Articles Review - Essay Example

1) ARTICLE The article d 'Will charging based on content come to the internet The history of transportation offers clues' attempts to correlate a modern age possibility with events and patterns of the past. In the initial part of the article, elaborate discussion of the introduction and use of the tariff system for various modes of transport and cargo, with the discussion of the Beverly beck waterway has been discussed. The discussion gradually moves towards the spread of the use of tariffs for other modes of transport such as roads and railways. The article also mentions at a number of places about the defects in the system during those years when the amount of payment was based on willingness rather than on the use of a standard and well-defined system. Given these trends in the past (with respect to the transportation of items), the articles raises doubts through the questions of a number of researchers whether a similar trend would influence the working of the super information highway of modern times, which is popularly known as the Internet. The article says that one of the most prominent reasons for the growth of the internet has been the 'openness' and 'uniform' feature of the net that has made no distinction between the type of information being transferred. In order to support this claim, the article cites a paper published by Andrew odlyzko that talks about the willingness of telecom companies towards introducing a pricing system for different types of information that would be transferred through their networks. The article also discusses about how deviations in the earlier pricing and tariff systems were used indiscriminately, which caused an outburst among the people. The government and the regulatory bodies of those times then had to step in so as to bring about the requisite changes that ensured smooth transport of goods thereafter. While the article says that such price discrimination has in the past worked towards reversing the fortunes of some places such as Beverly beck, it also raises questions as to whether changes to the uniform pricing of internet based services would have similar effects. In view of this argument, the article ultimately concludes that the given the enormous size of the Internet, a flat based system would work much better and encourage users to utilize the services in an extended manner. In my opinion, price discrimination has been there all along in the modern times and it has been the trend with telecom companies that happen to be the core providers of the Internet infrastructure. one is not surprised to see the different kinds of services provided and the differing price tags that each one is attached with. Subscribers are charged different tariffs for services such as phone calls, SMS, MMS, email, multimedia etc. moreover; some companies also discriminate on the basis of the subscriber being new or a regular one, wherein the former is charged higher rates than the latter. The reason service providers have not been able to implement such a policy over the internet has been predominantly due to the fact that the providers of such services over the internet are other companies different from these providers and the mode of information transmission is bits in any case. As such, service providers as of now do not have any software or hardware applications in place that is capable of distinguishing between the types of information by simply examining the bits being transmitted. Therefore, any possible solution towards implementing any tariff based structure on the internet by these service providers can only be possible in the current time by forging alliance with the providers of these internet based services such as chat, VoIP, entertainment etc. given the facts that the number of such software providers runs into millions and that a mighty proportion of such services are for free would make it impossible to implement a service based pricing system in absolute totality. In fact, it can be compared to the marketing strategy of Apple inc. which has allowed only Verizon to be the service provider for its iPhone (users consider this as a major limitation to the product's acceptance and growth in terms of the market share for smart phones in the coming times). 2) ARTICLE 2 The second article titled 'Rich countries are under pressure to end their farm subsidies. Might some poor countries be sorry to see them go' discusses the pressure from poor countries of the third world on the developed nations of the EU and America to cut down on farm subsidies as it is widely perceived as being against the economic interests and aspirations of the former. The article initially reflects on the discontent among poor nations such as Burkina Faso (which depend on agricultural imports), which perceive such subsidies as being the source for the prevailing reduced prices for agricultural products worldwide. However, the article cites the research of two economists from Columbia University, who have said that the prevailing belief described above is incorrect simply given the fact that such poor nations account more for imports, which is higher then what they manage to export in most cases. According to them, even in the eventuality of scrapping such subsidies, most of the nations stand to lose much more than what they generally believe they could gain. It has also been estimated that countries which stand to gain out of removal of subsidies, would not be able to make profound progress. The article also cites the work of William Cline from the Centre for Global Development, which says that any changes in subsidies were more likely to impact rural households than they would be able to within the urban areas. Cline therefore advises the poorer nations to instead take the matter into their own hands by increasing the tariff on subsidized goods, which are obtained from the EU etc. Apparently, such increase in tariffs and the abolition of subsidies is also likely to reduce the stress on richer states such as the EU, who would be freed to a certain extent from the burden of subsidies. As such, the article highlights a twin pronged approach that is likely to benefit the richer and poorer nations alike. The beginning part of the article that discusses about government subsidies in developed economies such as the USA as being a mere pretext to divert the money of the average taxpayer does not go down well given the fact that any nation would do anything possible to help its inherent farming sector as apart from industry, agriculture continues to be one of the key foundations of for any economy's stability and sustainability. As such, provision of any form of subsidy by a country to its farmers must not be perceived as being a mere ploy to do away with imports, but must instead be perceived as a dedicated approach by the government to do all that it possibly can in the current context. It is agreed that rural households in developing countries produce and sell more food than they can actually eat, but this doesn't mean that they would be better off with rising prices. In fact, rising prices have always initiated a chain reaction in the market. This means that with an increase in the price of a single entity, the prices of all products would automatically go up given the nature of the supply and demand forces. In fact, if we consider poorer nations, the cities are in a way better off economically than the far flung areas. It is also agreed that introducing additional taxes on import of subsidized goods would encourage the increase of goods at home and force people to rely on native goods. But it remains to be seen whether such a proposal would really be implemented by the governments. This is due to the fact that subsidies, especially in the case of agricultural products are largely offered to countries that are in dire need of food and nutrition and usually where the political situation is not peaceful and unstable. The 'threshold' countries such as China and India do not enjoy such subsidies under agriculture. Therefore, it is generally believed that studies directed towards the current article need to be reviewed with greater precision. Read More