Playing Chicken

This may not be the most hopeful of posts, but if this site is to inform and encourage, then sometimes we need to look at darker realities. I don’t want encourage hope based on naiveté.

In recent months it has become clear that there are two competing and contradictory trends within the tech space. These cars are racing toward each other at breakneck speed, and I fear that we are standing directly in their path of collision.

Our combatants in this insane game of chicken are 1)anywhere online access and 2)bandwidth restrictions
The first of these principles is actually quite a positive one. We have never had better access to our own data and resources. Cloud storage services offered by Dropbox, Amazon, Apple and many other provide users with amazing amounts of storage that can be accessed by any device at any time for free or a reasonable price. Media is moving toward a streaming model, whether it be movies with services like Netflix or for music with services like Spotify, Pandora, or Rdio. The clear model of the future is not to carry data on a device, but to use the device as an access point whether through wired home and office Internet or through mobile wifi or 3G access. It provides the consumer with greater access, convenience, sharing abilities, and ultimately and improved digital experience.

However, this encouraging trend is racing at breakneck speed toward a competing vehicle, not moving so fast as to cause alarm, but on a collision course nonetheless. With the advent of this immense use of data, ISPs (Internet service providers) are feeling the strain (or opportunity, depending on your level of cynicism) on their distribution system, and they are taking deliberate steps to limit the amount of data and to further monetize the service they provide. This is being seen clearly now with the end of unlimited data plans at three of the four main cell phone providers. Even those lucky enough to have been “grandfathered” into unlimited plans learned recently that AT&T plans to throttle (lovely word) those in the top 5% of data usage each month. As with most movements like this, the ISPs are clothing their actions in righteousness. They bemoan the strain on their network, rarer than expanding it despite billions in profits, or they complain about “bandwidth hogs” who use more than the average data, suggesting that they must be doing something illegal in order to consume so much data (“bandwidth hog = someone using the service that he or she has paid for). This movement is not limited to the mobile space, because several ISPs are also talking (or acting) about plans to limit or to charge more for greater bandwidth use in the home. While I don’t want to say that these companies are trying to catch up to this rush to mobile, there is an inherent hypocrisy in saying you need a mobile device to stream music and video while throttling this ability.

There are not specific answers to this problem (short of all of us getting our mobile Internet from Starbucks…which will make us a much more jittery people). Since there is no real competition in this space (and the demonstrated tendency of the few “competing” ISPs to act in lockstep with one another) there are no market forces to regulate this, and government regulation, given the immense lobbying power of these companies, is unlikely. In the same way, I don’t see us turning away from conveniences that we have experienced. I suspect the absolute best case scenario that we can anticipate is rising costs to do the things that will be a normal part of modern life.

But no matter what direction this takes, this is not an issue we can ignore. The mainstream press doesn’t cover it because it is not of interest to the general public (and maybe because they are primarily owned by companies with direct or indirect ISP involvement? No, that’s too cynical…but they do keep encouraging us to use their online app?), but the “general public” needs to wake up and see that they are going to be the ultimate game victim of this game of digital chicken.

As always, I invite your comments.