Bad analogy, because it actually costs more to maintain roads that are used more. ISPs don't have to pay extra if I consume more data packets than my neighbor. Overage charges are just a money grab on their part, nothing more.

Also a bad analogy because the roads are paid for with gas taxes, which WFH workers typically purchase less of

A minority of US road costs are paid for with gas taxes, and it depends tremendously on the location. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/states-road-funding...

WFH workers likely pay more per mile travelled in taxes than someone who super-commutes.

In the US, we tax roads by usage via fuel (gasoline and diesel) tax [^1]. It's a simple solution: the more miles you drive, the more fuel you use; the more fuel you use, the more tax you pay. Vehicles that use more fuel per mile driven tend to be larger and thus cause more wear on the roads.

It's not without its faults though. Fuel usage isn't directly related to cost of road maintenance, it's just a very rough approximation. Fuel usage has mattered less and less over the past couple of decades with hybrids and EVs – though this is addressed in some places by imposing an extra EV tax (since EV drivers would pay no fuel tax but would still cause wear on the roads).

[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_State...

A lot more wear on the roads in a lot of cases, as it's exponential (~fourth power) with respect to weight and EVs weigh a lot (~30% more than a comparable ICE car).

A minority of roadbuilding funds come from fuel taxes in the US. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/states-road-funding...

The additional problem with this is that road wear scales a lot faster than fuel usage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

Ironically roads should also have caps and/or tolls, so this take is strange. This is partly why gas and excise tax is a thing…

The economy wide productivity gains from having tax funded roads mean it doesn’t make sense to have roads be profitable or break even as an individual entity.

Similar thing probably goes for internet access.

Gotta be careful what you measure though. If I spend a bunch of money owning and maintaining my car, it's possible that that could've been spent on other things that would be overall better for the economy.

Taxes are not flat, just like caps, so there’s no contradiction.

Do you seriously want every road you drive on to charge you? Roads should be a public good that we all benefit from

I would happily pay for congestion pricing because it would allow me to go where I'm going faster.

Right now we have this weird sunk cost and lack of obvious incremental charges to driving, that encourages driving when there are other better options for some trips.

You already are charged by every road you drive on, just not explicitly.

Personally, that sounds pretty wonderful. Better yet, charge by vehicle weight. I'd like to be able to ride a bike on the road and have everyone think the guy in the car is imposing inconvenience rather than the other way around.

> Ironically roads should also have caps and/or tolls, so this take is strange.

We'll set up electronic tolls on your cul-de-sac and every light and stop sign, or toll you by mile driven using an odometer beaconing out to the tax authorities per drive and registered to your tax ID number (US) or equivalent. And then cap you on the number of miles you're allowed to drive per year on all cars unless you pay an additional fee.

Older cars must be retrofit at the driver's expense.

Also the auditing and anti-fraud infrastructure must be instituted for all of this.

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Or we can just do flat taxes and chill.

Flat taxes are regressive and inefficient, but I suppose we can still chill.

I'm absolutely down for vehicle registration fees to relate to miles driven and weight classifications, and major highways being funded by extra tolling.

The streets in my neighborhood cost way less per mile for maintenance than giant highways with massive bridges and interchanges. It makes sense they'd cost more to use.

Showing the real cost of these things to consumers might make them change their minds about riding the train. These days a lot of people don't even think about the cost of driving their car across town, but gosh that metro day pass is $5? How expensive!

> gosh that metro day pass is $5? How expensive!

Nah, metro day pass should cost as much as howevermany miles the buyer traveled. Otherwise people who buy the passes for just one stop would be subsidizing the costs for people who travel from one end of a line to the other.

It'd be pretty shit to meter one and not the other.

What is ironic about you're opinion disagreeing with the status quo in some countries?

It’s ironic because they’re arguing against caps but talk about roads, but roads in the United States are in terrible shape due to certain groups, such as construction vehicles not paying their fair share to begin with.

This partly why gas tax is even a thing.