I hate Walmart. I detest it. I hate everything about it. I hate the parking lot. I hate that the medicine and toiletries section is on the complete opposite side of the store as everything else you need. I hate that even if you’re just running in for five things, you still have to get a full-size cart because you can never find a handbasket. I hate that they have 78 checkout lanes, but only two are open at any given time. And I hate that if you use the self-checkout lane, there’s a 99.9% chance something won’t work, and you’ll have to wait around for ten minutes for a worker to come by and enter a random code that you probably could’ve entered yourself.

And yet I still shop there.

I’m not proud of it, mind you. But there are times when it’s just too dang far to drive to the nearest Target or Kroger or whatever.

I bring this up because of the 2005 documentary “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices”, which I watched for the first time this weekend. It’s an extremely biased look at the evil spawn of Sam Walton. How it’s destroyed Main Street USA. How it’s condemned its employees to poverty. How it thrives on cheap Asian sweatshop labor. How it gets millions in tax breaks, promotes crime, and sacrifices puppies in bloody Satanic rituals. (OK, that last part might be an exaggeration.) The documentary had plenty of statistics and tear-jerking firsthand testimonials to back up its claims, and I don’t doubt the validity of any of them. But here’s the thing: Walmart is not the problem.

At least it’s not entirely the problem. And I don’t even think it’s necessarily the cause of the problem so much as a reflection of how the rest of the world is changing.

Yes, Walmart has caused the closure of a lot of locally-owned mom-and-pop businesses throughout the country. But if it hadn’t been Walmart, it would’ve been Target or McDonald’s or Barnes & Noble or Home Depot or somebody else. Yes, their employees make barely over minimum wage and can’t support a family on their paychecks. But why would anyone think you could support a family by working as a part-time cashier at a grocery store? How is that really Walmart’s fault? Has it gotten millions in tax breaks and exploited Asian sweatshops? Absolutely, but so have a lot of other companies.

I’m not saying that any of that is right; it’s not. But the world is changing, and it’s not realistic to expect otherwise. And that change doesn’t begin and end with Walmart. Look at the publishing industry. One could argue that retail giant Barnes & Noble caused the death of other traditional bookstores. But Amazon caused the bankruptcy of Barnes & Noble. Best Buy and Walmart may have caused the end of traditional music stores, but iTunes has since overtaken each of them. Blockbuster may have dominated the video rental industry, but they were replaced by Netflix, which itself faces pressure from Comcast, AT&T, and others.

I’m not defending Walmart. Not at all. And I’m not saying we’re better off with or without them. Only that they are not the sole cause of the end of the world, as the documentary would have its audience believe.

Previously:
How the West was lost
Will the American Empire fall like Rome?
Long live capitalism

AT&T announced a few days ago that beginning May 2, it’ll be instituting Internet usage caps to all its broadband customers: 150 GB/month for DSL users and 250 GB/month for U-verse folks. Go over that, and you’ll be charged an extra 10 bucks per 50 GB of excess usage.

The evil empire claims that this change will only affect 2 percent of its users. Maybe so. Doing a quick estimate, I don’t think our household will be in danger of hitting the cap, at least not in the foreseeable future. I use about 80-90 GB from my computer, but that’s the bulk of our usage. We also stream Netflix movies a lot, but at about 1.5-2 GB per movie (SD, through the Wii), we would have to watch a ton of movies to put us in danger.

But that’s not the point, is it?

The point of usage caps is to change the behavior of customers. As I noted a while back:

When something (anything) is unlimited, it has no value. If it’s wasted, it’s wasted, no big deal. There are no opportunity costs because it’s not costing you anything. After all, you’re gonna pay 30 bucks a month for data access whether you use it or not.

But once the concept of scarcity is introduced, all of a sudden that resource takes on real value. If you’re on the 200 MB plan, then you’re acutely aware that you only have 200 MB to last you the whole month, and you’ll naturally begin to conserve this now-limited resource. That’s basic human nature, and it’s what differentiates an inefficient allocation of resources from an efficient one.

However, what’s most interesting about this announcement (and again, not surprising at all) is that U-verse’s video on demand is exempt from these caps. In other words, you’re not penalized for streaming a pay-per-view movie (even in HD), but you are for streaming a movie from Netflix, Hulu, or YouTube. I don’t know about you, but that seems like a violation of net neutrality. Not that Congress is actually willing to enforce that sort of thing.

Such a move on AT&T’s part echoes the efforts of Comcast, Time Warner, and others to kill off Netflix in favor of their own much more profitable services. And the movie studios are firmly in the ISPs’ corner. What that ultimately means for Netflix — and by extension their loyal customers — is unclear since Netflix currently owns about 61 percent of the video streaming market.

But whatever the outcome, it’s clear that ISP customers are ultimately on the losing end of the deal, whether they hit the usage caps or not. Unlimited Internet access in the U.S. is dead, and that fundamentally changes the nature of the Internet from here on out.

Previously:
The death of unlimited
The evil genius of AT&T MicroCells
Metered broadband vs. cloud computing

The much-maligned phone company and sole provider of iPhone voice and data service (when you can get it), has decided to put the kibosh on its $30/month unlimited data plan. From now on, new users must choose between a $15/month plan that allows for 200 MB of data usage, or a $25/month plan that allows for 2 GB (with fees for going over, of course).

And if that wasn’t evil enough, they also agreed to let you pay them an extra $20/month for tethering service so that you’ll hit your data usage caps even faster.

Of course, you can always save your iPhone internetting for wi-fi hotspots, which would presumably not count against your quota while simultaneously making you less mobile and possibly much more open to security threats. Or you can fork over $150 for a MicroCell doohickey, which would let you funnel your 3G browsing through your home Internet connection (although again, it’s not clear whether that would count toward the quota or not). (Plus, once your ISP begins implementing broadband usage caps, that may not be an attractive option, either.)

Confused yet?

Now, before we go any further with the pitchforks, it’s probably worth checking into how much data people actually use currently. According to AT&T, 65% of smartphone users use less than 200 MB per month, and 98% use less than 2 GB. So theoretically, this change will save all but 2% of its customers at least a little money.

I went back and pulled my bills for the last 9 months, which is most of the time I’ve had my iPhone. The most data I’ve ever used in one month was 147 MB, and the average was 75 MB. Not once did I even come close to hitting that 200 MB mark.

But here’s the deal: This change of policy by AT&T isn’t about the money. They’re not trying to save some customers money or extort others. It’s solely about changing the behavior of its customers.

When something (anything) is unlimited, it has no value. If it’s wasted, it’s wasted, no big deal. There are no opportunity costs because it’s not costing you anything. After all, you’re gonna pay 30 bucks a month for data access whether you use it or not.

But once the concept of scarcity is introduced, all of a sudden that resource takes on real value. If you’re on the 200 MB plan, then you’re acutely aware that you only have 200 MB to last you the whole month, and you’ll naturally begin to conserve this now-limited resource. That’s basic human nature, and it’s what differentiates an inefficient allocation of resources from an efficient one.

I noted this same phenomenon a couple of years ago when I monitored my own bandwidth usage during a month-long experiment:

Something really weird has happened since beginning this experiment. Even though my ISP doesn’t currently set any usage limits, just knowing that my usage is being monitored has drastically affected how I think about the Internet. I’m hyper-aware of every song or video I download, every website I visit, every desktop application that polls the Internet for updates.

It used to be in the early days of home Internet access that a dial-up account included a limited number of minutes. As you used it, you unconsciously counted each minute spent online so that you wouldn’t hit your limit before the end of the month. Now imagine that same scenario but with a limit based not on minutes but on megabytes.

So the real evil here (if you want to call it that) is not in the actual elimination of the unlimited data plan but in AT&T’s use of price tactics to affect its customers’ behavior. Which of course is something companies do every single day, often without us realizing it.

Previously:
Choosing bars over batteries
The evil genius of AT&T MicroCells
Metered broadband vs. cloud computing

While some people had complained that the Juice Packs negatively impact cellular reception, I had never really thought about until yesterday. We were waiting for church to start and I wanted to check something online really quick, but I couldn’t get a signal. Just one row in front of me, however, another guy was happily browsing on his iPhone with a full 3G connection. The only difference? He only had a standard plastic case on his phone.

Curious, I ran some network speed tests later from my kitchen, home office, and bedroom — three places where I’ve gotten historically bad reception. In two of those tests (the office and bedroom), I couldn’t get a 3G signal at all and could just barely get an Edge connection. I then took the Juice Pack off and ran the same tests. The kitchen test was a little slower, but the others were much faster. Needless to say, I was shocked at how big of a difference removing the Juice Pack made.

I did the same test at work, yet another location where I’ve always gotten bad service. And again, removing the Juice Pack made a huge difference.

While I hate giving up the convenience of having an external battery for my iPhone, I’m at the point where I don’t feel like I have a choice. I’m tired of either dropping calls or not even being able to make calls in the first place. If switching to a standard case will help that, then I guess that’s what I’ll have to do.

Previously:
13 things I would change about the iPhone
OK, so I got an iPhone. So what?

But AT&T had another idea—a network of almost 40 radio stations strung together via the telco’s long distance lines. They would broadcast to local areas wirelessly and share content via AT&T’s long routes. The company intended [New York City radio station] WEAF as the beginning of that experiment. …

As for competing stations, they would be “minimized or foreclosed through the efforts of the local broadcast associations to function inclusively,” Wurtzler explains, “encouraging all… to join in the shared collective effort.”

If this sounds all nice and Woodstocky in print, AT&T’s implementation of the concept was far less pretty in practice, and that led to the scheme’s demise. First the telco began denying non-Bell System radio stations access to its long distance lines for shared projects, forcing other networks to experiment with inferior telegraph rather than telephone connections for their experiments. Then AT&T drew more anger by suing a nearby competitor to WEAF, claiming that its broadcast operation infringed on the carrier’s patents. “To the public, already disturbed at the growth and power of trusts and cartels, AT&T seemed to be jumping with hobnailed boots over the little fellow,” write historians Christopher Sterling and John Kitross.

AT&T abandoned its plans for broadcast domination in 1926, opting instead to monopolize the wireline connections between stations. In its place, RCA, General Electric, and Westinghouse formed NBC, with CBS and ABC following soon behind.

Ars speculates that AT&T’s withdrawal from broadcasting probably had a negative effect on innovation, with today’s broadcasters “constantly standing in the way of competing platforms, such as cable television, satellite radio, Low Power FM, and white space broadband.” I’m not so sure. It’s reasonable to assume AT&T would’ve been just as obstructing, if not more (if the company’s history since then is any indication).

Either way, it’s an interesting reminder of a technological future that might’ve been.

Previously:
Can you hear me now?
Vanity Fair’s history of the Internet
The evil genius of AT&T MicroCells

But our DirecTV contract expired, U-verse Internet speeds picked up, and we realized we would actually be saving about $30 every month by switching. So we took the plunge.

We’ve only had the service a couple of days, but so far I like it. Our Internet service went from a 5 Mbps download speed on average to about 15 Mbps. And I love the convenience of being able to watch a recorded show from any TV in the house. My only real complaint is that you can’t pause and rewind live broadcasts on non-DVR’ed TVs. (Not that you could with DirecTV either, but we worked around that by having a second DVR in our bedroom — handy for when you’re getting ready for bed and miss the weather forecast.) That’s not really a deal-breaker, but it would be an extremely nice feature.

My other minor complaint is a lack of some configurable options on the receivers and DVR. For example, the ability to disable the annoying thunderstorm warnings that pop up on the screen every couple of minutes, or the ability to adjust the system volume (we have to turn our TVs up a lot more than we used to). It should also be easier to see how much free disk space you have on the DVR, and there should be more recording options, such as the ability to specify how many episodes of a program to keep. But again, those are mostly minor issues.

As far as the installation, it was quick and simple with only a couple of small hiccups along the way. Of course, we have a newer house with existing coax drops and ethernet drop for Internet service, so no rewiring had to be done. That helped immensely. It also helped that I knew how to troubleshoot connectivity issues in Windows since my machine initially couldn’t get online.

The real benefit of U-verse, though, will come this spring when we get the usual late afternoon/evening thunderstorms that are so common. With satellite, that means losing your TV signal. Not an issue with fiber! It’s also nice to have the Versus channel back so I can actually watch some TCU football games this fall.

Previously:
The evil genius of AT&T MicroCells
Bandwidth experiment: the final results

And thus was the born the inspiration for AT&T’s wireless network. The End.

Previously:
Vanity Fair’s history of the Internet

Both complaints are valid, but at least give AT&T credit for offering something. Yes, it’s a band-aid, but it’s better than what we have now. Personally, since I would qualify for free service, I’m thrilled; my house is one giant dead spot.

Still, knowing AT&T, I can’t help but to imagine a roomful of executives laughing maniacally over their latest offering. First, they attract hoards of data-hungry customers with the iPhone, who willingly fork over $30 a month for a data plan in addition to voice and texting fees. When the service is less than ideal, they then offer them MicroCell service, which routes cellular traffic through your Internet service. Then when they decide you’re using too much Internet bandwidth, they either throttle your service or institute bandwidth caps.

OK, so that last part may be speculation on my part, but it’s not that unrealistic. AT&T already throttles Internet traffic of its U-verse customers in order to provide HD video. And they’ve already experimented with bandwidth caps. So it’s not unreasonable to expect that heavy MicroCell usage would help push those endeavors further along. It also gives the telco additional ammunition to fight against new net neutrality regulations coming from the FCC.

Previously:
Bandwidth experiment, day 2: Throttled?
Bandwidth experiment: The final results
Media finally reporting on broadband caps
Metered broadband vs. cloud computing

1. Add an option for different sound profiles. Every other cell phone and smartphone on the planet has this option, but not the Jesus Phone. I want the ringtone to be louder when I’m in the car but quieter when I’m in the office. Or maybe turn the ringer off but have the message tones still on. Is there an easy way to change that? Nope. You can go to Settings and adjust the volume slider, but there’s no way to assign these settings to different profiles. And as far as I can tell, there’s not an app for that.
2. Add a native To-Do app. I can plug my iPhone in to my computer and sync the Calendar, Contacts, and Notes with Outlook, but for whatever reason, the iPhone doesn’t have an app for my Tasks. Apparently Steve Jobs assumes Apple fanboys don’t do anything, but really this seems like a really dumb omission. Yes, there are third-party apps to get around this limitation, but why can’t Apple just include one natively?
3. Improve the Mail app. The included Mail app meets most of my needs; after all, it’s not necessarily meant to replace my desktop email client. But it could be better. For one, allow email attachments. OK, it allows for inline attachments, but that could definitely be better. Also, allow email distribution lists. What if I want to send the same email to a list of 10 different people? That requires 10 different emails. Er, no thanks.
4. Fix the photo rotation bugs. You take a picture while holding the phone in landscape mode (horizontal). You then turn the phone back upright to portrait mode. Does the photo rotate with it? Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. Without a third-party app to edit it, your only option is to sync the photo to your computer, edit it there, and then sync it back. What a pain.
5. Improve the battery life. Of course, no list of iPhone gripes would be complete with a rant about the so-so battery life. Supposedly the 3GS has a much-improved battery life over its predecessor, but it’s still not great. Of course, when you realize the iPhone is more computer than phone, it’s easy to see how the battery would be a problem.
6. Allow for MMS messaging. OK, this is more of an AT&T issue, and they keep promising us it will be available eventually. And actually, it’s not even really that big of a deal to me. But it’s just another glaring omission that makes you wonder.
7. Make the case less slippery. Apple is all about aesthetics, so banish the thought of changing the design to be more practical. Sure, the high gloss case is purty, but as your fingerprints accumulate on it, it does tend to get a little slippery. And no, AppleCare doesn’t cover damage from dropping the thing. Good thing I haven’t dropped it yet then.
8. Use a standard charger connection. An iPhone with a mini-USB or micro-USB charger connection? Ridiculous! No, only proprietary connectors allowed here. Heaven forbid we should be able to use the same charger from our BlackBerry with our iPhone! I guess Steve doesn’t want it getting BlackBerry cooties.
9. Allow for a user-replaceable battery. I haven’t run into any battery issues so far, but you know it’s inevitable. Again, with any other device, I could order a new battery online and swap it out in 30 seconds. With the iPhone? Nope, send the whole thing in. Hope you spent the extra $69 for AppleCare coverage!
10. Add a MicroSD slot for additional storage. I bought a 16 GB 3GS and probably won’t be putting any music or videos on it, so I should have plenty of storage. But it would still be nice to be able to throw a MicroSD card in there for extra room just in case. Oh, well.
11. Allow for third-party web browsers. Safari mobile is fine for casual mobile web browsing. As mobile browsers go, it’s really pretty good. But like so many other Apple products, it exists in a closed ecosystem. Have an interest in Mozilla’s Fennec browser, Opera Mini, or Skyfire? Well, too bad. Because for the next two years you’ll be using Safari. And you’ll like it that way.
12. Improve AT&T’s network. Again, this isn’t really an iPhone issue. But since the iPhone is the flagship of AT&T Wireless, the least they could do is provide a better network. You know, one that actually lives up to their claims? Personally, the coverage has been acceptable (not great, but good enough) with one major exception: the deadspot in my home in exactly the same place as my home office. Really. In my living room, I can get 3G service and make and receive calls all day long. I sit down at my desk 30 feet away: No Service. Seriously? And no, it’s not the iPhone; my previous AT&T cell phone had the same issue.
13. Make it cheaper. The iPhone is by far the most expensive phone I’ve ever had. $200 for the phone with a 2-year contract, $30 a month for data, and $5 a month for 200 text messages. Then you still have to buy a (proprietary) car charger and any other travel chargers you want. Plus, you’ll probably want some kind of case, screen protector, and external battery. (I opted to buy a Mophie Juice Pack Air even though it was quite pricey.) And then there are the apps. Sure, there are a lot of free apps out there, but many of them aren’t. So in some cases, you’ll have to open your wallet to get the exact app you need.

Again, like so many iPhone owners, I really do like the thing and wouldn’t trade it for a BlackBerry or Android phone any day of the week. But as with any other gadget, it’s definitely not perfect.

Anything on this list I’ve forgotten?

Previously:
OK, so I got an iPhone. So what?
‘How Apple Plays Upon Our Insecurities’

So if I didn’t get an iPhone to be cool, then why did I get it? Well, first because I didn’t want to leave AT&T. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly like AT&T. But my wife is on it, as are most of our friends and family, so it just makes sense. Plus, the rollover minutes provide an extra margin of error just in case we find someone who’s on a different carrier.

Second, the iPhone just meets my needs better than most other phones out there. That’s not to say BlackBerrys and the rest are bad, they’re just not what I’m looking for right now. I have a company-issued BlackBerry for work, and it’s great for email and messaging. But web-browsing on a BlackBerry isn’t as good, nor are apps for Facebook, Twitter, and the like. And at the end of the day, that’s what made the difference for me.

So, there you go. Another satisfied Apple fanboy-in-training (despite the impending “iPhoneocalypse“).

Previously:
‘How Apple Plays Upon Our Insecurities’
Giving in to Google