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14 reasons why the filter is a bad idea |
Other costs1. Smaller ISPs may find themselves unable to bear the cost of buying and maintaining the filter, the costs being relatively higher for smaller ISPs. They may go out of business or be taken over by larger ISPs. This outcome is bad for consumers and could result in higher internet prices generally. 2. Due to the decrease in reliability caused by the filter, ISPs may experience increased call volumes to their call centres. This will ultimately flow through to higher ISP charges. 3. Chairman Krudd has in part justified spending $21b of taxpayers' money on a new National Broadband Network on the grounds that the faster network will ultimately improve productivity and make Australia more competitive in the global economy. That is, some or all of the investment will come back to us. You would have to wonder then about the reverse. What is the overall cost to the economy of making the internet in Australia slower and less reliable? 4. There is another indirect cost to the Australian economy. If things become particularly bad in terms of censorship and reliability, more and more people will subscribe to overseas network services (in order to bypass Chairman Krudd's filter) and more and more people will choose to have their web sites hosted overseas. This will result in profits going overseas. More insidiously, this could make all overseas web sites more attractive to use as compared with Australian web sites. This has cultural as well as economic costs. |