And if we didn’t have electricity, think about how much we would save in utility bills! By golly I think you’re on to something here. runs off to invest in the Amish
You’re looking at this from the wrong perspective. Need has nothing–zero, zip, nada–to do with it. People don’t pay for luxury items (and I’m using luxury in it’s strictest sense, of something nonessential) because they need them, they pay for them because, to them, it’s worth the cost. And for most people, broadband is. The vast, VAST majority of dialup users I’ve known either switched to broadband at some point, planned to switch to broadband ASAP or expressed a strong desire to switch to broadband eventually. Few, if any, if these people truly needed it. But, they sure as hell wanted it.
I wouldn’t give NetZero my business at any rate. I’m still kind of “ticked” at them (it’s not the right word because it’s not really annoyance, but I can’t think of a better word) for still calling themselves NetZero even though they now charge for Internet access. The fact that they’re now violating the sentiment behind all their old ads makes it even worse in my mind.
Yes, see my referencing boots and cable.
But if your horse suffered a flat (broke its leg), you’d have to buy a new horse 
I like when they say “All companies take you to the same internet, so why pay huge fees to get there?”
And you would benefit from the fertilizer value of the horse manure!
When I saw these ads, my first thought was “Wait, NetZero still exists?” because I hadn’t even thought of them in, I dunno, 10 years. But my next thought was that their timing was brilliant. Because there are a lot of people who are pretty darn broke right now. There are plenty of people who do need to cancel that $30+per month high speed internet bill. Their choice is between dial up and going to the public library. Also, there are people whose high speed access is basically a luxury for their kids. When a parent loses a job, that will go in a flash. However, having some access to the internet is becoming almost essential. If NetZero ever had a viable moment as a business, IMHO this is it.
A horse and buggy probably aren’t cheaper than your car. One of the things that made cars so popular was that it takes quite a bit of wealth to support a horse - particularly if you don’t have land.
A better analogy is that it used to be when you wanted to visit grandma halfway across the country, you’d pile the family into your mid-sized sedan and drive - maybe stay in a cheap hotel along the way. Airfare was a luxury normal families didn’t spend money on except as an exceptional splurge. Sometime in the past 20 years or so that changed - now few people will spend a day or two in the car on a trip - you fly if you can. Its still more expensive than driving, but it still has value.
As more people have less disposable income, the value proposition on flying or high speed internet changes. It becomes about which luxuries you choose to afford. My parents currently have high speed internet for my Dad’s work - when he retires that will leave their house - they don’t need it for the little email my mother will do - and they’ll have less disposable income to spend on things like easy accessibility to email.
If economic conditions cause a reset - we will see ourselves move towards more 1970s sensibilities in terms of the difference between need and want. I think most people now need some sort of internet connectivity - I don’t doubt most people - given unlimited funds - want high speed connectivity. Most people are going to need to make choices about which wants they are going to spend their money on. Not everyone is going to choose high speed internet over, say going out for beer on Friday nights.
Broadband isn’t all about speed: All broadband services I’m aware of are always-on services as well, meaning you can do things like running your own personal mail and/or Usenet server that automatically refreshes its local store with what’s on a distant server you’re subscribing to. This makes customized spam filtering possible and allows you to check your email and Usenet news without being able to get online (this only makes sense in the context of having a laptop).
In addition, a broadband ‘modem’ (DSL, cable, probably others as well) is actually a router with a modem built in. That means multiple people can share the same connection, which isn’t possible with dial-up. Because of this, broadband makes a lot more sense for a family.
Right. Pay no attention to all that extra legroom in first class.
Their strategy reminds me of adds for Motel 6 I saw years ago. They’re a cheap motel chain, so they don’t have things like bellhops. So, to make that sound like a good thing, Tom Bodett says something about how you managed to handle your own luggage this far, so you don’t want to have to pay some bellhop to bring it just a few more feet to your room. Or something like that.
Well, this business model makes more sense than GM’s does because they are not begging for a handout… YMMV
Sooo,
I’m the only one with NetZero DSL? $20 a month, average speed around 3000kbps, not the fastest, but gets it done for me, and about $15 cheaper than the next ISP for similar speed (AT&T), I think.
I remember the days (not very well, I was young) of the 300 baud modem and logging onto servers like local BBSes (believe this was free, since it was a local call), CompuServe, and Prodigy (my family never got AOL and I was too young to use Usenet.) Well, I generally wasn’t allowed to do so by myself–Prodigy in 90-91 was more of an exception–but I remember how big a deal it was every time we upgraded to 14.4, 28.8, and 56k (three different modem purchases. Kinda like when the big family present one Christmas was a blazing-fast 4X CD-ROM drive for the 486 Gateway, which had only come with a 1X drive, which was already too slow to play Wing Commander II well, as the game called for a 2X drive.) Anyway, the point of the rambling is that my parents were on dial-up in one form or another for nearly 20 years (well until I was in college) and have only had DSL for a few years. Personally, I’m looking to get the fastest Verizon DSL possible here in the new home (no way am I going with Time Warner for broadband, I barely want to have anything to do with them for cable) and would go FiOS if they’d hurry up and get it rolled out to my part of the area. I was running cheap and slow DSL from Qwest during grad school and I just can’t take that kind of performance anymore.
Or a big tricked-out nametag!
Flo so rocks.
I dunno, my car cost $1500. Pretty sure a horse alone costs more than that.
I saw this commercial this morning. My response: it’s not the same internet if you can’t watch YouTube.
I tried to show someone my Facebook page on dialup. Nearly impossible.
No, that’s a pretty typical cost for a horse, if you aren’t looking for something special (and a $1500 car probably isn’t all that special either, having had one before…). The cost in horses is the upkeep.