[PaperclipTaken]

This doesn't refer to dropbox in general, but I've wanted for a while now to see more products that charge you prices that fit tighter to your actual usage.

My biggest example here is internet bandwidth. Whether I am a grandmother checking my email once a week, or whether I heavily torrent data and use my connection almost constantly, I am going to be paying the same price for a given connection speed.

In many cases, it would not be practical to devise a payment scheme to closely the exact cost of something, but I would like to see more products where at least the most major variables are taken into account.

I think the cell phone industry is a good example of something that does this more accurately. They charge you for a given number of minutes, a given number of text messages, a given amount of data. Why can't this model be followed by TV and internet providers?

[true_religion]

Of all the services that I use, phone service seems the most expensive relative to what I actually get out of it.

My impression is that on every other service, I'm being heavily subsidized by people who underuse it. I appreciate that, and wouldn't want to popularize the metering idea.

Metering means that once i switch from being a light user to being engaged with the service, I have to care about cost. Without metering, there's a fluid thoughtless transition.

After having to pay for so many different bills, I'd rather just have a fixed price and know that's what's paid out than have to worry about budget overruns on a metered plan.