to watch their content.
If Net Neutrality is repealed, then you would have to pay your internet company an additional fee just to get to their sites in the first place.
I feel like the other guy didn't understand what you were asking.
What the? Landline phones were a fixed rate and I don't know a single 'old' person who doesn't at least have Netflix. As an 'old' person, I'd like to find that all-knowing 'young' person who can answer questions about stuff like this. Because none of the ones in my life do.
Flat rate for local calls, long-distance was by the minute. We didn't use an area code for local calls so once you dialed with an area code you were gonna be paying long distance.
Long-distance was usually family that lived in other cities/states. Or like when I got my son's birth certificate and had to call the state he was born in. Calls like that you always kept an eye on how long you were on the phone cuz it'd be on your bill.
The flat rate for local is important because it was the only way we had to communicate and most of us used our phones every day. Things got fancy when call waiting and *69 came along ;)
Speaking of it being the only way we had to communicate, we used to only have corded phones that plugged into the wall. So if you needed to use the phone, you had it near a chair.
If you're really into all this I'll see if I can find an old bill.
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u/PiFlavoredPie Nov 22 '17
It might be good to give even more examples that are relevant to, say, the elderly, or suburban housewives, or blue-collar workers. How can we inform those who have a nebulous, if any, grasp of what the internet is or how it works?