Similar story to mobile data roaming. It's crazy expensive... until the EU says that's a joke and they must stop. Now you get free data roaming across EU without higher plan prices and somehow operators can still compete on those prices.
The rest of Europe has made the decision to leave the network up to the Telcos while using the funds of the auction as a tax income stream for government. This means a significant increased operating costs for every operator for which the end consumer pays the price. Both in higher subscription costs and less competition.
I hope Starlink will provide the much needed competition in broadband and mobile offerings.
I disagree. People pronounced doomsday for the internet when the (anti) net neutrality legislation got passed. Doomsday has yet to materialize.
* Data caps are ubiquitous and intentionally stifle any means on consumers sharing content
* The total and complete death of the meaning of unlimited.
* The internet of "channels" is already upon us with content providers have to pay to send their content to their customers even though their customers already pay to access it.
* Prices are not dictated by the market, they're dictated by the monopoly that runs it.
Those monopolies/oligopolies right now are having their cake and eating it too. It's insanity to me, a human, that you are okay with the way things are turning out. Perhaps I'm the misguided one, but it sure smells like Stockholm syndrome to me.
You can look up the CPI: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUUR0000SEEE03?output_view=d...
Broadly speaking it seems like consumer prices have decreased (CPI suggests ~25%, but that's probably very general). At the same time we've gotten incredibly better internet service compared to 1997 (how do you even account for the monumental jump over that time period).
If the world is ending, we've got it pretty good.
My blood boils just thinking about the fucking word "unlimited"
There are folks who even defend it "YOU CANNOT USE A TERABYTE" oh bullshit, baby, I can destroy a terabyte. I bet everyone else does too but instead of labeling it "10TB of TV watching" they label it "cable package," and fuck you over more. It's like text messaging back in the day, it was literally _FREE_ for carriers to implement, and per message data rates were like 6000 times that of a normal 2G packet.
It'd be like your electricity company wanting a cut from the fucking appliance manufacturers you already paid in order to power them "well we have a lot of Frigidaire on our grid and that causes stress... when you add them up its 30% of our grid that seems like an undue burden" Oh, no shit? I paid for something (power) and you having to provide it produces an undue burden? The only undue burden is on me having to tolerate someone thinking I'm so fucking stupid as to believe your lies but! Unfortunately, for me, there are a huge bunch of people who are that stupid... and believe it.