Comcast Is Starting The Tiered Internet.. Whether We Like It or Not

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Comcast Is Starting The Tiered Internet.. Whether We Like It or Not

By Robert Merrill ⋅ August 21, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

Of course, I am not the only person who feels that Comcast Sucks, but I am fired up about them starting up the Tiered Internet whether we like it or not (DIGG article here).

Comcastic

There are a lot of arguments from the MBAs about why companies like Comcast need to charge different amounts for people who may use more bandwidth, or differing service offerings than the standard HTTP, POP3, etc., but that should be clearly explained in the company’s ads.

Oh, you don’t want people using all of the six megabits you promised them in your very expensive ads / commercials / billboards / banners / pop-ups / etc? Hmmm. Ever thought about SAYING that? Maybe hire one of those car-sales announcers who can read 10,000 words per second and throw the fine-print in there at the end of your commercials:

Here’s some sample fine-print that Comcast is welcome to use*:

"Prices are for standard web-surfing and sending emails to your mommy only. Any other use, including emails to your daddy, pictures, video, VoIP, or any other cutting edge technology we didn't invent, are not collecting royalties on, or are not currently under large monolithic corporate marketing schemes with the owners or lessees of such alternative technology [hereafter referred to as "Cool Stuff"], shall be henceforth and into perpetuity charged hefty and lofty fees, punishments, garnishments and/or any other monetary penalties allowable by law [herein after referred to as "Incentives"]. All fees are, by design, determined to be “ridiculous” and “intolerable” and “unreasonable” and “completely irrational”. This is by design, therefore you agree that usage of these or similar terms by you in describing these fees to us or any other person, living or dead, mortal or immortal, shall immediately and permanently commit you to cheerfully paying any and all Incentives for the consumption of Cool Stuff forever more. PREDICTABILITY CLAUSE: Furthermore, if you or anyone in your immediate global network [defined as: any person or creature, living or dead, mortal or immortal, with whom you have ever communicated with in any manner, cool or uncool, or any individual who also has ever knowingly or unknowingly used the same Internet Protocols you have ever used, or who has ever visited any of the same internet destinations you have ever visited (such as "google.com" or "yahoo.com")] are ever found to use any Cool Stuff, then your account shall immediately be classified as “high risk” and you shall be charged nominal Incentives for Cool Stuff you do or do not consume, as you clearly have the propensity to consume Cool Stuff, since any of your closest global associates (living or dead, mortal or immortal, cool or uncool) have also demonstrated their use of the same.”

I was a Comcast High Speed Cable Internet customer for seven years. I am no longer a customer as of this month, partially thanks to this, but also because of other service degradations that seemed to “quietly” seep into their network.

When a company like Comcast doesn’t trust its customers to mash-up their service and use it in their way, it’s the beginning for the end of that company’s respect. Instead of letting a “hundred flowers blossom“, they only want one, gigantic, comcastic flower, cast in bronze, that all customers must yield to and hail as the almighty provider of all things media.

With this blatant punishment of anything unorthadox, it seems that the term Comcastic is actually referring to having a high-speed network that numbly feeds your mindless eyeballs the content they want to feed you which, of course, is highly monetized, product-placement-ized, mass-market-ized and designed to keep the mainstream masses bowing down to the almighty “network producers” who determine at the flick of a mouse-click what is “cool” and what is “not”

At the end of the day, when companies LIE about what they’re actually providing you, that’s step one to disastrous failure.

* Fine Print: Any use by Comcast, real or implied, of these terms and conditions, shall result in payment of $40/month, every month, forever and ever, unless the entire agreement is used, at which point and additional service fee of $5/word per month per day per forever per person per megabit.

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