Cost of Bandwidth for hosting sites

One of the many problems that comes with hosting a site is the cost of bandwidth.

Commonly, the cost is part of the cost of hosting the site. If something goes viral or bots come scraping, the cost goes up, or access is throttled, depending on the terms and abilities of the hosting service provider.

This problem discourages me making some sites more broadly accessible. I can't afford to pay unlimited amounts. I don't have time for real-time, 7/24 monitoring but finding out when I review the bill at the end of the month is too late.

I have several publicly available phone numbers. Anyone can call me from anywhere in the world. I don't have a similar problem with my phone bill because with the phone the caller pays, if it is not a local call.

The equivalent, for hosting a site on the Internet, would be for the client to pay for the bandwidth: no incremental cost for the person hosting the site.

This is obviously possible. The telephone companies implemented solutions for charging the caller long ago. Yet it has not been implemented on the Internet, as far as I know. All the hosting services I am aware of charge for bandwidth, with or without caps beyond which access is disabled.

ISPs already charge for bandwidth. Higher prices for unlimited bandwidth. Marginal prices for additional bandwidth. No change would be required to pass on the cost to the client/consumer.

What is missing is the mechanisms to transfer funds between the ISPs: from the ISP of the client accessing a site or service to the ISP of the server providing the site or service.

I hear vaguely about some deals for cost sharing with very large content providers, but it isn't routine, like it is with the telephone.

Even if it was routine, I would still be discouraged from making sites more widely available by security, privacy and IP theft concerns. But it would be nice to not have to worry about unpredictable, unaffordable costs if I host a blog, website or whatever.  

Wealth Tax

The primary value of a wealth tax is not the revenue it brings to the government, though this would be considerable. The primary value is the reduction of wealth of the excessively wealthy, which reduces their power and influence over government and society and preventing them so thoroughly subverting democracy.

As companies also exert political influence, to the detriment of democracy, they too should be subject to the wealth tax.

The wealth tax should begin at a net worth greater than 250 times the median net worth of people in the country. 

All people and companies with a greater net worth than this should be required to file annual, independently audited financial accounts and these should be made public. 

Filing such financial statements below this threshold should be voluntary. 

To encourage compliance, the cost of preparing the statements should be fully tax deductible and the penalty for failing to file the statements should be a minimum of 10% of net worth for a first offense and 20% of net worth for a repeat offense. And upon conviction, the prior 10 years of financial activity should be independently audited at the expense of the offender, with any prior offenses punished retroactively.

The wealth tax itself should begin at 2% of net worth, increasing linearly to 10% of net worth at a net worth of 5000 times the median net worth of people in the country and fixed at 10% of net worth above 1000 times the median net worth.

To put this in perspective with concrete numbers, the median net worth in the United States in 2026 is approximately USD$200,000. The median net worth in Canada in 2026 is approximately CAD$330,000. The median net worth in the United Kingdom in 2029 is approximately £124,700.

For example, in the United States, the wealth tax would begin at 2% at a net worth of $50,000,000 ($50 million) and increase to 10% at a net worth of $1,000,000,000 ($1 billion). In the United States there are approximately 200,000 individuals with a net worth above $50 million and approximately 1,000 individuals with a net worth above $1 billion, out of a total population of approximately 350 million people. The wealth tax would affect approximately 0.06% of the population. It would still allow great disparity of wealth but would curtail the extreme accumulation of wealth at a rate that is significant within a generation (i.e. approximately 20 to 30 years).

People and companies who are not resident in Canada for tax purposes should none the less pay the wealth tax on the Canadian assets they own or have a controlling interest in. This includes financial institutions that loan money to people or companies who are resident in Canada for tax purposes or own assets in Canada.

People and companies should pay the wealth tax based on their consolidated net worth.