Because &quot;internet&quot; isn&#x27;t a physical resource like electricity. Nothing is being consumed when you send 0s and 1s down the wire that&#x27;s already been laid and paid for. When you load this webpage, it hasn&#x27;t cost your ISP any additional money, so why do you want to pay them additional money?<p>ISPs&#x27; costs are a combination of fixed costs (hardware, labor, facilities, etc) and peak bandwidth capacity. They bill us in pricing that&#x27;s a combination of a fixed base cost, and upgrade tiers that correspond to different peak bandwidth capacity. That&#x27;s closer to &quot;pay what you consume&quot; in reality.