Using The Internet Is Like Eating Oreos

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Mediacom Senior VP and General Counsel Joseph Young, in a letter to the FCC, compared the internet to Oreo cookies in an attempt to justify why customers should not be given unlimited data. He went on to explain how Netflix, YouTube, Xbox Live and others all charge more for premium services. Here's the quote about Oreo cookies:

Imagine you are out for a walk and experience a sudden, irresistible craving for Oreo® cookies. You only want to spend two dollars, which means that you will be able to buy a two-pack or maybe even a four-pack but for sure you cannot get the family size of over 40 cookies. For that many, you have to spend more. Of course, it would be nice if your two dollars bought you the right to eat an unlimited number of cookies, but you know that is not the way our economy works.
 
Except you buy Oreos on contract. You get a limited number of boxes a month. And if you run out, you HAVE to buy them from your current OSP (Oreo Service Provider). You can't get a box from friends, or just pick up one at another store. And your OSP charges 2-3 times the normal rate for those "extra" boxes.
 
I guess it could be like eating oreos if the quantity in the package were unknown but priced the same regardless of the contents and Nabisco came out every month and took the leftovers away. Also, the grocery store should try to upsell you the 100-cookie family pack on a constant basis and then blame/berate you when you opent he bag and the cookies are broken.

Yes, exactly like oreos. Even gets soggy when you put it in milk.
 
I'd have disconnected from the internet after the first packet of the internetz' if it was anything like eating oreos. Those things are vile disgusting and taste like shit.
 
M76 said:
I'd have disconnected from the internet after the first packet of the internetz' if it was anything like eating oreos. Those things are vile disgusting and taste like shit.
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That's it, you're off the Christmas card list.
 
No, because when I buy oreos, I see a single price and a number of cookies in a box. I don't have to keep track of my bills for hidden fees or errors, also someone isn't watching how I eat my cookie to sell that information to advertisers. I myself am a fan of analogies but not if they are completely retarded.
 
It all boils down to: "If people are willing to pay for it, why should we give it to them for free?"
 
Bandalo said:
Except you buy Oreos on contract. You get a limited number of boxes a month. And if you run out, you HAVE to buy them from your current OSP (Oreo Service Provider). You can't get a box from friends, or just pick up one at another store. And your OSP charges 2-3 times the normal rate for those "extra" boxes.
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I read that over on Ars last night and truly was the best response to this idiocy.
 
Ok, so 7-11 has 20 Oreo boxes on the shelf, you buy two, and there are 18 left. A internet user uses 40GB of data, how much do you have left?? How many have they taken away from your shelf of GBs?

When you can logically answer that, then I might allow this comparison has value.

But till then, BS. You have infinite GB, more GB than there are atoms in the universe. So you selling them on a quantity based metric (rather than speed based metric, and even that is partially artificial) is pure greed and corruption.
 
If I ate unlimited Oreos, I'd be dead the next day. Consuming unlimited Internet, on the other hand, no problem. :D

He should have compared it to electrical and water usage, but oh well, too late for that!
 
amddragonpc said:
If I ate unlimited Oreos, I'd be dead the next day. Consuming unlimited Internet, on the other hand, no problem. :D

He should have compared it to electrical and water usage, but oh well, too late for that!
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Can't compare it to water usage since water companies provide both the pipeline and the water. And some municipalities provide the pipeline. ISPs on the other hand only provide the pipeline and should charge accordingly.
 
Until all Americans have more than one choice for ISPs, this guy should shut his pie hole. No competition = government regulation. End of story.
 
If they want to charge the 1 cent each GB, then I am in.
If they want to charge me 10$per TB with roll over that never expires, then I am in too.
Alas they overcharge by Oreos per second and pound.
 
amddragonpc said:
He should have compared it to electrical and water usage, but oh well, too late for that!
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Not really, though. It's just transport and use of the infrastructure. You're just using their wires and electricity. They have no physical product. Nothing to run out of. Nothing in inventory. They aren't going to 'sell out' of things.

I'm paying for their infrastructure use. That's it. There is no "Oops, we ran out" or anything. No drought. No running out of coal....
 
This has to be the worst analogy I've ever seen. Even for mediacom, this is just moronic.
 
The analogy breaks down rather rapidly. When you make Oreos, you have hard costs: the flour, the sugar, the horrible 55 gallon drums of industrial chemicals, etc. When you sell internet access, your hard costs are fixed, and if someone downloads 10GB instead of 5GB, it costs the ISP little to NOTHING to provide that additional service. Data isn't a finite resource, and the hard costs involved are TRIVIAL when compared to the hard costs of providing physical goods (like crappy, mexican made, mass produced diabetes fuel).
 
Oreos May Be As Addictive As Cocaine
(click link to play No Agenda soundbite - ITM MoFos)

oreosstuff1.jpg

Oreos May Be As Addictive As Cocaine | TIME.com
 
I like how the letter no longer loads now. I would like to see it actually and rip it to shreds in a direct rebuttal.



Relevant to this letter

He goes on to say we call them greedy pigs and they ARE. I pray they end up just like a water or power bill and can't do this kind of shit anymore.
 
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You only want to spend two dollars, which means that you will be able to buy a two-pack or maybe even a four-pack but for sure you cannot get the family size of over 40 cookies. For that many, you have to spend more. Of course, it would be nice if your two dollars bought you the right to eat an unlimited number of cookies, but you know that is not the way our economy works.
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He is right to some degree, you do pay for a set amount. Where he is wrong is the amount and the overall value of the product. In the case of the internet, $2 doesn't get you a box of oreos, it gets you billions upon billions of boxes of oreos. The value is so low per oreo, you might as well make it an all-you-can-eat oreo buffet because it would be impossible to consume that many oreos using the latest and greatest technology used for eating them.

These ISP's treat gigabytes as tens of dollars. The reality is the worth of those gigabytes is fractions of a penny each even when they stop trying to meet the increasing demands by not upgrading or expanding existing infrastructure.
 
I didn't read any of the article but are there Internet flavored Oreos coming cuz that would just be weird.
 
Isn't netflix the "Oreos" and Mediacom just the delivery truck?

The delivery truck shouldn't care if the oreoes are double-stuff, triple-stuff, or just a solid block of frosting, as long as it fits on the truck.

These ISPs all seem to forget that they are selling a service, not a product.
 
sir-gold said:
Isn't netflix the "Oreos" and Mediacom just the delivery truck?

The delivery truck shouldn't care if the oreoes are double-stuff, triple-stuff, or just a solid block of frosting, as long as it fits on the truck.

These ISPs all seem to forget that they are selling a service, not a product.
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This is why it would be nice for them to finally get their just reward and become a utility. They are going to bitch and complain about it the entire way through though. Honestly, all this nonsense makes me want to go off the grid sooner then later.
 
conan77 Ars Praetorian
jump to post
Let's say you have a bad Oreo habit. Like a box a day. With such Oreo consumption, you have negotiated a deal wherein you get a full month's supply for $100. 30 boxes or so for $100. Now a few days before the month is up, you run out of Oreos. You see, you have visitors , and they like Oreos too. You would thing you could just to to 7-Eleven and buy a box for $5. But you can only buy Oreos from your current supplier, as the local municipal government has legally mandated that there are only two OSPs (Oreo Service Providers) allowed to sell Oreos in your city. You have to pick one (which you have) and you can't switch mid-month without paying for the next month you'll never receive. So you get the extra box from your OSP, and pay the overage fee of $25 a box.

Yeah, the internet is exactly like Oreos.
508 posts | registered 1/22/2014
 
Ok, I just wanted to point out something.

(I'm not for or against legalization)

I was looking for the sound bite of the girl saying Oreo's are more addictive then cocaine. And in the article it said that college students did a study with oreo's and cocaine. I thought well that's weird, I thought you couldn't do studies with schedule 1 drugs.

So I looked it up and it turns out cocaine is only schedule 2, which means it is classified as less dangerous then marijuana.

Marijuana is so dangerous the government won't let anyone do studies with it, like if Oreo's are more addictive.
 
Jim Kim said:
conan77 Ars Praetorian
jump to post
Let's say you have a bad Oreo habit. Like a box a day. With such Oreo consumption, you have negotiated a deal wherein you get a full month's supply for $100. 30 boxes or so for $100. Now a few days before the month is up, you run out of Oreos. You see, you have visitors , and they like Oreos too. You would thing you could just to to 7-Eleven and buy a box for $5. But you can only buy Oreos from your current supplier, as the local municipal government has legally mandated that there are only two OSPs (Oreo Service Providers) allowed to sell Oreos in your city. You have to pick one (which you have) and you can't switch mid-month without paying for the next month you'll never receive. So you get the extra box from your OSP, and pay the overage fee of $25 a box.

Yeah, the internet is exactly like Oreos.
508 posts | registered 1/22/2014
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That's exactly it! See, some people do get how oreos and the Internet are exactly the same. Except for in every way, but other than that exactly the same !

Lol. Corporate greed just keeps coming up with really bad reasons as for why they do stuff. Next it's going to be the Internet is like cow manure. Because these analogies smell.
 
OH!! NO WONDER my internet is so slow! Those series' of tubes can't take multiple oreos at a time!
 
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