Comcast, in reinstituting its monthly usage cap, which had been waived in response to the stay-at-home orders caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Where the usage cap had been set at 1 terabyte, now Xfinity internet metered plans have a limit of 1.2 terabytes. As often is the case, the practical difference between an “unlimited” usage plan and a plan with a high usage allowance is nonexistent.
In other words, if typical monthly usage ranges between 250 gigabytes to 350 GB per month, a usage cap of 1.2 TB is effectively four to six times more than ever is required, so effectively “unlimited.”
Many people argue that any pricing policy other than “unlimited” is somehow unfair. Perhaps this is an expectation created by the ways people come to experience use of the internet, with many free to use apps supported by advertising revenue models, with subsidized usage at schools and public Wi-Fi hotspots.
Most products, though, are priced based on usage or volume: clothing, shoes, water, trash collection, groceries, gasoline and other fuels, electricity, airline tickets, dental services, data storage or compute cycles.
Many refer to internet access as a “utility.” There often seems to be an unstated implication that internet access therefore should be free, low cost or unlimited in terms of use. But no other utilities are priced that way. They all are usage based, and for good reasons. Price is a tool for encouraging people not to waste expensive or carbon-impactful resources.
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