I love the feedback on my position on P2P traffic. The well thought out "You Suck", " Or "the internet isnt that way", or "The ISP is selling me 10mbs, I can use it anyway I want"
Guess what, business models do evolve over time. You may want your ISP to be exactly how you want it to be. You may read into your experience with them anything you want. But it can and will change if the economics don't work for them. No amount of whining about "what the internet is supposed to be" will change any of that.
You can argue about how fiber should make it all the way to your bathroom if you want, that won't create the capital for ISPs or force them to spend it the way you want them to.
Maybe instead we should look at some realities and options.
So I've come up with a better way to get rid of P2P without calling for an outright disabling of the protocol. Maybe ISPs should just treat upstream bandwidth the way cellphone companies treat minutes. Give users an option on how many upstream bits they want to be able to use and during what times of day.
Charge more during prime usage times, less during off hours. For most internet users, like probably 99pct of us, it wouldn't make a bit of difference in our bills or consumption. In fact, many of us could opt for cheaper plans because beyond the family photos or videos we may upload every now and then, or the rare backup of our hard drives, most people don't consume much outbound bandwidth at all.
Of course that probably wouldn't be the case for users and abusers of the P2P protocol and applications. Imagine what would happen when WOW users or the rare bit torrent WAREZ or illegal music or video downloader got their bills and realized that they could either throttle their upstream bandwidth and wait forever for their goodies (if they could get them at all ), or open the throttle and watch free downloads start to cost a lot of money. Think that would be fun ?
How are they going to feel when they get a bill for upstream bandwidth for periods when they werent even downloading anything, but their PCs were busy acting as seeds for other P2P clients ? Think they will enjoy paying that bill ?
So I take it all back. DONT block P2P traffic. Just charge for upstream bandwidth usage like cellphone companies charge for minutes. That way if P2P really is more efficient, it will be a non issue. More people will use P2P and will never have to worry about their upstream bandwidth charges.
Or, if its less efficient, it will survive for applications where the owner of the application is willing to pay for the bandwidth the application consumes at both the host and destinations. It could also survive if off peak pricing for upstream bandwidth is cheap enough that its worth it to the user to pay for the bandwidth and take delivery of files during that low priced time period. A truly market solution. Imagine that.
Let the "you suck" comments begin.
P2P Part 3
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Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. I feel sorry for you...
Posted at 12:29PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Matt
3. I have a hunch that any company with a trafficked website wouldn't like your model much.
Posted at 12:38PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Robert M
4. This is just plain silly. I really don't know why but I couldn't help but chuckle a bit at your proposition. :)
In essence they already do this by making upstream less available than down stream. Say one person gets a 40 kB/s cap on their upstream per month. Simply multiply 40 by the number of seconds in a month and you get how many kB's they can send in a month. It sounds like more effective suggestion would be make the rate smaller. That just means that you get a whole bunch more pissed off consumers because they can't post their frat party photos to Facebook.
An alternative solution means keeping track of all these kB's. So let's look at this... it means keeping a database of some kind of all the subscribers to one ISP. This database is CONSTANTLY being updated. That's a heavy load. Not only this, but the database is very important so you have to hire a nice team of security specialists to keep the troublemakers out. It's sounding pretty costly for the ISP now. Probably more than you'd actually save from these vicious P2P users chipping away at your precious high-speed traffic.
On top of this, what do you make of the consumers who don't know enough about computers to shield themselves from viruses? Many types of viruses send out tons of email from the infected computer. That traffic is upstream. This would cost them a bundle.
This devious little plan wouldn't work unfortunately because the consumer is screwed over royally and the ISP is paying more just to perform this screwing over. It sounds as if you're so vehemently opposed to P2P because all these innocent little people are becoming seeding nodes unbeknownst to them. So you, the great crusader against P2P, are out to free them from their shackles by your silly plans that really accomplish nothing but maybe, just maybe, give you an extra kilobyte per month.
5. Hey, Mark, why is such a usually-rational person like you being so weird about this topic. Clearly, you hate P2P, and your goal here is to stamp it out. But that's not leading to even remotely logical arguments.
You're moving your assumptions all over the place, acting as if you understand the ISP business when you clearly don't, and coming up with harebrained schemes to achieve what amounts to an emotional goal.
P2P is here to stay. It makes a lot more sense to brainstorm about how traditional media companies -- like HDNet -- can monetize it. Bandwidth is cheap and getting cheaper, and that's not going to change. Inventing problems that don't really exist and using them to justify draconian anti-consumer policies just shows that as forward thinking as you can be at times, you are at least 50% old-world media mogul who's scared of the impact this whole internet thing will have on your outdated business model.
Posted at 12:57PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Brooks Talley
6. Hi Mark,
This seems to be a round-about way of arguing against the established principal of net neutrality. I'm not sure if that is that accidental or intended but perhaps clarifying your position (on net neutrality in general) might help.
John.
Posted at 1:00PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by John O'Shea
7. "You can argue about how fiber should make it all the way to your bathroom if you want, that won't create the capital for ISPs or force them to spend it the way you want them to."
Well. The thing is: once the demand for higher speed is there, there will be an incentive to increase bandwidth. Of course it won't be cheap, but that's why it will only happen when demand is there. The more people use P2P the more demand for bandwidth there will be, which will make the ISPs invest more so that they can offer higher speeds and get more money.
And true: charging a flat fee if you upload TBs of data or not is not logical, but that's the heritage of the over investment during the late 90s and 00s wasn't it so? The result was unfavourable terms to the providers. Too bad for them.
In fact if you look at some of the broadband plans you will notice that the higher the speed (up/down) the higher the price i.e. high usage is already factored in their business plans.
Now, you as a content producer might need to really think about the effects that eradicating P2P might bring, and I am quite sure they are pretty much against your own interests.
I obviously dont have numbers to back it up, BUT (there is always a but), wouldnt you be better off selling your film off the net through p2p for 5 bucks? You would probably reach many more people.
Not only that: give a bonus to the heavy seeders, it can even be a ticket to watch the movie in a proper theatre, a t-shirt, or whatever (something that helps to virally spread the movie)...
Don't you see, P2P is not a threat to you, it's an opportunity.
If people want to pirate your movie, they will, if they want to pay for it, they will. The thing is: if you have a good range of convenience x price x quality forms of delivering your movie, you will win not on a per transaction basis, but on the total...you will have more transactions, which per se help to spread the idea, which makes people consume more, and so forth.
It's like taxes: you want to tax LESS money from MORE people. Same in media distribution: try to reach more people and charge them less for it (assuming you can decrease distribution costs by that, of course)...
I am just not so sure eliminating P2P solves anything....
Posted at 1:01PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Ndugu 123
8. Mr. Cuban's attempt to criminalize upstream bandwidth is naive and misguided.
ISP users are already paying for a unlimited steam of capped bandwidth. Upsteam bandwidth is used for a variety of technologies, including P2P traffic. There is nothing illegal about P2P networks, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with upsteam bandwdith.
Pay per byte internet services went the way of the Dodo, even cell networks are going unlimited. There is enough bandwidth to support the business model of unlimited high speed Internet.
Bandwidth is going to continue to go down in price and uncapped upsteam rates are going to continue to increase. With technologies like FIOS and continued compression advances on cable, there will be more than enough bandwidth go around.
Posted at 1:02PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Alex Valentine
9. (copied from my comment on Mashable)
I totally agree with your idea of a Centrally Planned and Controlled People's Internet, Mr. Cuban. I think there should be heavy restrictions on on what people can and can't do with the bandwidth they pay for.
And you are so right about P2P. It's ridiculously inefficient to have each client acting as a server, taking the load off the main site. So much bandwidth wasted!
I was on Ares last night and it brought down my ISP, because I was trying to download 8 songs at the same time. So that's proof right there that P2P is a failed technology.
Also, while I have you here, could you sign my petition to ban electric lightbulbs? They're totally inefficient and they waste electricity. Once we make them illegal, we can go back to using gas lamps.
Posted at 1:02PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by CountRob
10. Mark, I always worry when anyone tries to borrow a business model from the cell phone companies, especially when the bandwidth providers have even less competition (and thus less portability for users) than those companies.
And if you look at the phone companies, competition is driving them away from any realistic measure of number of minutes: myFaves, Free mobile-to-mobile, etc, are all chipping away at pay-per-minute until soon they will be permanently eroded. Why?
Because when you open this up to unlimited use, a vast majority of people's usage will remain the same. Mine would. And if you look at what happened when NetFlix went to an "unlimited" model, their average monthly rentals per user actually went down, beacuse the users didn't feel the pressure to get their 4 movies that month. So on a whole, with a large pool of people, things average out. My parents have a connection at home, and one in their vacation home. They use a tiny fraction of what they could. There have to be 100 other like that for every seeder.
The same, I guarantee, is true of P2P. The number of people who actually know what BitTorrent is is extremely low compared to the general population of internet users. The number of people who participate in those activities, especially as seeders, is even lower. So in the end, the bandwidth providers can spend millions on new billing and metering systems, customer support, etc. with a huge risk of alienating their userbase (and creating entry for new competitors) and no potential returns on their investment.
And I have to take issue with this statement:
>>A truly market solution. Imagine that.
There seems to be a disconnect between many people on what a "market solution" is. Isn't what's out there now a market solution? Has anyone prevented the ISPs from implementing this?
So then your definition of "market solution" is more like "Mark's Solution". The same can be seen with those anti-unionists (and seen currently with the writers strike) who say "Let the market decide what to pay without union interference", completely ignoring the fact that the unions play a legitimate role in that market.
You can't call for a "market solution" and only invite those to whom the money ultimately flows. That, by definition, is not a market solution.
Posted at 1:08PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Nick Davis
11. My net connection by bell up here in Canada is capped out with a /mb charge over and above. If the ISP's are concerned about misused bandwidth (that could arguably fall outside of the T&C's - like using dyndns to host a site on a home connection), then I agree - just cap it on both sides.
If an ISP is currently selling unlimited bandwidth usage, and people use it for P2P, WOW, whatever, then shame on the ISP for selling unlimited usage!
Posted at 1:12PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Chris Hamoen
12. Mark, You got it right this time. In fact, the first time you wrote about P2P and bandwidth I was pretty sure what you really meant was metering bandwidth, not blocking P2P. It just makes sense.
I agree with you that the ISP's should think about charging for bandwidth the way wireless networks charge for cell phone minutes. You should be able to buy different levels of bandwidth based on your usage. That is the real issue, not what you are doing with the bandwidth, or if you use P2P or not.
I thought this was your main point all along, so I didn't react to the P2P example. I thought you just used P2P because it was an obvious example of the bandwidth inequities.
The problem may be that the cable/DSL providers don't have the metering and billing capabilities in place yet.
It is inevitable that this issue will be addressed, and metering seems to be the most reasonable answer.
Don Dodge
13. You still haven't convinced me that P2P users really are eating up bandwidth from the rest of us (i.e., making it less available/more expensive for the rest of us). You asserted this was true, by asking that if it wasn't "why is the last mile so expensive?" That hardly completely fails the laugh test for argument.
Let's see some stats. Not just of use, but of capacity.
(From what I can recall of WoW, it doesn't use that much upstream bandwidth.)
14. You suck! No, just kidding.
I think a lot of people are misunderstanding what you propose - which is, basically, asking customers to pay for what they use.
What is happening now, with ateempts to block to P2P is indeed controlling what you can do - and clumsily. What you are proposing is economically rational: you can do whatever you want with your bandwidth, but you will pay for the bandwidth.
Note that what we SHOULD see (but probably wouldn't) is that more casual users - like, say, my folks, who get their email and do a little web browsing - should see the prices drop because they are such light users.
Posted at 1:18PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by John Whiteside
15. I'm guessing that since I have a dissenting opinion, that means it's a personal attack ;-)
Mark, everytime that someone has tried restricting a specific use of the Internet, it has failed miserably. In fact, the attempts to restrict a specific activity have resulted in its increased use. Metallica learned this with it's battle with Napster. Viacom is learning it with YouTube. Even the record companies are starting to realize that DRM is a bad investment.
Mark, why not build a model around what consumers are demanding?
Posted at 1:34PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Brian
16. Mark,
"Guess what, business models do evolve over time. You may want your ISP to be exactly how you want it to be."
I have no problem with ISPs evolving their business model. Even though they are in as close to a monopoly as is allowed in the US, in many areas. I do have a problem with the bait-and-switch which has gone on - from the unlimited downloading to this current P2P blocking.
When they choose to be honest with their customers, then I will be less outraged. I 'll also expect more transparency, and pricing options. But without competition it's unlikely we'll get all that many options, let alone pricing pressure.
With this comes the knowledge that I'm not getting 8Mbs from Comcast. I'm really getting as much as 8 if no one from my area is online, and as low as 1 if there are a ton on. FiOS will loom even larger at this point.
Posted at 1:34PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Dave
17. Counter argument here: http://www.borella.net/mike/blog/2007/11/23/why-congestion-pricing-doesnt-work-on-the-internet/
18. Mark - it's funny you bring up the economic motivations of ISP's running internet "to my bathroom".....because, as it turns out...
...WE ALREADY PAID THEM TO DO THAT!!!!!
We paid them with an instrument called "tax breaks", which are essentially deferred promises (you know about these as a sports franchise owner, yes?!?!?). When the companies we'd paid reneged on their deals (Verizon, Global Crossing, AT&T, Qwest, et al), nobody (including yourself, MR. Amazing) really held them to task or even ASKED FOR THE DAMN MONEY BACK!
So, the shareholders and executives made out ok by promising fast internet to my bathroom, and then not delivering. In my book, that's called "fraud."
Now you come along whining about how P2P is affecting *gasp!* everyone on an ISP network, and somehow it's now the responsibility of CUSTOMERS to keep ISP's networks operational.
Sorry, Mark...not with you on this one.
Look at it this way: I buy my $100 Mav's ticket, but the Mav's don't play, and you STILL want me to pay for my parking and food, and not ask you for my money back.
19. Mark,
I think that what you need to realize is that P2P actually helps ISPs. No seriously. If you think about it from an ISP's perspective the cost to them is the connection to the Internet, not between hosts on their network. So let's say that have two users downloading the same bittorrent link for the latest Linux CD. If those two users both download half and then send the other half to each other, the ISP just save money by not downloading two copies of the file.
What ISPs need to do is embrace P2P to the point that they provide seeds for every file imaginable in their data centers. Then set up those so that they'll only talk to their customers. Their customers would percieve the connection to be very fast, but in reality the ISP would save boatloads of money not downloading the same files everytime over the Internet.
Now, you'll have to work out some sort of Common Carrier justification with the lawyers and the seeds, but I'm sure that's possible.
P2P solves the last-mile problems that you've been talking about so many times before.
--Ted
20. Hi Mark,
when formulating your argument you had bit torrent in mind as your concrete case. Please reformulate your argument with Skype in mind and see if your argument still makes sense.
You are mixing two contentious issues: piracy and bandwidth allocation.
-- Parveen
1. You are completely right however what you are doing is suggesting that ISPs take away the ideal and the norm from many people who cannot afford or are not willing to spend money to purchase software, music, movies etc. in a legitimate manner. An internet connection costs the same amount per month as 2 music CDs. The linux distribution argument is horse shit.
Posted at 12:13PM on Nov 23rd 2007 by Mark Poole