Ok so the icloud thing will be cheaper if I purchase their computer hardware? If yes, Google here I come. I don't buy prebuilt computers of any type.
Second I been using pandora all the time for over a year. The thing that prevents me from going over a cap is I use WIFI. My apartment has one and my school has one so why would I use 3g. For those of you complaining about data caps, most bussinesses offer free wifi. Seriously the only time I use it on 3g is when I am traveling, oh wait the greyhound and amtrak companies are offering wifi now. Only time a service like this really gets used on 3g is on commutes and jogs.
The 3G providers are just the leaders of the trend, much like there was one airline that decided to fee us for any baggage first and then the others followed. Already, many people's home broadband providers (Comcast for example) have capped what was billed as "unlimited Internet" at certain levels (much higher than 2GB mind you... for now). The tiers on even home broadband already exist and AT&T & Verizon's incredible growth proves people are willing to pay up for very limited tiers (AT&T's 2GB rate for example is more than 50% of what I pay for 250GB on Comcast).
It's only a matter of time- especially if this iCloud starts heavily biting into Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, Verizon, etc cable subscription business revenues- before they start adapting their tiers and/or broadband pricing ("due to increasing demand") to make up for any losses (and/or for purely greed-driven purposes). They will not allow a company like Apple to take their video subscription business revenues with Apple flowing their replacement through Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, Verizon, etc pipes. No possible way.
So enjoy your "unlimited" wifi that is probably already limited. Then stand by to watch it get squeezed should iCloud get any legs and actually start costing the bandwidth gatekeepers money.
By the way: free wifi is not really free- someone pays for it to make it available to you. McDonalds, Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, etc do not have access to a magical source of wireless bandwidth that costs them nothing. Instead, they pay for it for us as part of their thinking on what might lure us into their stores. Who do they buy it from? The same sources we buy it from directly. And should those sources start raising their rates for broadband (see it coming), eventually it will become a more expensive business decision to decide to continue to comp it. What seems to be given is just as quickly taken away... all it takes is higher pricing to you, me, Starbucks, McDonalds, Barnes & Noble, etc. But AT&T, Verizon and other broadband players wouldn't try to raise prices would they? Hint: remember how fast the unlimited "use it only when you need it" plan lasted when the iPad with 3G launched?
