If all users are interested in the minutiae of network design and take delight in continual pinging to see what the actual performance really is, thereby incidentally degrading it, this is not an issue. In reality most researchers just want a reliable service. If this is the case, very much more network capacity has to be provided and levels of usage have to be kept at significantly lower levels of the total capacity available. Economists will argue about the allocation of costs and the appropriateness of pricing models. Once you have mastered that the details of pricing are a black art and its purpose is to maximise the value being extracted from the person being charged the subject holds little interest except for the devotees of marketing or economics.
Pricing does however have one virtue.
It encourages rational economic decision making. The most obvious and well developed manifestation of this problem is road transportation. As with Internet services demand expands to fill the capacity available and control is by rationing. It is not surprising that research is going on into developing the technology for rational road pricing. It is perhaps not obvious, but when you are sitting in a queue on the motorway you are a victim of rationing.