Why are residential proxy providers charging per GB?

[maxalbarello]

I've been astonished to see how much residential proxy providers charge for their services (and how little they pay the actual people providing the proxies).

The thing that I cannot wrap my head around is why they are charging per GB when bandwidth (especially residential) is basically free. Internet traffic is basically free at the margin for a household (as long as it doesn't exceed a huge amount) so why charge per GB?

[Regardozz]

You are not just using someone else’s internet. And you are not paying for the internet itself. When you pay for a proxy, for example here https://www.simplynode.io/product/residential-proxies , you are paying for access through infrastructure and a different IP address, to bypass blocks and reach needed sites or complete different tasks .