General Discussions

It's a french-canadian thing, they are a nutty bunch. LOL

Just kidding,
Je t'aime toujours mon ami

Oh, okay. Thanks for a little clarification.

Plugs = having connections in highest levels.

And as CyPHeR369 gently put it: true it is a French-Canadian questionable use of an English word.

At the same time the Steam client "Failed to load SteamUI localization file" after re-boot, fixed now

I do too 💛

While it is legal that they can do it, the likely hood of them doing it to this specific website is extremely low. Cheat Happens does not really hold anything that competes with ISP products and is generally viewed as a niche community by the general public.

You have to understand that the fundamental bottom line for ISPs is to increase their profit margin.The public enemy number one for them are streaming services like Netflix and Hulu for one reason: They are a direct competitor to media consumption. As time progresses, it has been shown that more and more (including myself) are cutting the cord in favor of these sites for benefits to the consumer. Thus ISPs use these legal tactics to make these services unattractive and draw you back in as the hero.

In this day and age of technology though, many out there are experts in network administration that notice exactly how they do this and expose them which eventually lead the road to Title II reclassification in 2015. This is important as it grants FCC power to tell ISPs to stop doing anti-consumer things like this.

In summary: expect things that are threats to ISP bottom lines to be in the line of fire. Even if we do get Title II classification back, understand that it is still an extremely uphill battle. Title II does not protect against arbitrary data caps being enforced if you suddenly decide to cut the cord which is to me is far more restrictive. It additionally does not resolve the issue of the virtual monopolies that exist where as the only ISP in the area, can charge whatever they want.

Title II is a step in the right direction that we need to take back, but it is not the one stop cure all fix many make it out to be.

Thank you Neo7 for enlightening us, you put my bitterness several Terabytes down

I can't edit this in my original post but a good case study for you to look into is the Luxottica company. This company owns nearly 80% of the glasses market including vertical integration (eye exam services, prescription labs, point of sales, insurance, etc) giving them a virtual monopoly. This is why nearly every single pair of glasses costs like $200+ and for those that need corrective lenses, that's likely to be a yearly bill you gotta pay. Even if you have insurance, those premiums go to Luxottica.

Take all those prices and compare them to Zenni Optical (online competitor to Luxottica) and see how cheap they can really be sold for. They were not the first to stand up to Luxottica either. Oakley tried to and Luxottica choked them to death financially then bought them out. Now they cost a metric ton. Similar thing happened to Ray-ban (originally a discount bin product)

This amount control is the end game of ISPs and what many Net Neutrality advocates are ultimately working to prevent from happening (most are really bad at explaining this though).

In reference to your comments Neo7; would Zenni Optical like to have the preeminence that Luxottica currently has? Would they supplant Luxottica if they could? I would say yes they would, and if their company leadership were asked the same questions; I believe they would answer in the affirmative as well.

If a business gains overwhelming market share, and if that #1 position is gained through illegal practices; there are many legal remedies (both national and international) by which one can address the issue/issues.

Also if I may, I would say without hesitation, that Luxottica would ultimately be unimpressive if the individual customers (the buying public) did NOT buy their products. I would also say that free competition (especially in consumer products) ALWAYS leads to better products and lower prices. Therefore, Zenni is truly both a legitimate and welcomed "competitive" force which, as you said; "see how cheap they can really be sold for." - this competitive position however, guarantees nothing for Zenni, unless their products are purchased.