Observations of an Internet Middleman (Level3) (was: RIP Network Neutrality (was: Wow its been quiet here...

Wed May 14 19:06:26 UTC 2014

On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 2:27 AM, Roland Dobbins <rdobbins at arbor.net> wrote:

>
> On May 14, 2014, at 3:11 PM, Matthew Petach <mpetach at netflight.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm constantly amazed at how access networks think they can charge 2/3
> the price of full transit for just their routes when they represent less
> than 1/10th of the overall traffic volume.
>
> My guess is that from the perspective of the access providers, they aren't
> selling traffic volume or routes, per se - their view is that they're
> selling privileged engagement with large numbers of potentially monetizable
> individual prospects.
>

For an ad-supported enterprise, that becomes quite
the challenge; if the access network has 40M
users, but they're all endemic cheapskates that
never click on ads, a) is it worth trying to improve
connectivity to them?  (will better connectivity
increase likelihood of clicking, or are they simply
cheap to the core, in which case it would be wasted
money and effort), and b) would the access network
be willing to divulge the demographic nature of their
customer base ahead of time ("we have 40M skinflints
who will never click on your ads--come pay for direct
access to them!").

That "potentially" is quite a big "?" in the equation.  ^_^;

Are there any real-world models out there for revenue-sharing between
> app/content providers and access networks which would eliminate or reduce
> 'paid peering' (an alternate way to think of it is as 'delimited transit',
> another oxymoron like 'paid peering', but with a slightly different
> emphasis) monetary exchanges?
>

An interesting proposal, to be sure.  "I'll pay you a
portion of all ad revenue I generate from your users
clicking on my ads.  If you get users with more
disposable income who are more likely to click
on my ads, you get more revenue share from me.
If you go after the bottom of the barrel cheap
users who never click on ads, you end up with
no revenue share income."

Would be somewhat amusing to have broadband
providers sending out notes to their customers
"I'm sorry, we're not going to give you the option
of renewing your service; you never click on ads,
we don't get any revenue share out of you.  Go find
some other network to sponge off it, you're not worth
it for us anymore."  ;P

Not going to happen, of course, but an interesting
thought exercise to contemplate.  ^_^;;

Matt