[p2p-research] Marginalism - the religion

[M. Fioretti]

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 19:34:56 PM +0200, Marco Fioretti wrote:

> Oh, and here's are a few more of links about the "marginal" costs of
> copying or storing bits:
> 
> www.infoworld.com/d/green-it/report-us-companies-waste-28b-year-powering-unused-pcs-758
> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/data-centers-are-becoming-big-polluters-study-finds/?ref=technology

Sorry, I forgot another (IMO) relevant one" "net neutrality is just a
USA problem, because their ISPs were so fool to believe, or let their
users believe, that copying bits around has zero marginal costs":

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10053045-94.html

Copying and moving bits well (ie maintaining large networks and server
farms up and running at five nines) *does* cost. And IMO making the
end users pay at least part of it by combinations of:

a) cheap flat rate but lower top speed connections (say from 512KB up)
b) connections with much higher top speeds but no flat rate, or with much higher costs

is both fairer, much more democratic and p2p and much less
"big-brotherly" than ending net neutrality and putting all costs on
the content producers, as that would put individual bloggers,
entrepreneurs, etc... in a much worst position than corporations who
could afford to pay those costs.

If you want the Net to reach everybody at the lowest possible cost,
what's wrong in keeping flat but "low speed" connections available at
very low fares, and letting the people who **must** download every
movie and song around to feel good... pay for that with their own
pockets? You don't need 10 MBits/sec 24/7 to use public services, stay
informed, do home banking, upload posts to a blog, download a Linux
distro once every other month, etc... This basic use of the Internet
is or should indeed be a right to use at a **fixed**,
as-low-as-possible cost.

There are many people who don't buy Internet access because even the
cheapest available plan is ALREADY built on the assumption that most
people want to download multimedia every second of their lives.

What truly stresses the networks is video streaming or sharing every
crap song or every episode of every TV show in existence is something
else entirely, and copyright has nothing to do with all this. It *may*
be a right, but surely is not as basic as the uses above, so if there
are many, many people who couldn't care less, why should they
subsidize the others?

	  Marco

	  (who, on a similar note, is also pretty tired of paying lots
	  money more for all the hard drives, CDs, DVDs he uses to
	  store ITS own files only... because the "download 24/7, no
	  matter what, even if you'll never use it" crowds gave
	  corporation the perfect excuse to impose such a tax).

-- 
Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how
software is used *around* you:            http://digifreedom.net/node/84