This is terrible:
"Customers just look for the Sponsored Data icon and they know the data related to that particular application or video is provided as a part of their monthly service," said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T Mobility. "That’s what makes this a win-win for customers and businesses." If a studio wanted to promote video streaming, for instance, they could offer to pick up the tab for anyone streaming content. Similarly, a company might offer to sponsor business-related data usage for its employees, or sponsor data as part of a customer loyalty program. If users know their data on a certain service is comped, the logic goes, it could make them more inclined to use particular services or products.
ATT is going to try to sell this as a consumer friendly move, but it is anything but. ATT is tilting the field in favor of those with access to existing capital. At first, this will be innocuous, a few companies will do this and it will seem a nice perk. In a couple of years, your data caps will shrink, making this "perk" more of a necessity. A couple of years after that, ATT will start asking for money to ensure proper delivery of content to subscribers. At that point, the internet as an open communication vehicle will be essentially dead. When you choose a carrier, you will essentially be choosing a collection of content as well. Want to have ESPN radio? Better get Verizon. Want CNN? Better get ATT. Want a new startup? Well, there probably wont be many new startups. What company without an established business model could afford the carrier fees to ensure that people can get a good experience form their new internet whatsit? How will non-profits and unpopular opinions be allowed to reach people? Will Google and Microsoft and Apple have to pay to allow apps in their ecosystems access to customers? How will any new ecosystem possibly hope to gain a foothold?
Some may argue that another carrier will offer the internet as we see it today. That is not likely to last long: wireless carriers have very high barriers to entry, making them less than a properly competitive market. How could a carrier expect to be able to survive if it forgoes a very lucrative revenue stream that its competitors claim? One could hope that media companies would refuse to play along, but once a few do, others will have to follow. No, if this is allowed to take root, the internet as an open communication medium is coming to an end.
This is a direct result of the refusal to treat the internet as a public good. It should never have been turned over to private interests without strict regulation. ATT s acting as one would expect: attempting to maximize its capital in the short to medium term. The long term doesn't matter to the people who run ATT, as they will have cashed out before they kill the internet cash cow. Only by strong regulation or treating the internet as a utility could its nature as an open communication medium be maintained. Only under those circumstances could the public good -- an open and robust internet -- be maintained in the face of the money to be made by exploiting the medium for private gain.
Government and university research brought the internet into being. Modern day capitalism has begun the process of killing it.