There’s nothing foolish regarding money that hasn’t already been done… twice.
However, this might make sense in one particular context: Illegal activities. Let’s say that one member of the household is downloading kiddie porn, one is hacking the DOD and another one is illegally sharing music files. Separate broadband accounts would make sure that each person is sent to jail only for the crimes they’re committing. (Yes, there are logical holes in this theory. But clearly these people are not operating logically.)
I can sort of believe it. None of them want to share something, they don’t trust each other to have one as the main name on it, and they don’t want to think that they will have to relent to the wishes of the person who’s the name on the bill.
Ah. Would the person whose name is on the account be able to dictate when the other two got to use his account? Would they all be waiting for one of the others to shaft them by not ponying up their share on time? Would it devolve into a constant argument?
Maybe they just know each other too well to risk that kind of sharing.
But they are all sharing one computer. So the same questions arise as to the sharing of the computer: Did they all buy the computer? Does one person “own” the computer? Would the person who “owns” the computer be able to dictate when the other two got to use the computer? Would they all be waiting for one of the others to shaft them by not ponying up their share of computer time? Would it devolve into a constant argument?
The internet access is not the bottleneck. The single computer is the bottleneck. If they’ve managed to resolve the issue of sharing the computer, sharing the internet connection is a non-issue because they only need the internet connection during their turn using the computer. If they have not resolved the issue of sharing the computer, then having separate internet connections does not help resolve that issue.
As far as not trusting the others to pay: Unless they are getting a bulk discount for having three accounts, if only one person has an account and the other two stiff him on their share of the bill, it costs him nothing extra as compared to the current arrangement. To put it simply: right now John, Mary, and Jane are each paying $50 a month for internet. If Mary and Jane drop their internet service, John will still be paying $50 a month to let Mary and Jane share his account, even if Mary and Jane don’t reimburse him for their share.
The only rational reasons I can think of are (as dracoi suggested) that there is a fear of illegal activity or they are exceeding the data cap on one account.
Whenever I hear about a situation like the OP is describing, I remind myself that internet access is not the real problem. The fact that these three family members are living together in the same household and are unable to get together to fix this is a much greater problem.
I wonder how many months it would take splitting one bill for each (or at least two) to save up to buy their own laptops? Probably not many if they aren’t doing any really intense gaming.
