this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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Data caps are reasonable as long as they're clearly disclosed; double-dipping isn't.
Data caps are similar to usage-based billing in other utilities like water and electricity. They're reasonable because even a typical heavy residential user does not come anywhere near saturating their link 24/7, which is reflected in the ISP's provisioning and pricing. If you want residential internet service that can handle every user saturating their link constantly, you can have much higher prices or much slower speeds. Do you want that?
Two things.
Firstly, would it make sense to have a “water-cap” and if you hit it your house can’t get water for the rest of the month?
Secondly, everyone’s cap resets at the same time. Meaning that everyone has full access and aren’t at their cap. How does that prevent saturation up to the point that
[speed]*[time]=[cap]for the heavy users? Because it will be days until a reasonable cap is reached.The way I've seen it implemented, it's a cap after which speed is reduced or there are additional charges. Are you aware of ISPs with hard caps?