That's a nice theory, but the impression I get from the (extra biased against last mile ISPs) DSLReports is that Comcast is continually spreading usage caps and plans to make them nationwide in 5 years, e.g. http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/128987
There is no inherent problem with usage capped plans, as long as the price is fair. If you'd like an uncapped plan, pay more.
The problem is that the last-mile providers try to extract money from netflix for a service that the consumer already paid for (deliver those video bytes)
You don't see a problem with e.g. Comcast implicitly charging the consumer extra for using Netflix (by exceeding the cap and paying by the drink afterwords) and not charging anything "extra" for using Comcast's video services?
There is an argument there, in that it costs more real money to deliver video bits the a la carte Netflix way than the cableco broadcast way, but I believe the conflict of interest remains an issue, and the prices I see for exceeding these rather small caps don't strike me as fair.
(Albeit AT&T's, the only choice I have aside from a not so reliable WISP, are particularly ridiculous: 150 GiB/month including I'm not sure what overhead for a continually rising price 2nd from the bottom "up to" 1.5 Mbs down/300+ Kbs up line that currently costs $36/month, each additional 50 GiB costs $10. We'd get a faster line so my father could watch video, at $5/month extra each increment, if the cap wasn't so low and the overages so high.).
That's not a capped plan. A capped plan charges you more if you exceed a specific bandwidth threshold - no matter what you spend the bits on. As long as Netflix, Comcast PPV, Youtube and my private cat videos get charged the same price - I'm fine with that.
The issue you're pointing out is the lack of net neutrality - but that is orthogonal to the pricing.
The problem is that the last-mile providers try to extract money from netflix for a service that the consumer already paid for (deliver those video bytes)