today's i hate korprit merka bull*feces*.

hate!

Another reason to not switch to Time Warner.

It surely sucks, yes.  I'll hate the day it comes to me as well.

However, I fail to see how using metered billing for a service is an ethical issue at all.  I'm actually quite surprised it didn't happen years ago.

Bandwidth is not yet free.

bandwidth is not yet free. agreed.  sell pricing based on the bandwidth the customer wants, and DO NOT oversell it.  after all, you were given TRILLIONS of $ and easements/etc  to upgrade your infrastructure. instead you pocketed it and gave it to CEOs and shareholders.  we are a joke of the 'western' world already, let's not make it worse.

ethical- buying monopolies in communities then using this 'metering' practice to squash competitors (netflix downloads, itunes, etc) through vertical integration. issuing 'install cds' for your service that also install apps that routinely 'dial in' and secretly send unrequested data.  opaque and un-auditable 'metering' service.  possibility of tying in to mob connections to extort customers via hack/virus traffic apps.   finally, as another side note,  i'm pretty sure someone with windows, ms office, and internet sucksplorer  on 4-5 machines in their home probably gets 1GB of traffic a month from MS alone- add in a security product (like norton) for 5 machines and you're probably at 1.5GB -2 GB .  great, let's discourage reasonable computer security by pricing  routine security upgrades out of touch for the consumer.

that said, it's also highly counterproductive to telecommunicating and digital file distribution (in place of optical media).. both of which are huge ways to reduce resource use.

There were two reasons for flat rate billing on Internet services early on.  1)  To get you off the metered services like AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy, etc. and onto the Internet - it was a marketing incentive.  2)  It was difficult for smaller companies to bill by the minute, they would have had to implement accounting and billing systems they could not yet afford nor support.

We pay on a somewhat metered basis for almost everything in life - Internet service is supposed to be exempt?  I don't necessarily see it that way.  If I want more food, more gas, more TV channels, more phone minutes, and more fleshlights - I pay more.

Flat rate billing is certainly easier and more attractive to consumers - it could become that marketing incentive all over again.  Cablecos can use it against Telcos and vice versa.

so how exactly will this impact my xtube pron budget?  why the *fudge* else have a home intertube connection? 

if i had 5 or more options for broadband i probably wouldn't so passionately object. we agree on that.