A few points: a) Most non-fiber connection technologies have limited bandwidth to split between upload and download. If you are offering connections over those

A few points: a) Most non-fiber connection technologies have limited bandwidth to split between upload and download. If you are offering connections over those, offering a symmetric speed means you are offering a lower max speed (years and years ago, in the single-MBit days, there was a regional German ISP that let you switch your ratio - was very popular with developers and designers at the time, who could reset their connection to be high-upload before sending large files) b) Only a subset of users cares about high upload speeds (To a degree it's a self-fulfilling prophecy: people are so used to it that most don't even know why they'd want good upstream because they never had the opportunity to do something that would benefit) c) Some that really want them can be made to pay a lot extra (e.g. for "business class" service, especially if combined with things like static IPs for hosting) d) some high-bandwidth uses are more likely to cause work for the ISP: people hosting servers (complaints about content etc, attracting attacks), file sharing (rightsholder complaints). Similarly, a customer machine turning into a DDoS traffic source has worse impact if it has high bandwidth