Ok, I was thinking. I pay for electricity and water and other utilities depending how much I use. That makes sense. I pay for cable because they buy the channels and the channels buy the shows and the people making the shows need to make money (essentially, with a few exceptions, more or less). That makes sense. But why do I pay for the internet? There is no direct monetary correlation between the websites I visit and my internet provider (like there is with cable). The internet providers are just like ticket scalpers or something; you want something and they have it.

I mean shouldn’t it just be free like antenna TV or something? You could hook up your own connection right? You’d just need a bunch of technology and equipment and servers and proton packs and flux capacitors or something right? Also I’d rather you didn’t get extremely technical, just answer this question like it was a five year old asking.

wtfmcnuggets Posted:

why do you pay a phone bill?

Why do you pay for anything.

To give a serious answer, you are paying for infrastructure. Most ISPs build infrastructure to your home and you pay to use it, but they are still paying a Tier 1 provider access to the backbone. It would not only be extremely, very specially costly for someone to build a private use ISP, it would also probably (speculation here) not comply with FCC regulations.

Not to mention, even if you went the extra mile, and paid for all the equipment to be your OWN Tier 1 backbone provider, you would also be paying peering fees to the other Tier 1’s out there.

The INTERnet, is a group of providers, not just one. Huge ISPs like Comcast could not function without the others, despite their peering agreements.

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Celerysteve Posted:

Oh that’s cool. I guess not knowing something and just asking is a good reason to be bumhurt.

What? I answered you, in a pretty civil manner. Log in to see images!