Why do ISPs offer 8 times more bandwith down than up?

It seems quite common for a company to offer 6Mb/s down and 800kb/s up. Why is this?
Why do ISPs offer 8 times more bandwith down than up?
ISP's don't want you to run servers. Primarily most communication as far as web, etc, relies primarily on the ability of downstream more than upstream. Exception being online gaming, chat, etc where two way communication is necessary. For example when contacting a website you connect to it (using upstream), but after you connect the information from the page is sent via downstream (more information). I'm sure the ratio was established over time in thinking with the common protocols in use and the fact that as a consumer over a residential line you aren't supposed to be hosting servers (at least on most ISP's).
Why do ISPs offer 8 times more bandwith down than up?
Generally speaking, users of the Internet consume more than they contribute, that is to say that they download more than they upload. Knowing this, Internet Service Providers, and the companies that develop network equipment, have designed networks to allocate more bandwidth to downloading from a few central sources than to uploading from many.
Reply:It's because the data going upstream and the data coming downstream are traveling through the same channel.





DSL and cable Internet each operate over a single pair of wires, and they use various techniques to split the signals into channels by frequency so that they can move more data at once. They divide these channels into groups for sending data upstream and for downstream.





Taking into account a normal user's web surfing habits, where a small string of data is used to request huge blocks of data, they then balance the upstream/downstream speeds against what will give the best service for the most customers.