I don't understand how a trade with no consumer surplus benefits a consumer. If it benefits the consumer, then they would be willing to pay some of the value of the benefit and hence their surplus value is not zero, which is a contradiction. If it does not benefit the consumer, they will not make the trade.
You get some surplus, because it is not possible to write a non-linear pricing scheme that extracts everything from all customers.
That is basically, depending on your willingness to pay, you may get a pretty good deal.
The underlying reason for this is that the producer basically has to pay you a bit of surplus to reveal your willingness to pay.
Not sure... transactions costs could be defined as costs that need to be payed by either side to complete the transaction.
In this case, we are talking about a shift of surplus towards the consumer.
If you have a high willingness to pay, it is beneficial for you to signal that your willingness to pay is actually low. If there was only one price, this would incentivize the firm to give you (and everyone else) a lower price.
Instead, to get you to pay more, the contract proposed to you must be relatively more beneficial to you than just choosing a simpler service plan or a lower value good and bagging the surplus for later. This "relative benefit" is the information rent you will earn.
