• @UnderpantsWeevil
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    3 hours ago

    Low-income plans

    Love to means-test fucking everything. You can’t just have $15/mo internet. You have to plead poverty for fear of middle class or (god forbid) rich people getting a basic utility at a sensible price.

    Nevermind how means testing inevitably creates these legal hurdles for administrators to leap over. The act of means testing is inevitably what businesses target in an effort to avoid compliance. “Oh! It’s too hard to tell who qualifies! Undo burden! Undo burden!” It wouldn’t be a burden if the ISP was limited to a universal flat rate. It wouldn’t be a burden if municipalities owned and operated their own independent flat-rate internet service as a public utility.

  • Amju Wolf
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    2723 hours ago

    The funniest (or saddest?) part of all this is that $15 is considered “low”. It’s still pretty high for something so vital (and tbf I’d much rather see a requirement for like 5-10 Mbps at $5 or so; you don’t need much bandwidth for meaningful, very useful service).

    • @pcr3
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      15 hours ago

      It’s crazy how many people equate Mbps latency. Broadband companies spread this lie that faster is better.

      You can game lag free and have VoIP calls with zero interruption on 5Mbps.

      Only thing more Mbps helps with is downloading larger files faster.

      • @mlg
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        13 hours ago

        You can game lag free and have VoIP calls with zero interruption on 5Mbps.

        Yeah on like… 2-4 devices total lol.

        What if I want to play MariokartDS online with 8 of my friends on the same connection?

        My WEP router advertises 11 Mbps WiFi, I want to use the whole thing.

        ^/s

      • Phoenixz
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        4 hours ago

        Also helps with streaming and many, many other services

        Having said that, though, yeah… 99% of the population doesn’t need more than 10Mbit / person

    • @Squizzy
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      413 hours ago

      I understand the argument but there is far less issues and costs associated with fibre connections which are virtually limitless in terms of speed - theoretical limits apply butbwe are still seeing new equipment at either ends that allow for multiple tbps speeds.

    • @nnullzz
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      1022 hours ago

      I not disagreeing but $15 would still put it at one of the cheapest if not the cheapest vital service. I’m not sure you could get any other utility for much lower than that.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 day ago

        “We can’t afford rent, bread and Internet, what happened, fuck socialism I guess???”

        – standard American who voted for the billionaire party

      • don
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        1 day ago

        “Oh, yeah? Well at least we passed laws requiring us to identity ourselves if we wanna use porn, lol! You can keep your cheap broadband internet! Ha!” — Red States

        • @Cliff
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          320 hours ago

          Why would you need broadband internet if it isn’t for porn in the first place?

    • @Jaeger86
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      101 day ago

      Wish I hadn’t built my life in the red hellhole

      • @[email protected]
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        5 hours ago

        Sunk cost fallacy… It might be worth moving in the long run. It’s far from perfect, but I know that the difference between living in a solid blue state, vs a purple state, is huge. I can’t even imagine coming from a deep red state. Shit would be like entering the Promised Land.

        Which is sad, because blue states have their fair share of issues.

      • @Lost_My_Mind
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        822 hours ago

        What about me? When I was born Ohio is what we’d now call blue. I say it that way because when I was born, states didn’t have colors. In fact in 1980 when reagan won, the map he won was blue. Today that wouldn’t make sense, so you get my point.

        By the time I was a teenager Ohio had become a swing state.

        And now it’s red.

        Where the fuck is my blue ohio I was brought up in???

    • @ilinamorato
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      61 day ago

      Something something freedom something? *

      * Offer not valid in all 50 states, void where prohibited

  • ThePowerOfGeek
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    1224 hours ago

    I wish California would implement this law as well.