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by mediocrejoker 3134 days ago
my first question would be how the prices of the unlimited plan compares to the regular plans of other ISPs.

In other words, are these ‘walled garden’ plans aimed towards people who would otherwise buy a regular data plan or are they aimed at people for whom the choice is a walled plan or no plan.
2 comments
donkeyd 3134 days ago
The screenshot in OP's post and this[0] comment, make me think that cheap plans will mostly allow you to use apps/sites where the companies pay the ISP. These will be things like YouTube and Netflix, who need visitors for profit. Things that will be blocked by default are sites like HN, company websites, personal websites and anything else that isn't a huge company. So in the cheaper plans, the one being visited pays, in the expensive one, the one who visits pays.

In the end, it's just another revenue stream where, if they play it right, the consumer still pays the same, but the content providers also start paying. This means more money from the same bandwidth.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15757190

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mediocrejoker 3134 days ago
Do they actually block any of those things? What makes you think they would start blocking HN?
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gervase 3134 days ago
My understanding is that it's not that they're "blocked", it's that "you only can access what you pay for", which in this case is only those specific sites for which you pay to access. In other words, they don't "block" HN, they only provide access to Facebook, for example.
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AnthonyMouse 3134 days ago
> In other words, are these ‘walled garden’ plans aimed towards people who would otherwise buy a regular data plan or are they aimed at people for whom the choice is a walled plan or no plan.

You say that like there's a hard line between them. No matter what it's "aimed at" it will hit people who want to save a buck and think they only need Facebook. Except that when there is a critical mass of people who no longer have the choice, Facebook's practices can become much more abusive because it becomes that much more difficult to leave. You have to convince everyone you know not only to use something else, but to use something that requires a more expensive data plan.

Moreover, consider what you're asking for, even if only lower income people subscribed. You want to take away the benefits of competition from the people with the least means. Talk about the poor get poorer.

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