I understand this is snark, but if you think about it, this is already implemented in electrical infrastructure. If I use too much power, the circuit breaker trips to protect me and protect the electrical grid. OP is about a billing breaker, but the parallels should be obvious.

If the CEO of the electric company didn't mandate circuit breakers, he should go to jail.

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lorecoeur 6 hours ago | parent [-]

The breaker in this analogy is equivalent to rate quota limits, it limits peak throughput.

You can rack up an outrageous monthly electricity bill without tripping a breaker.

	▲	josephcsible 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The peak throughput does result in an overall monthly limit though. For a house with a 200A main breaker, that effectively limits your electric bill to $7,000/month, which is very reasonable compared to the tens of thousands of dollars in a single day that a lot of cloud billing disasters end up costing.