After several debates on why people should pay for the Live and not the Sony Network, the Xbox community team and also the PR manager has looked to justify the pricing of Xbox Live. Some of the reasons given are that there are huge bandwith costs, there is voice cummnication, text comunication, cross platform functionality and a regularly updated market place. Michael Wolf, an MS PR manager tried to push the value you get as a Live customer by stating that he pays $100 a month for cable but uses his $50 live subscription a lot more, so therefore it presents great value.

News Source - gamepro.com