It's all about the MONEY, man. Nothing but the MONEY. Upgrade fees, data overages of $10, $15, per gig, or even $20 for 300 Meg if they can get away with it, $50 for 1 GIG data on the Share Plans, $40 access fees for nothing but a big fat bill pad to increase profit margins past 50% to please investors. Tethering charges. No other country but US has carriers that charge for tethering over and above the base charges for data.

20 years of loyalty is not going to exempt you from current policies no matter how much you dislike them.  Data caps and forcing customers onto them by implementing sleazy upgrade policies and fees has nothing whatsoever to do with network management or congestion, but everything to increasing subscriber ARPU.  Verizon's CFO has been quoted as saying "Data is the new Oil."  And we all know how the Oil Industry bends us all over with gas going from $0.25 cents a gallon to $3-5 / gallon over the last 40 years.