system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why does the cable company care how much you use your internet (data cap) but not how much TV you watch?

Doesn't HD on a cable box use pretty much the same bandwidth as HD on YouTube?
gpt
It depends on the type of TV you have.  If its regular cable then the cable company just broadcasts all the shows to you all the time so its no concern of theirs how much you watch.  If it's any sort of IPTV like digital cable or a service like U Verse or X Finity or a lot of digital cable offered then the bandwidth for the TV shows is isolated and only used for shows.  So you really have a bigger internet pipe then you think but part of that only allows for tv traffic.