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I hate the idea of paying per GB. However, the foundation of this argument is baseless. All that discussion of how much it costs to provide the bandwidth reall

I hate the idea of paying per GB. However, the foundation of this argument is baseless. All that discussion of how much it costs to provide the bandwidth really is irrelevant. I've said it before and I guess I have to keep repeating: the price of a product is unrelated to its cost! The price of a product is the point at which a producer is willing to make another unit of it, and at which a consumer is willing to buy that unit. Costs don't come into the discussion at all. Everything based on the perceived value of the product from each party's perspective.

Retric 16y ago
You are ignoring competition. If the cost to produce X is 1$ and someone is charging 10$ then there is an opportunity for someone else to step up and charge 5$. In an open and free market the cost generally works out to around 1.1x the cost of producing the quantity of product that customers want to buy. Which is why most large companies hate free markets and do everything they can to create monopolies either natural or legislative. Cable companies would love to charge 1$ for something it costs them 1c to make and they are trying everything in their power to make that happen.
- roc 16y ago
  And that's ultimately the discussion we should be having: Pay-as-you-go, Unlimited, Monthly caps -- all are potentially reasonable ways to charge for network access. Provided there's competition. And without competition, there's really no advantage to any of them. You're just picking a poison at that point. The monopolist(s) will get their profit out of you.