A Call to Action

I think the electricity analogy is useful for how this COULD be abused. Currently, you pay for the amount of power you use – doesn’t matter what you power with it.

Now imagine that you still pay for what you use, but the electric company can also dictate how the power flows depending on what specific thing you plug in.

Vexilar paid the power company a fee so that your vex battery would fast charge in 6hrs.

Marcum did not/could not pay the extra fee so the electric company throttles your flow and your Marcum battery takes three times as long to charge. You can fix this yourself by paying an additional $5 for a “Marcum extreme power” add-on package to the power company and they will then let your Marcum charge in 6hrs.

“SupR FishSee Pro” was never able to get in the market with their superior product because no one wants to wait 48hrs for their unit to charge, and as a startup they can’t afford the fees.

If you don’t like this switch power companies – except that for 50% of american households there are no other options, and most only have one or two.

I know for me, there is no realistic option besides Comcast if we want to keep using the internet how we do. As an aside, it’s interesting to see what I assume are real people who support repealing this as I have not met one of the 17% in the flesh.

Interesting read.

Some people want small government no mater what baggage it carries.

We all live with many examples of government controlled monopolies. If you live in a city, how about water, sewer, natural gas, electricity, cable TV, landline telephone, cell phone, garbage hauling… , they all have some form of government control. Either rates, service provider, taxes & fees. State, local or federal.

The government limits who supplies those service; and for that provider relationship the government tries to provide customer protection. It may not fit all, but they try.

Some of the government controls are as simple as licencing who provides services to an area (ie cable company). This is usually very local government body. Licenses are renewed on a regular basis and your local counsel has control over that process.

If you want to flex your muscles, do it where you have some impact that you can see and feel; at the local level.