Comcast thinks it owns the Internet

Every day, terabytes of data are added to the Internet. With the availability of relatively cheap bandwidth, we’ve been able to create streaming, high definition video. We’ve been able to produce sites that host any video you want to upload. We’ve successfully removed the need for physical discs to store our music and movies. But Comcast doesn’t care about any of this. They’d rather cap usage so that they can generate more profit for being a gateway to the Internet. What good is streaming video if it just ends up costing consumers more money?

They’re supposedly trying a number of different tests, one of which is tiering data usage. If you use 5 GB a month — I go over that every single month, without fail, by myself — they want to charge you an overage fee. The worst part, actually is that they want to cap your downlink speed, too, at 768 kbps. What? They want people to pay them $30 per month for limited usage at crappy downlink speeds?

The message I get from this is that while big businesses abhor government regulation and oversight, they’re eager and willing to impose them on their customers. So yes, free markets are more efficient…at allowing companies to exploit their customers. Because of the lack of broadband options, many customers are stuck with Comcast — like many are stuck with Time Warner in New York City.

Media across the Atlantic not sweating blogs

Steve Boriss hits on a whole lot of truth in his latest post. The lede is that while U.S. media outlets continue to be threatened by the emergence of blogs, the U.K. media has no such problem? There are surely a number of reasons for this, but I think that in the end it boils down to one theme. Simply, as Borris puts it, “there is no such thing as an objective, right-down-the-middle way to look at things.” The difference now is that the U.S. media continues to pretend that there is a middle ground (and do a terrible job of it), while the U.K. media tends to flaunt their partisanship.

What is happening is that American journalism created a problem for itself decades ago that will continue to threaten its existence until it ends its self-defeating ways. It decided that issues of public policy were a science, and journalists were like laboratory workers on a mission to deliver singular, objective truths. They began to treat opinion as a contaminant, and in the process lost the ability to handle it properly.

So when blogs — an ideal platform for pontification — came along, the mainstream media attacked them as unobjective and unworthy. The problem, of course, is that the American people seem to like blogs and their opinionated ways.

States have final say in binding arbitration clauses

In this current Supreme Court, you’d expect many rulings to favor corporate interests, especially when lawsuits are involved. For at least one day, though, they ruled in favor of the consumer and their ability to file suit collectively against a company. On Tuesday, an appeal brought by T-Mobile was rejected. The case involved binding arbitration, a clause inserted into many consumer contracts, most notably for cell phone service.

When you sign a cell phone contract, you might not read it over. You’re missing out on one of the most oppressive practices in business. Simply, binding arbitration means you waive your right to a trial by jury, and thereby relegate your claim to an arbitration hearing between you and the company. This removes the rights of consumers to band together and file class action lawsuits.

W’s gift to us all , the Bush Boom

After taking the weekend off to relax at a few Yankees games we are back, Impatient Sufferers. What better way to return than with news of another example of the trendiest economic phenomenon of them all, the Bush Boom?

Today we look at how contractors are benefiting from the collapse in the housing market. Fuel costs are rising, bringing up the cost of food and other essentials at the same time as many variable rate mortgages have seen skyrocketing rates. The result has been a glut of foreclosures and families suddenly left to figure out where to raise their families.

The problem of vacant homes is all the more striking when considered against predictions by economists that a couple of million more homes will enter foreclosure in the next two years, said Cheryl Lang, president of Integrated Mortgage Solutions, a company based in Houston that contracts with Mr. McCallister and Mr. Law on behalf of mortgage companies.

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A flood of crocodile tears

Many artists work very hard for little to no monetary compensation. Some succeed and make vast profits but the majority never make it that far. Those whose art sells deserve financial compensation.

Who is really stealing from the artist though? Is it the college student downloading an album? While, there certainly is limited moral grounds for defending the decision to download music without purchasing the rights, perhaps that’s not where artists should be focusing.

There are many gray areas as media moves from physical distribution to a digital system. What was once clearcut is now a tangled web as options emerge to rent music through a subscription service, download it, purchase it in a physical form or even convert it between formats. What’s clear is that artists deserve compensation for the art they’ve created.