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Overheard: Internet metering brings us back to 1995

Internet metering is a throwback to the days of dial-up service… Brian Stelter, To Curb Traffic on the Internet, Access Providers Consider Charging by the Gigabyte

In the early days of dial-up access, America Online and other providers offered tiered pricing, in part because audio and video were barely viable online. Consumers feared going over their allotted time and bristled at the idea that access to cyberspace was billed by the hour.

In 1996, when AOL started offering unlimited access plans, Internet use took off and the online world started moving to the center of people’s daily lives.

Is Brian Stelter the only person who’s writing about how we’re going backwards with Internet metering? Everyone’s acting like this is a new thing. It’s an old thing, billed in a new way — gigabytes instead of minutes.