[shakermakr]

Down vote all you want, but let's be honest. We here are nerds. We know the fundamentals of how the Internet works.

And cost occurs somewhere. This ain't all for free. There are electricity bills to pay, bandwidth with 3rd parties to pay for, and blades to physically source.

Video on demand is damn resource intensive. This isn't about delivering bytes which UTF-16 decoded speak about about a government. This isn't about delivering bytes which primarily educate. this is about Netflix n' Chill. It's about watching Modern Family on the commute home, and consumers loving it.

A lot of the cost for this love, especially in mobile, is paid for by the ISPs. They have to physically deliver this traffic to your device via nodes for $19.99 a month. And damn them if a loading spinner appears. "My Internets rubbish...I'm gonna switch to Acme Internet...they have free Netflix streaming."

So let's not lose focus: all software we write is for the end consumer...we need to create great, appreciated experiences for our users, otherwise they just unsubscribe.

T-Mobile is doing just that. This isn't a philisophical debate. It's about providing end users what they want. And they want Netflix on their mobile without costing them more. And lambasting T-Mobile for doing such is missing the entire constitution of the Internet.

Let them eat cake!

[gregwtmtno]

No, it's about me being able to get the content of my choice at the same rate as the big boys. If I want to watch a programming live stream (I'm not much for modern family.), I should be able to do it at the same cost as any other bits over the air. Here, producers that that pay T-mobile will have an advantage. In ten years, we'll be boxed back into the same tired old content like we are with cable television. No thanks.

[bmelton]

And if you opt out of BingeOn, you have exactly that.

[gregwtmtno]

Except they'll make it cost prohibitive to stream anything but those that pay the fee to T-Moble by artificially increasing the price for data.

[bmelton]

That seems to me like that would be the time to be outraged.

As near as I can tell, this seems like the #3 or 4 mobile carrier looking for a reason to make themselves appear better to a market segment than the #1 or #2 carriers. Jacking up prices seems antithetical to that mission.

I understand what people want out of net neutrality and all that, but I personally think that the outrage should be saved for things that are outrageous. Giving things away for free, even if there are ulterior motives attached, doesn't seem to rise to that level, in my opinion.

[splintercell]

So what, this happens everywhere in the market. Why do you think small stores and bodegas put a minimum of $10 for payment via credit card? Because the large chain stores get better rates from Visa and Master Card. Many times I go to Starbucks instead of some small cafe when I don't have enough cash because I know I would be able to pay by card.

Shipping companies offer better shipping rates to commercial companies than to a small startup.

This is just called 'price discrimination' and is a very valid economic concept.