Why are live streams with bitrates above 1 Mbit and video files in HD resolution charged with more streaming minutes?

While other CDNs charge for data-volume transferred and make most of their money on expensive overage charges auto-charged to their client's credit cards, Lightcast sets a different standard, simplifies bandwidth accounting and makes it more transparent and trackable for clients, by translating the "bits and bytes" into minutes viewed/streamed. 

Regular "bits-and-bytes" bandwidth accounting automatically charges more for higher volumes of data-transfers (for higher bitrates and higher resolutions), while the "Video Minutes" bandwidth accounting requires a progression in the amount of minutes accounted per minutes viewed. As a result we developed a progression plan for on-demand and live-streaming content - based on resolution for VOD and based on bitrate of the stream for LIVE. 

Here is the progression key of Lightcast's ultra-transparent bandwidth accounting:

On-Demand Content: