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Originally Posted by towny
Petrol tax is proportionately harsher on lower income earners but that has never stopped successive Governments from using it as a means of trying to control traffic levels. Nevertheless, free or very cheap web access is becoming more and more available through public libraries and the like.
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Each car user creates 'external costs' in polution and other effects. If car use had not polution effects, and if roads could be made to carry 2x as much traffic year on year, for the same cost and if increased road usage was growing at a smaller rate than this, then yes taxing usage to reduce it would be madness. Just as it is with internet access.
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Originally Posted by towny
Heavy users on the same UBR as me make it more likely that when I want to use the net, it will perform poorly. I understand perfectly well that they will also feel the effects of this, but I'm not worried about that - they are the authors of their own misfortune. There is a cost associated with their network-jamming activities, even if that cost is only my time, your time and their time spent waiting. They need to have some visibility of that cost, even if their activities are legitimate. And I am unconvinced that the majority of heavy usage is legitimate in any case.
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This just sounds like 'thier usage effects me but my usage does not effect anyone else'. Your usage is 'valid' and theirs is not - whatever they might be doing.
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Originally Posted by towny
The online economy, as far as I am aware, generates a lot of cash from online sales. Visiting a web site to buy online requires very little bandwidth, so increasing charges for heavy users would not affect this. Could you post an example of how increasing the cost of heavy bandwidth usage among domestic users would adversely impact the economy?
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And you are perfectly entitled to it. As I have said, however, I think there are factors other than cost of provision that can legitimately affect the price of a product.
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BB impact on the UK economy is about much more than 'online sales'. Just as the importance of other transport systems is about much more than money raised in bus fares etc. It is an 'enabler'. Allowing people access to education, training and much more besides. It enables companies to be more efficent. I could go on and on. This is why the EU is looking to have it deemed a 'service of genral economic interest' like transport and other infrastructure and serivces.
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Originally Posted by towny
Begging your pardon, now I'm writing essays too ...   |
No need to beg my pardon for writing essays as I never expressed any problem with it. Begging my pardon for your apparent hypocrasy is another matter