Bandwidth is not electricity or gas! So please stop your inane comparisons and suggestions that we “rip-out the electricity meters” or “give gas away for free!”
Nothing is black and white, so no analogy is perfect, but comparing bandwidth to a consumable resource is very imperfect!
Bandwidth is more like a park. When you have the park to yourself you can do whatever you want, swing on the swings, go down the slide backwards, climb up the slide, dig holes in the sand, etc. But as more people arrive at the park your activities get more limited – you can still to them, just not was easily. Bandwidth is like that – you can do whatever you want when you have the line to yourself, but as more people join you on the line you have to share it, and you have to share it nicely, no hogging!
Bandwidth is also like a road. Alone on the highway you can zoom-zoom along at 412 mph if you so desire. But as more people get onto the road you have to slow down and respect the rules. At some point you end-up with so many people on the road you need to limit access – i.e.: express and collector lanes or timed on ramps (yes they exist, not here, but I’ve seen them in quite few states). In the same way you need to do some quality of service on your bandwidth, you need to set-up CDN’s (content distribution networks), you need to do caching.
I realise parks and roads need maintenance. I realise equipment needs to be replaced. As I said, it’s not a perfect analogy; but if you’re going to insist on making analogies at least try to come-up with honest ones – not self-serving ones!
But in the case of gasoline or electricity once I consume the resource you can’t! It’s gone! We can’t share electricity or gasoline like we can share bandwidth. Is not as simple as using a generator like this one described in these predator generator reviews.
Cross-posted to Schultzter’s blog at Analogy was a German and Italian psychedelic rock, progressive rock band