[coldcode]

You forget that the customer would be forced to choose what sites they could access as pay per site. The ISPs (generally a future Comcast monopoly) want to charge both ends to connect. You want Facebook at all - pay $5 per month. Facebook, pay us $1 per customer. You want some random blog, sorry they didn't pay us. Or maybe they will connect you at such a low rate as the site is unusable. The end result is that only huge wealthy companies can be accessed. Everyone else will be so backwater they may as well use smoke signals. The effect of monopoly (at least in the US) will make it impossible for their to be an alternative. I have two choices, AT&T and TWC. Both will do this sort of thing if they can. Then what do I do?

[zacinbusiness]

I wonder if this will have an effect on web design? Less JS, fewer images, no web fonts. I can see a website going back to plain text. I realize that even plain text can be throttled to the point of uselessness, but would it help at all?

[danelectro]

How about an augmented form of plain text, where a SMALL MINORITY of special undisplayed characters invoke formatting options which can be utilized by consoles not much more powerful than dumb terminals. We could call it Hypertext . . . Could even give rise to a "markup language", we could call it HTML . . . Once you start going down that road it could be a slippery slope . . .

[zacinbusiness]

Do you have a real point or are you just being a moron?