Internet Woes

I am a downloader.

Oh, am I ever.

Currently, my external hard drive (named Marvin, after the Paranoid Android in HHGTTG [which I saw a very cute guy reading on the subway, go engrossed in it he didn't notice my looking at him, go figure]) is holding 259gigs of stuff. That includes Music, Movies, and a few pictures (the pictures won't add up to more than five gigs though). 60 gigs of that is music...

I just got a good idea of how much space those tv shows are taking up...

Anyway, I download a lot. I download my shows, being Dexter, Lost, the Office, Battlestar Galactica (though I'm starting at the beginning of that one, it's taking a while since I've had to pause my downloads, explanation coming), Slings and Arrows, Doctor Who, Life on Mars, etc etc...

And it's interesting to keep in mind that half of those shows provide clips, and even full episodes, online.

I also have podcasts coming my way, the common one being The Hour, a new obsession of mine that I recommend to all. Of note is that these podcasts are free, put up by the shows themselves through iTunes, and are not limited in any way, save that they aren't technically full episodes of a show (They DO provide those, at a cost, through the iTunes store).

So, if you exclude the music and movies, what I'm watching is, in fact, legal. even supported and encouraged in some areas. And hey, I've bought a few things through iTunes that I couldn't find anywhere else.

So what's my deal? I live in a country where downloading is merely Frowned upon, and I can't actually be charged for it because... well, I'm not distributing. Fine difference.

My deal... has nothing to do with what I'm downloading, really. I watch youtube videos like everyone else does. I watch podcasts like many others. I watch free clips of things online, which fans of shows do...

But these things that are legal and encouraged make no difference to what is called a Cap.

One reason I choose rogers over Bell is because Bell throttles their speeds, so it takes me a week to download a movie, while it takes two hours on Rogers. Love it. Speed is beautiful... until I reach the limit. The limit on rogers, at least with my internet, is 60 gigs.

You may think that is a lot for a limit, but considering there are two people in this house that are always online, watching things, downloading things (I didn't mention the many PDFs I'm required to download for school yet, did I?), researching things (we both do that), and so on...

It doesn't quite add up to 60 gigs... or does it?

Alright, so I've reached the limit. I stop downloading until the next billing month begins and the cap is reset to zero. Sadly, I am still online. I am still going from website to website, downloading PDFs for school, getting podcasts from automatic updates, and so on. All of these are still legal things, required things, and some are even paid for outside of my internet charges.

My beef? If I paid iTunes for something, should I really have to pay for it again because of going over my 60 gig limit on rogers, even when I haven't illegally downloaded more than ten gigs all month? That's my beef. Rogers put the cap in there to discourage downloading. Bell targeted specific file types being downloaded, torrent files really, and Rogers put a cap on everything.

Can we see where we're going here?

It's a beef, it's one that won't change... and one that pisses me off even more when I find that some companies out there want to charge MORE.

alas, my fight has always been this:

Somewhere in the charter, we have a right to education and free access... something like that. Internet, sadly, has come to represent both those things to many people, especially those who don't get out at all, like one of the people I live with now. It's also like that for those who can't afford much else. I use the internet to communicate with my family and friends, I can't afford a phone at this moment in time.

So what, boohoo, life is a bitch, deal with it.

Yeah, it's a bitch. A bitch I am going to slap while I'm still able to.

friggen Rogers. I wonder when that billing month starts anyway....