EXCEPT, you aren't taking them off the road. You are only making them drive slower (and this helps traffic how?) or charging them more money.
Even if you DID take them off the road, 100,000 drivers want to get home at 5:15. The road can transport 75,000 of them. If you take the 1000 people who drive the most off the road, 1000 people like your wife will get on and it will be exactly as crowded as it was before. Also, since the 1000 people you kicked off want back on, you will have just as many people waiting to get on the road as before. That is congestion.
Now, suppose that AT&T drew the traffic limits in such a way that YOU were caught up in them. Being a conscientious user, you realize that during your anniversary month, your road trip down to that quaint little Bed and Breakfast is going to put you over the mileage limit. Which of these scenarios are you LEAST likely to use?
1. Pay the fine and go on with anniversary plans for the weekend and having absolutely ZERO impact on 5:15pm rush hour traffic since you are driving on Saturday and Sunday.
2. Cancel the trip, hope you do not have to sit through "The Fault in Our Stars" as penance, and still have ZERO impact on 5:15pm rush hour traffic.
3. Stop coming home from work for the month so you can save up miles to take the trip and really, have no perceptible impact on 5:15pm rush hour traffic.
Those are your only three choices. Which would you pick? Which do you thing AT&T wants you to pick?
Now, AT&T will say they would use that money to build a better network, but they have lots now and haven't fixed it. In fact, they have so much they wanted to buy out TMobile so they could have more users on the network. They Want to buy DirectTV so they can focus on other things besides your network. They are opposed to municipal wireless/broadband which would reduce congestion on their network and swear in court that their networks are not congested. They actively lobby and go to court to keep people from relieving their "not congested" networks.
Now it isn't just AT&T. There is love for Verizon too.
Suppose I retimed the traffic lights on your route home to make traffic down Netflix Road even MORE congested, and used that as grounds to charge a toll and build a billing system with your tax dollars in addition to the toll you pay to get home. Then, just put the traffic lights back like they were and billed you for it. All the while, I am taking $2 billion a year in tax breaks because I only build roads that do not have tolls on them so that everyone can use them equally.
AND, I used this a proof that I was completely justified in charging you lots more money on roads that drove to the AT&T store while not charging you to drive to Verizon stores, and said this wasn't a competition thing. AT&T was just as likely to be successful as Verizon.
So no, data caps are not helping users.
Yes, they are purely a money grab.
No, AT&T does NOT use this money to build better networks faster than they would otherwise.
Yes, they are buying off congressmen and judges to keep the status quo.
No, there is no end in site.
Yes, the other carriers do it too.
No, that doesn't make it right or good for the consumers.
Yes, it is done differently in other parts of the world -
..with cities more crowded than ours
and faster speeds
and lower rates
and better reliability
So I have trouble believing that it cannot be done here. Yes, there are large rural areas in the states, and they don't get LTE (or newest) coverage anyway. That only happens in crowded areas. If we look at population densities in those spaces, it would certainly rival Europe.
