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by nemo44x 2662 days ago
In many places your electricity usage costs more per kilowatt hour as you consume more kilowatt hours. So in essence, more power hungry appliances do cost more per kilowatt hour to use. For example, if someone powers an AC during the summer, their bill will be higher in a non-linear way based on the excess electricity consumption during this time. This makes running the AC more expensive per kilowatt hour if you view it this way. You could be consuming 2x the electricity but have a bill that is 3x higher.

The analogy for the net would be that domains that require more kilobytes would begin to pay more per kilobyte to have it delivered. I'm not saying I agree with this at all but the electricity analogy can be applied very easily to anti-net neutrality advocates' point of view.

2 comments

I don't think that's the point though. If I understand correctly, the point is that it's okay to charge by usage -- just not specifically giving different rates to different things.

Net neutrality says that the ISPs can't throttle Netflix's speed while giving priority to another streaming platform. It's okay if users are charged by usage (even, perhaps, non-linearly) -- but it's not okay in the eyes pro-NN people if the ISP charges more for Netflix than, say, their own streaming platform. A byte should cost the same regardless of its use (much like a kW of electricity costs the same for a toaster as it does your refrigerator or another brand of toaster).

> The analogy for the net would be that domains that require more kilobytes would begin to pay more per kilobyte to have it delivered.

1. What does any of that have to do with domains?

2. What does any of that have to do with network neutrality, i.e., discrimination based on content?