The Myth of Flat Rates and Infinite Bandwidth

[Timothy C. May]

At 4:40 PM 8/5/96, Martin Minow wrote:
>Arun Mehta <amehta at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in> writes:
>
>>
>>True, though even better would be simply to charge you a flat
>>rate. If billing is that expensive, why bother?
>>
>
>Tragedy of the Commons.
>
>Flat rate works only if no single user can use more than
>a tiny fraction of the total bandwidth.
>

This was also the fallacy of the "dark fiber" vision of George Gilder, who,
as an economist of sorts, should've known better.

--Tim may

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