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How is this a Ponzi scheme?

As GP (and FCC) indicates, you pay for a service but only get what was promised if the collective load permits. If everyone hits their lines at the same time, there's not enough capacity to maintain advertised service.

Similar problems occur with the electric grid or water etc, but the thing is as long as there is excess capacity 24/7 you can’t tell the difference. Unlike money you can’t bank unused bandwidth.

The reality of 1Gbps networks is people have trouble saturating the line for very long. Even 5 different 4K streams is not hitting anywhere close to that.

Being able to download a 20GB file quickly is the benefit, even if you don’t download many of those per month.

That doesn't describe a Ponzi scheme though.

I think it's a very high level comparison to the idea that the funds/rewards in a Ponzi scheme are underprovisioned.

Edit: Yes, it's not a great analogy.

But on an even higher level, a Ponzi scheme is outright fraud where most victims get nothing. Underprovisioned internet bandwidth gives every customer part of what they were promised, which is plenty for most of them anyway. Using sensational words imprecisely distorts meaning.

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