Bandwidth Shaping - will the ISPs learn from the music industry’s failure
So, we’ve all seen the various stories over the last year or so about ISPs blocking P2P and other bandwidth intensive services. I’ve been reading yet another one this morning and and it just occured to me: this is a parody of the music industry’s biggest mistake - trying to block the adoption and distribution of MP3 with law suits and DRM.
I’ve written previously about this here and here and here.
You can’t stop an advancing tide, forget it. If you try to prevent the natural progress you’ll lose, instead consumers will go elsewhere (either to your more open mined innovative competitors, or to new disruptive competitors who will enter the space).
The best option is to embrace the change AND work out how your business can make money from it. You either see it (and treat it) as a threat, or you see it (and treat it) as an opportunity. Its widely accepted that DRM is dying and that music companies must embrace new revenue models, same goes for ISPs and P2P.