and on the gravity thing, It is just a theory, just the most excepted one. just like the big bang theory is just a theory. 

if space is infinit with finite matter in it then isnt space finite, if there is no matter to measure space then there is no space. or is there?      lol.

like the theory of space, its forever but no one knows, some assume it is because if it ends then there has to be something behind it that goes on forever doesnt it? and to me space is the absence of matter, as black is the absence of color. and i can have my own theorys, as we all can. so u cant actually prove me wrong or u wright on the space thing. they are just theorys.

The internet is a very busy place these days, which is why I would like to thank the inventors of the word "Socialism."

Any time you see it used, you know that there's a 95% chance that the person using it can safely be ignored, as they have no real idea what they are talking about, and are simply using it as a funny little noise to indicate something that they dislike.

The ratio of "things which are actually Socialism" to "things which get called Socialism" is roughly 1:32000 on the internet.

Or perhaps you're just a flaming retard like most of humanity and can't objectively view your own opinions.  Minimum wages laws are socialism, the redistributive tax structure and welfare programs are socialism.  Any method of redistributing wealth to provide a more even distribution, is socialism.

If you're waiting for a top down command economy before you'll accept the label, you need to read more.  When you get that far, they call it communism.  Of course, liberal idiots are scared of being labeled socialist after Hitler and Stalin gave it such a bad name, so you'll probably remain in denial.

And you're such a model of dispassionate self-critique.

Like nearly any label that achieves widespread use in political arguments, socialism is pretty much in the eye of the beholder. IMO, the rhetorical essence of Ray Radlein's reply 122 is accurate, but so is psychoak's point about a progressive tax scheme. My own notion of socialism requires public ownership of some production or distribution system, e.g. the US Interstate system, the Tennessee Valley Authority, or the Hoover Dam. We've had partial socialization since Ben Franklin got the postal roads going, and it seems like we have a solid majority who are comfortable with everything about partial socialism except calling it by that name.

Well, the complaints won't matter.   TWC is expecting short-term losses from this, to get long-term gains at consumer expense. 

There is the alternative of other services, so you wouldn't have to boycott the internet.

I'd suggest boycotting TW's other products as well- if you're a comic reader- throw DC away, Time magazine, etc.

For all of you who think this is a "greedy" move by Time Warner, would you rather see them go out of business?  Their current pricing scheme is unsustainable since it relies on users not using the bandwidth allocated to them.  This was fine a few years ago before YouTube and Hulu became popular.  Now everyone is using lots of bandwidth and on top of that more and more people are learning how to use BitTorrent and are getting their software through digital downloads instead of physical media.

If you all have your way, Time Warner will go out of business and you won't have any internet at all (if you live in an area where it's the only option).  To me this seems like a worse outcome then them adjusting their pricing model.

The alternative would be to raise everyones prices significantly (both high-bandwidth users and low-bandwidth users) so they have enough revanue to sustain the usage overall.  To a high-bandwidth user this sounds great, but how do you think the low-bandwidth users feel about paying for your downloading habits?  The people who just check their e-mail and browse the web are likely to get even more pissed off by that then the high-bandwidth users will get from having to pay when they go over their cap (a cap that is actually reasonably high if you get the more expensive package).

Hi, I work for my local ISP and we actualy have been doing this for YEARS.  Everyone seems to be panic'ing here but this is how it REALLY works if they follow our model.  First internet prices will DROP!  yes, that's right, they will go down.  Or they might just freeze prices where they are for a while.

Why you ask?  Say you have 10,000 subscribers who use internet.  You have to raise the prices for these people for say 20 people who are using 99% of the bandwith.  these 20 people either have filesharing (most don't even KNOW they do!) or run servers or a busness ect.  So the other 9,980 people pay several dollars/month to pay for the bandwith costs for those few people.  It costs money to ship data!  Think of the electric bill alone!

On our service only about 2% of our customers even KNOW we have this. Typicaly they turn off filresharing (we tell them how) and poof, they can download all they want and not have to worry about 100 people downloading from THEM eating all that bandwidth.

Internet gaming going away? Guess again.  Gaming online uses VERY LITTLE bandwidth, so does Vontage phone service.  Hardly anything.  Honestly you could game 24/7 and not use hardly any bandwith.  When we first changed to this I was worried as I 2 box'd online, But when I saw my bandwidth usage as under 2 gig for playing 2 computers 40+ hours a week.. Yea... Patches are your big use!  Download movies?  Just watch your  bandwidth and pace yourself

So Basicly this will make Internet cheaper for 95% of us out there.  The other 5%... Yea, they might have an issue, but the worst of those would have thier service "terminated for vilolating terms of service" with no warning!

So Relax

Gravity is not a theory, its a fact. Just like evolution is not a theory, but a fact. The theoretical aspect of gravity is what exactly Gravity -is-. Hell, the fact you're stood on earth and not floating into space is proof of gravity.

Now have you ever tried walking down the street and just looking around? We are habitual creatures unfortunately and often glance over wonderous things. Do you realise we made our own Caves? harnessed fire, created the wheel. History is repleet with astonishing, amazing creations. We've travelled to the fucking moon for christs sake! We can -see- single atoms and move them about, we create wormholes for scientific experiments (though i think they do it for fun).

No human achievement however can surpass the groundbreaking and revolutionary attempts we create to share information with each other. From talking to each other we developed writing, through writing we developed printing yet the internet for all intents and purposes in my eyes dwarf's all these previous creations. Its without doubt the most revolutionary and important creation in human history.

It contains anything and everything, defies control from any one authority. It allows any person to have a voice and for that voice to be heard by the world itself...in a second. Any regulation...be it through censorship, or access limits should be stamped out. Its a tool to be wielded by humanity and really -should- be under direct control of a goverment who's sole purpose is to ensure everyone gets to access it regardless of cost or inconvenience.

/endsocialistrant

Gravity is fact, darwinian evolution is religion. Darwinism is just something that sounds reasonable enough to believe in, but there's no conclusive evidence on its accuracy, same as any other religion out there.

Some of you really need to spend some time outside of the USA. The internet offerings here are slow and expensive compared to our peers. It's just plain crap. It's difficult to believe (but certainly not impossible) that people defending these companies have experienced much else but these companies which is a real shame. It can be better and less expensive; it's already done.

As a Time Warner employee (I work for AOL) and shareholder of Time Warner and TWC (it was recently spun off as a separately traded company) I disapprove of this action.  It is reasonable to monitor and throttle the bandwidth of the very heavy users (i.e., those running peer-to-peer servers) so they don't adversely impact the other users but this plan makes TWC look money hungry.  Such low caps and a high price per GB after the cap will have a negative impact on mainstream broadband users and broadband services!

You need to focus on why instead of what.

This is the primary cause of the difference in broadband infrastructure between the US and other post industrial countries. I'd need ten miles of cable or my own bloody tower to get real broadband here.  Not a lot of prospective customers in an area with a population density low enough to measure in square miles per people instead people per square miles.

I know exactly how lacking our infrastructure is, and where it's been done better.  The problem isn't that I don't know about other countries networks, it's that I know how high the tax subsidies are, how low our population density is, where it's distributed, and what regulations we've crippled our growth with.  In those "better" countries, they've been spending tax dollars to build infrastructure.  In this country, we've been spending tax dollars regulating them out of existence.  They're creating monopolies, we're crippling industry to avoid the possibility of one.

The term natural monopoly exists because the theoretical maximum for productivity is a single, most efficiently run company stomping the shit out of the competition by providing a good or service better and cheaper.  It's not something to fear and regulate against, it's something to hope for.  If you want better service, educate yourself, think about what you've learned, and vote with your brain instead of a knee jerk reaction to some idiot that makes you feel good by labeling someone rich as the cause of all your problems.

This is, technically, true. This functions much like an enlightened dictatorship being the ideal government, in theory. (In practice, a dictatorship/monopoly is never benign/enlightened. At least, not for long. It's why we stick with democracy.) 

The problem is human nature. Anyone in a position of complete dominance will be inclined to exploit it. After all, why bother being nice to your customers when you can just exploit them for all the market will bear? And it will bear quite a lot, if they don't have another choice. If you have total dominance over a market there are a great many alternatives to free and fair competition as a means of eliminating the competition. Temporary below cost prices, buying up the competitor directly, bullying suppliers into not selling to your competitor (by threatening to withold your own vastly more massive custom from them), the list goes on.

I readily agree that a free market is the best way to guarantee the best products at the lowest prices. The problem is that it's not just the government that can keep the market from functioning properly, a big enough company/cartel/trust can do the job just as well. I once heard the statement: "companies will be exactly as bad as they can get away with". While this is a rather pessimistic statement in most cases, there will alway be a couple who will do literally anything to get just that tiny bit more profit.

What we need the goverment for is to prevent easily exploitable situations (ie. monopolies), set reasonable minimum standards for environmental friendliness etc. and keep the heck out for everything else. [/rant]

I don't see why you're so outraged about this - a bandwidth cap with extra charge per byte over the limit is standard operating procedure in many countries.

I agree. The free market in practice, isn't perfect. It won't ever be perfect so people who think its the holy grail of all time, ignore or choose to overlook human nature. As to how much the government should be involved, that's a hard one that will never be agreed upon (although ignorant people might think a disagreement with their view is actually a lack of something instead of, well a disagreement). In theory, it could be but that's the way economic and political theories tend to be. And yes, history is full of companies that got away with as much as they could while they could and occasionally some stories about companies that progressed but certainly not out of the good for mankind but because it gave them an edge.