I think what you're saying is if you don't want monopolies the government must disapprove - that is, regulate. I agree.
And the cost for that bandwidth - rather than being borne by only *their* customers through their subscription fee, is instead borne by *all* of an ISP’s customers - even those who don’t stream.
That's totally up to the ISP and how they choose to charge their customers.
There's nothing preventing my ISP charging me more for streaming more data. If they did that my fellow ISP customers wouldn't be affected by what I streamed at all.
The problem for the ISPs is that customers reject this approach - they don't like metered connections. As a result the ISPs are looking to extort money from the content providers since they lack the market power to charge customers for what they use.
“Monopolies only exist when force can be used to sustain them. IE - they are approved by government.”
“I think what you’re saying is if you don’t want monopolies the government must disapprove - that is, regulate. I agree.”
His statement is correct. Your’s is not. How do you twist, in your mind, what he says monopolies must be approved by the government to your thinking that the government must regulate?
I will restate the point. Monopolies are enforced by government approval and coercion. If you do not like monopolies then the government should stay out. The government is responsible for monopolies.
No, what I am saying is that a monopoly requires *force*. The only way to get someone to buy something they don’t want to buy or to shop somewhere they don’t want to shop is to force them to do so. The only entity entitled to use force to achieve something without fear of consequence for their actions is government. Ergo, the only way a monopoly can exist is if the government *allows* it by forcing people to buy a product or shop an establishment.
Please see the paragraph titled “Gaming the System” at this link: http://www.heritage.org/government-regulation/report/net-neutrality-rules-still-threat-internet-freedom
Comcast and Level 3 reached an agreement before the FCC had to step in, but the word on the street was that the FCC - under Net Neutrality rules - would have blocked Comcast’s efforts to charge Level 3 more for their Neflix data.
In the end, Comcast passed the additional network transit costs on to their subscribers. So their subscribers - even those who don’t use Netflix - got a bit of a rate hike to help bring Netflix to those who do subscribe to it. They did this because they were afraid of what precedent would be set by the FCC if they had to rule.
And read the examples that follow as well - just so you know it’s not a one-off.
Anytime you let government decide winners and losers in a marketplace, you stifle innovation and growth. No one wants to risk their money to innovate or bring a new product to market knowing they will have to fight (and/or bribe) the FCC - or some other bureaucracy - who is running interference for the very companies you are trying to compete against.
Getting rid of the stupid idea that the Internet is some sort of public utility subject to government regulation is the best thing that could happen.
The biggest years for growth and innovation on the ‘net were the first ten or so after it went public. That was before government started getting involved. I know. I was there.
Get out of the way and let the people decide.