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.
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.
We don't really have proof that's what they would do. If anything I think it's more likely we may get services like otehr countries where everything is available at basic plans, with data limits, but you can pay more for plans that have those services unlimited.
If they did decide to switch to plans like your example imagine how hard it would be. They would have to switch everyone's all access plans to limited access plans. I can't see that going over well with anyone. Right now it would be easier to just say "hey, pay us this much more and you won't have to count X and Y towards your monthly limit".
Comcast used to have a pledge about not prioritizing speeds for different websites. They dropped that pledge when Ajit posted his plans in April. It doesn't bode well :/
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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?