If I order some shoes from Amazon, I find them uncomfortable, and I return them for a full refund causing Amazon to incur a loss - have I been "subsidised" by other customers?

Personally I would say if Amazon makes a profit selling you a book and makes a loss shipping me some shoes which I return, the loss was paid by Amazon, not by you.

Yet book prices will be adjusted so, on net, Amazon does not lose money.

The comparison is more apt if you gained something (because the bandwidth user gets a product out of it), say by having worn the shoes for a day and doing this every day so you get free shoes for life. Then, yes, it's pretty clear the paying customers are the ones footing your bill

But nobody can do that. OVH doesn't let you be a large net negative.

What happens is roughly that:

- You are costing 1$ (bandwidth, etc.). You make OVH 4$. They are happy. Nobody offers you a cheaper alternative so you are stuck paying 5$ anyway.

- You are costing 4$ (bandwidth, etc.). You make OVH 1$. They are happy as marginal costs are low anyway.

- You are costing more than 5$. OVH severely rate limit your bandwidth to cut their costs and wait for you to leave because the service is now useless to you.