Time Warner testing usage-based billing

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Chernabog

Yeah, and that "extra" -- is it actually COSTING them money, or simply eating a little into their profits (I have a hunch it's the latter).

I know that Alex already responded with the same message, but I wanted to add my opin.

There is little to no difference between the two. TW Cable (as does any other corporation, Partnership, LLC, Proprietorship, etc.) exists to make money. They SHOULD make as much as they reasonably can. They do face the possibility of losing business.

Why is it good for big corporations to make money? Because then the people who work the big corporations get to have jobs. I'm not talking about the big executives; I am talking about the installers, the CS people on the phone (even if you don't like them), the accounting people who you never hear about, the janitor. Everyday people who have husbands and wives and kids.

Why else is it good for corporations to make money? Because then the value of their stock goes up and/or dividends are issued. Anyone who has a retirement fund probably has some of their nest egg building because of the success of the big ugly mean corporations. Not just the fat cats, but the accountants, office assistants, construction workers, etc. of the world.

I could go on, but I think I made the point.

[Chernabog]

Originally Posted by Alex

I'm afraid I don't see a difference between the former and the latter.

Maybe I'm off, but (for arguments sake) say it costs TW $100 minimum to provide a service to their customer, and they charge the customer $150. Now, say the customer goes OVER the bandwidth service so far that it costs $110 for TW. It'd eat into their profit by $10, but they're still making $40.

Now let's say that the customer is total bandwidth hog. The customer goes so far over the minimal service that it costs TW $160 to provide the service. Now, TW is LOSING money every month on that customer. It's costing them $10 a month just to retain the customer. In that case, yeah, I can totally see them wanting to charge more.

Of course, things aren't quite that simple (plus I'm sure some people are using MUCH less bandwidth per month than others, so it'd even out anyway). But it costs them so little that I think scenario 1 is more likely (even though it is balanced out by people that use less bandwidth)

I guess I'm just coming from a place of having had such bad service and care from Time Warner, and have had to deal with their "we don't care we're the phone comp...er... Time Warner" attitude, that my gut instinct says they're trying to pull a fast one on the public. They're trying to say "yeah, we're going to charge you more for the same service, just because we're Time Warner and we want more money out of you. We'll tell you it's because it's costing us money, but really, we'll pass that extra $5 it costs us onto you, which will appear on your bill as $15."

And I also don't see what "fair" has to do with it. They charge on the model they want to charge. There are alternative methods of accessing the internet. Customers agree to it or they take their business elsewhere.

Of course, I personally don't have a choice (on the cable end), but okay :P

And they can charge whatever they want, of course, it's their business. I just find what they are doing is disingenuous and lousy from a customer service perspective. Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining, I think is the phrase Judge Judy uses

[Alex]

I understand people getting used to the system and not wanting it to change (particularly if you're currently engaged in a project of downloading the entire history of cinema from bittorrent.

I just think it is weird that the idea of someone changing it is causing some people (nobody here really) to act as if TW is now requiring payment in children and eggshells. Like it is some wholly bizarre and terribly unethical method that has never before existed.

I never had AOL or any of the minute-based plans so I don't know exactly how they worked but I hope TW doesn't actually block access but just start charging more. I also hope they have tools for you to track your usage, and warnings when you are approaching a threshold.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex

I never had AOL or any of the minute-based plans so I don't know exactly how they worked but I hope TW doesn't actually block access but just start charging more. I also hope they have tools for you to track your usage, and warnings when you are approaching a threshold.

That's pretty much what AOL did (though not so sure about the warnings).

I dunno. It think it would fundamentally change use patterns of the internet, and not necessarily for the better.

[Alex]

It might. But I don't see it changing my behavior any more than my limited phone minutes changes my phone behavior.

It all depends on where they set the caps. And if it pisses off too many people then other internet companies will arise that offer better plans and it'll sway back. Which is the reason all of the minute-based plans fell away (even after they expanded the # of minutes beyond what any reasonably average person actually used; I know they by the end they were offering a plan of 32 hours/day of connectivity) and why I do think this may actually really be just a method for trying to deal with the pain-in-the-ass customers using their full download pipe 24/day or running businesses on residential accounts.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I also don't consider it much of a coincidence that this is happening at a point where more and more television and television-replacement content is being viewed online.

In the end, it'll be a matter of whether it's, "I really want to download this video file, I guess I can eat the $.25" vs. "Oh crap, I wasn't paying attention and went over my bandwidth, my bill is $30 higher this month." vs. "I'm apparently not wasting nearly enough of my life on the internet because I'm still using it as much as I ever was and I'm not paying a dime more."

[Prudence]

Also, we've moved to an "it's all on the internet" philosophy (as noted in the other thread on rennet tablets). Maybe it's just my phone phobia, but I don't remember using the phone all day long, while I was doing other things, to accomplish a wide variety of tasks. Whereas I'm online pretty much all day - even if just to check the headlines every half-hour or so.

And we've somewhat abandoned the idea of preserving information in other formats, since the internet is widely accessible. For example, I don't think I even own a hard-copy dictionary any more. Not that occasional dictionary access would likely take me over whatever this use threshold ends up being; it's just one example.

[€uroMeinke]

I just don't want to have to keep track of such stuff. If someone has to pay, I'd be more inclined to stick the increase to the content providers as the cost increase might encourage the elimination of bandwidth eating pap. Might also discourage someone from putting their catalog of pirated content on the web. Most content sites have banner adds, so there's income being generated by their popularity and a viable revenue stream.

The corporate world is of course free to screw me as they please, but hopefully there will still be a competitor who promises to be more gentle.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Slightly related - I found myself checking if the major candidates' books were checked out at the library. All the ones we did have, we had at least one copy on the shelf. The only exception was the latest John McCain book, which we still classify as "new" and is out along with all the other new books, so that's different.

People just don't pick up books for info the way they used to.

[Alex]

Did anybody ever read campaign books? Even when I was constantly surrounded by poli sci, public policy, and history people none of us ever did.