Actually I do know how the Internet works, in view of the fact that I was a Telecommunication Manager for one of the largest regional ISP's in the state of Florida. I do know how the financial side of the Internet works. I was on the team that negotiated the contracts with broadband providers and local exchange carriers for PRI's for dial up customer access.
In 1996 the company had POPs across the state of Florida with 28.8 Mb Modems and in some cases back haul circuits to POPs were as low as 56Kbps. By the year 2000 all back haul circuits had been upgraded to T-1's. For connection to the Internet they leased a T-1 from a major broadband carrier from the network operations center and primary POP to the Internet peering point in Atlanta.
By the time they sold out to a major national ISP all modems were upgraded to V.92 standards or 56K, at a substantial cost. They had several DS-3's and an OC-3 to carry traffic from their Dial Up customers and web hosting operation.
Holding time on a modem increased from about 23 Minutes of measured service in 1996 to about 47 Minutes of flat rate service in 2000, while monthly fees decreased from about $25.00 per month to about $16.00 per month.
Network operations constantly monitored traffic on each circuit so that we could high quality service to our customers. As a result of the rate at which traffic increased and the number of modems required to provide satisfactory service, it became apparent that by 2005 the company would be losing money. Unfortunately there is no such thing as a free lunch. I would rather have the content providers pay, than having the cost for my broadband access fees increase. The ISP's will have to pay to upgrade their networks if they expect to carry the increased traffic offered by the content providers. The question is who should pay for the cost of the upgrades.