Almost everyone pays for their Internet (the ones who don't are using someone elses signal or they don't have the internet) Some of us pay through the nose to have a fast connection but the ISP Companies want more. Many Internet service providers in the US are looking into slowing down bandwith of users who take a large amount of bandwidth. Just a few companies to ISPS to name would be ComCast and AT&T ( Yes they have just merged into one company but not everyone is aware of that as of yet) AOL (Time-Warner). Those are only a few I am aware of in the US but I am sure many others are also researching this possibility. If you are still on DSL you do not have as much to fear because some of the DSL companies aren't to keen of this idea. Slowing down bandwidth has already taken effect in Canada by Bell, so if your internet is slowing down and your using Bell you may now know the answer.

MAIN QUESTION ON YOUR MIND: WHY DO THEY WANT TO DO THIS?

Because of illegal sites such as bittorrent,Kazaa, and Morpheus to name just few illegal ones. Basically if you are a big P2P user you may want to cut down or stop because the reason for this is mainly because of file sharing sites. So "Don't download this song" by Weird Al Yankovic is pretty accurate you download that song and you will pay the consequence one way or another.