What u seem to not understand is the technology does work that way. For example: if I install a 24 ch fiber switch and verzion only gets 3-5 customers that's a waste. Using data is not like using water or electricity.
I understand perfectly. If Verizon installs a 24-ch fiber switch but only gets 3-5 customers, either their marketing department is inept or their economist/actuary that predicts demand is inept. Either way, yes, that's totally silly.
I'm talking about bigger picture stuff. Let's review the topic that started this thread: there is network congestion. Whether said congestion is responsible for Sprint's slow speeds is irrelevant. There is congestion, it's a fact. In Boston around the time a Red Sox game ends at Fenway park, the ATT connection in that neighborhood crawls; I assume because there are 40,000 people all in one spot arranging meetups with freinds after the game, uploading pictures of the game to social media, etc. This can be observed nearly every day; it's network congestion.
How do we solve any kind of congestion? We can either (1) build a wider pipe, or (2) we can incentivize efficient usage. Option one is glutenious and costly, option two is responsible and better for the long-term. In reality, the solution is a combination of both. However, as I said, long term, the efficiency route always ends up playing a bigger role. We wouldn't be where we are today with technology if it weren't for engineers 10-20 years ago banging their heads against a desk trying to figure out how to crap more data into less bits, how to fit more transistors into a smaller area, how to get more with less. Efficiency efficiency efficiency. It rules the world.
Humans are intelligent; they respong to incentives and stimuli. We always want to get the most bang for the buck. With "unlimited" plans, the incentive is to use as much as you can, to be glutenious, because the more bits you suck through the cheaper each one is. With a tiered plan, the incentive is to conserve, each bit costs the same regardless of how many I use, so the more I use the more it costs. It's simple, it's closer to the reality of it, and it's better long-term.
So you say that using data is not like using water or electricity, but you haven't given me a single reason why. Your example of an
x-ch switch with
n-users is EXACTLY like water an electricity. There is a capacity of
x, and there are
n users; solve the equation. It would be just as silly to put up a hydrodam capable of producing 200million Gigawatt-hours of power per year for a village of 50 people. It would also be silly to charge those people different rates based on their voltage demands. No, we charge them based on how much they use, and we develop systems based on their accurately predicted needs.
If you claim water and electricity are so fundamentaly different than data, what about them is different?