> Why don’t cable companies charge by megabyte used, instead of by speed? Because "speed" sells, and the customers Comcast wants don't use much bandwidth. The

> Why don’t cable companies charge by megabyte used, instead of by speed? Because "speed" sells, and the customers Comcast wants don't use much bandwidth. The #1 source of revenue for Comcast is the customer who has cable, has high speed Internet, doesn't really use the Internet for much, and just pays their cable bill every month without really thinking about it. The family with 3 teenagers all watching Fortnite live streams or whatever the kids are doing these days is Comcast's second worst customer, only superseded by the guy streaming those videos.They're taking up a significant chunk of their area's local bandwidth, and that costs real money to upgrade. Comcast has no incentive to allow for this use case unless they can find a price tier that makes you a good customer again (notice that for $50/month, Comcast will remove the bandwidth caps). It's effectively the same reason that Comcast doesn't let you sign up for individual cable channels.