The cable companies are selling a product to more customers then they can provide.

Think of it this way; The reason this is possible is that most people don't use all their bandwidth all the time, and therefor cable companies can get away with selling the same bandwidth to a lot of people without us noticing.

Just think of how much time you actually spend in your car out of the 24 hours of the day. 2-3 at most unless you are a traveling salesman, ie a youtube junkie in this example. Would you accept that your car dealer sold your car to another 12 people?

The cable companies are selling a product to more customers then they can provide.

Think of it this way; The reason this is possible is that most people don't use all their bandwidth all the time, and therefor cable companies can get away with selling the same bandwidth to a lot of people without us noticing.

Just think of how much time you actually spend in your car out of the 24 hours of the day. 2-3 at most unless you are a traveling salesman, ie a youtube junkie in this example. Would you accept that your car dealer sold your car to another 12 people?

I wanted to comment regarding the debate (which was good to hear, by the way) regarding competition for internet service. I can say that in many areas there is little to no competition for internet service. There was specifically a comment about the low number of FIOS subscribers nationwide. Part of it is cost, but I believe the greater factor is lack of competition. I checked if Verizon FIOS was an option in my area and found out they're not allowed to provide service here. I live in a suburb of Minneapolis and have only two viable options, Comcast and Qwest. It turns out that Verizon is not allowed to provide service in my area because Comcast is a protected cable 'monopoly' in my area. For Verizon to gain access, it would have to go through a lot of legal wrangling to even be given the option to provide service to me. If you multiply that by every municipality, you can see how the cost to a provider like Verizon goes up quickly (beyond the cost they would incur for running fiber to each residence).

I agree that internet service is not infinite and there are a lot of costs to providing a network, but I still think the lack of competition is a greater factor in this case.

Anyhow, just my 2 cents. Keep up the good work!