By that logic, api rate limits are a method to fleece api users... which is not true at all. Rate limits are put in place to protect infrastructure for overloading, that's been the main reason I have implemented circuit breakers and rate limiting.
Except it's a fallacious logic. ISP networks can perfectly handle the load already. There is no "data flood apocalypse" or anything the like. ISP execs said so much explicitly. They point blank admitted, data caps are not driven by technical needs but simply by greed.