While I still believe that charging users of cellular and related systems for traffic on a per-byte basis makes no sense, the advent of such may shift the focus of Web browsing from the client to the network – an approach with real benefits regardless.
As I’ve previously stated, it’s unfair to charge a mobile (or, really, any other) user for access on a per-byte basis because the user has no control – zero – over how much data is being consumed. Perhaps we should pass a law stating that HTML must include a protocol to tell the client how many bytes, including all protocol overhead, will be transferred to satisfy any given request before such a transfer is consummated. Like paying in advance for voice minutes, we always seem to be optimizing for the needs of the supplier, not the customer. And, of course, this phenomenon extends well beyond high tech to essentially all aspects of the economy (health insurance and healthcare itself come to mind), and, like sheep, we simply put up with it. And, in most cases, we have no choice, and won’t until the politicians who run this country wake up and remember whom they should be working for. And that won’t happen anytime soon, because those same corporate interests pay their salaries. There. I said it. But I digress.
Anyway, at least in the mobile browser space, there is a little we can do about this problem, and one of the alternatives is to use a proxy-based browser, like Skyfire or Opera Mini, in place of the more traditional thick-client approach. Opera, which announced the availability of Mini 6 on iOS yesterday, stressed in the press release “up to 90% compression of data traffic”, which will certainly be good news for anyone on a metered plan – and perhaps, depending upon compatibility and how an individual user might feel about using said browser, a benefit in terms of responsiveness for everyone regardless. I’m going to be trying the latest versions of both of these browsers, as well as Firefox Mobile, on Android, of course, over the next few weeks, and I’d enjoy hearing your views and opinions on mobile browsing as well. Proxy-based browsing may in fact be on the cusp of becoming a significant if not the dominant model for mobile browsing, and thus for all manner of Web and cloud services as well.
And, for the record, I’m still against paying per megabyte for service. I don’t mind setting a monthly limit at some reasonable (read: very large) number, and I still favor charging for priority in the queue, as long as there is some form of fair access mechanism, of course. Fair access, fair pricing. Makes sense to me.
