kreeping the internet free?

[popeyespappy]

The Internet providers want to charge the streaming services like Netflix and Youtube more for higher speeds. YOU will pay the cost in terms of higher prices.

Correction: They want to charge Netflix and YouTube more in addition for the bandwidth they already currently pay for.

This is double dipping at its finest.

Currently, you pay the bandwidth provider money for the bandwidth that you use.

The providers want to charge even more. So

What they do is come up with the artifice that because a site is more popular, therefore it should pay even more money in addition to the bandwidth cost that they already are charged for.

They do this because they are too cowardly to negotiate proper service-level contracts with other providers/carriers.

This is directly against the concept of network neutrality – which is that a "bag of bits" that you pay for will be ferried to the destination without regard to what it is. Effectively the US post office of the Internet - you send the letter of a certain size, pay for it, and it will be delivered. It doesn't matter if the letter contains photos of your family reunion or your company secrets. The real world post office does not care, and neither should the virtual equivalent of the post office care.

Network neutrality is a cornerstone of the modern Internet. Every single service depends upon it.

Imagine a world where you have to pay more for the same amount of data simply due to the content of it. That is what the Internet service providers are trying to do

My take on this is different. I pay Comcast, a teir 2 ISP, for access to the Internet. They in turn buy bandwidth from a tier 1. Along comes Netflix, and my peers start streaming huge amounts of data in the form of video. In order to accommodate the increased bandwidth demands Comcast has to increase bandwidth to the tier 1 providers. In order to pay for the increased bandwidth they either have to charge all their subscribers more, or charge Netflix for the increased bandwidth. The later allows Comcast to keep the fees they charge their customers somewhat level while increasing revenue to pay for the bigger pipe to the tier 1 providers. Yes Netflix has to increase the charges to their customers, but since they are the reason for the bigger pipe they should be the ones footing the bill.

Now one might argue slippery slope, and I would have a hard time disagreeing with that. However in the case of Netflix and Comcast I don't have a problem with allowing Comcast to charge Netflix for access to their network because that means Netflix customers pay the bill instead of Comcast customers not all of which subscribe to Netflix services.