[AusNOG] Netflix, AWS and Softlayer vs. Australia

[Mark Newton]

On 5 Dec 2014, at 10:02, Mark ZZZ Smith <markzzzsmith at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>> Quotas are to put a price/value on usage, to avoid the tragedy of the commons.
> 
> So I don't really think the tragedy of the commons applies, for two reasons.
> 
> Firstly, it is my understanding that users of the commons didn't pay to use it, and therefore there was no inherent individual constraint on its exploitation.

So that's analogous to an Internet service where you pay for base access but there's no "constraint on its exploitation" afterwards, yes?

> Secondly, the commons (common resource) couldn't be or be easily expanded to cope with additional demand. 

Also analogous to a network which is out of capacity but has a revenue stream insufficient to fund upgrades, which is what you get if usage scales faster than revenue.

> Use of ISP networks is obviously paid for by its users,

Yet your example of a 15Mbps service sold to you for about one tenth of the cost of provisioning 15 clear megabits shows where it isn't, in the absence of quotas.

> More specifically to broadband today, I think quotas serve the purpose of allowing people to have a peak bandwidth that is much greater than the committed bandwidth they could buy for the same amount of money, or rather, the amount of money they're willing to pay.

That is a very useful side effect, yes. 

I don't think we actually disagree very much on this, we're just coming at it from different directions (supply side and demand side)

The original point made was that quotas were a marketing strategy. I don't think either of us believe that that claim has merit.

   - mark