WebProNews

Agreed, we all know ... that the cost of moving the bits is essentially the same, no matter what they constitute.

The argument that some content needs to be "premium" priced is just a ploy to allow charging more for less. We buy a package, offered by an ISP, to deliver bits at specified rate. They enjoy a "best effort" clause, which lets them off the hook if they fail their end.

Now, they could and they do apply caps. Exceed certain total transfers per day or month, and you pay a penalty or get throttled. My service host bills me by the total volume of traffic in GB/month. I understand that total capacity is a cost factor.

What does not make sense, is that if I run a VOIP service, or a torrent node that I get charged more than if I spend a lot of time streaming audio, or looking at YouTube. If the general capacity or bit-rate is the same, there is no cost difference.

Or are you saying, if I use Google search, instead of the AT&T affiliate search engine, which pays AT&T a bonus on referrals, I should pay more.

There is an honest way to do this.
Put it in black and white and have the buyer understand what is being taken away. Put a meter on the page, showing what you are charging. Then see how much competition you can stomach without using regulatory tricks to block real innovation.