Cogeco Drops Metered Billing On Users → Re: Personally...

It's an old story here...and as always, the "truth" is in the middle.

Any usage number that one might quote will be too little, too much, or "just right"...based on the individual! Nothing new there, right?

I do not intrinsically have an issue with some kind of sliding scale based on usage, as long as those very light users pay much less than they pay now..."average" users pay about the same, and those "heavy" bandwidth users, pay a reasonable amount more. The issue, which IMHO is totally fair based on the indutry's track record, is "Will this be done in a non-rapacious way?" Frankly, if the answer is yes, then I would have no problem. Unfortunately, that has not been the paradigm that these companies have operated by...

Now, I am not so sympathetic with those who just download tons of stuff constantly, not even ever using or viewing but a fraction of what they download, because in some cases, it is the acquisition of content in and of itself that is their real "goal"! I think that there is a reasonable placement point for caps in a properly tiered system. For example: What is wrong with a price point with say a 100gb cap, and the next "level" at 250gb (and so on)?

I think that a legitimate problem is that some "average" users are paying too much, while some very "heavy" users are paying too little. It does not bother me that someone may want to download tons of content...not at all! But, I do think that they should be carrying a correspondingly larger part of the voerall cost.

Well said.