MediaOne dns problems

[sethg at ropine.com (Seth Gordon)]

   > I don't follow your logic... "basic" service is simply plugging in and
   > surfing.  MediaOne does a kick-ass job at that, IMHO.  Running your own
   > services is NOT basic.  That's a "premium" service.

   According to who?  Sure, that's what MediaOne's marketing department calls
   it, but as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing "premium" about a static
   IP address.  In fact, it would be less work for them to manage than
   rolling them.

The prices charged for "basic" and "premium" service are influenced by
how much the services cost to provide *and* by how much customers are
willing to pay for them.  Even if providing static IP to a customer is
as easy as writing a few more rows into a database, if the customers
who want static IP want it badly enough to pay $10/month extra for it,
the ISP would be foolish *not* to charge a $10/month premium for
static IP.

Shapiro and Varian, in _Information Rules_, mention how one
manufacturer of laser printers (HP? IBM?) used the same motherboard in
both the Foobar 1000 and Foobar 2000 printers -- except that on the
Foobar 1000, one jumper on the motherboard was cut, so that it would
only print half as fast.  Thus, they could sell Foobar 1000s to folks
on a tight budget who were satisfied with the slower print speed, and
make extra profits off the people willing to pay more for the Foobar
2000s.

That's capitalism.

--sethg
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