Why do I have to pay to access my internet?

With the Xbox Gold subsription you are paying for the maintainance of the servers and the engineers working on them.

Its a small price to pay for great running servers for multiplayer gaming.

You don't have to pay Microsoft anything to access the internet you pay for.

On your Xbox console you can simply launch a browser, and access the internet with no additional fees besides your normal internet service fees.

You can stream movies, download games, send text messages to friends... you can do all that for free.

However, if you wish to access multiplayer matchmaking, you are using the Xbox Live Server infrastructure. They keep a database with your "RealSkill" so you mostly get matched with people of similar skill to you and so on.

Providing this service costs money, and that's why you have to pay a fee to access online multiplayer on the console.

If it's only party chat you want, you can simply use the Xbox app on a PC or your smartphone to party chat for free as well.

Only online multiplayer will cost you an additional fee for the Gold membership.

But look at it that way: While you pay for Gold, you do get 4 games for free each month. Or if you get the Game Pass Ultimate, you get hundreds of games you can play on the console as well as on the PC!

Well Xbox Live Gold is a payed subscription this is for access to the servers and this money is used in part to continue providing an excelent service.

As mentioned above - you arent paying Microsoft to access the internet, you are paying a fee for access to their servers - which in turn helps them maintain and develop them.

A lot of games and gaming companies (like Sony) have subscription based pricing for their services

Hi

You don't pay Microsoft to access the Internet, you pay a good subscription to access the xbox live network and its features.

The service runs across thousands of servers located around the world with staff who look after them. Microsoft have chosen a subscription service to help pay for them .

You can still enjoy playing many single player games on your console without a subscription if you choose.