Net Neutrality - The Misery Within

The battle-lines have been drawn and the War is about to begin. The battleground is Net Neutrality and the battle is between Common Man vs The Telecom Operators. Before I write more on the issue and present my views on the subject, let me first introduce what actually is this "Net Neutrality".
Net Neutrality means that the Service provider should not dictate differential prices on the websites I browse. That means, the service provider has no right to say that I can access my facebook profile for free by subscribing to a certain plan and a separate special voucher to do e-shopping in Flipkart. As both the websites (i.e. Facebook and Flipkart) need a working data connection on my phone, a violation of net neutrality principle also implies that I also need to subscribe a data plan as a pre-requisite for these apps. In other words, for a customer like me, it means A data plan + A flipkart special voucher + A facebook special voucher to make the most of my smartphone.
Common sense dictates that this is a preposterous proposition. This is because one thing is definitely common in accessing facebook profile or doing shopping in flipkart or booking IRCTC tickets online i.e. Data in 0 & 1 (bits and bytes). In techno babble it translates to something like this - "Pay Rs 100 to send 0011001100000111 through the network and Rs 200 to send 1100110011111000 through the same network". Even a Class 12 student who has studied basics of computer system can say that this scheme is totally illogical, irrational, absurd and last but not the least exploitative. As a consumer, as long as I pay for the amount of data I consume, the service provider should not be bothered about whether I send 1000 or 0111 through the network. In other words, tariffs should be fixed upon the quantity of data consumed and not on what data I consume.
Now, arises the bigger question - Why are the technologically literate telecom companies are fighting tooth and nail to implement this irrational & exploitative scheme ? To answer this, let me present this same situation from a service provider's perspective. Suppose I want to start a new telecom company of my own. For that I need to apply for millions of licenses, permits, clearances and then bid for spectrum. For each of these transactions to take place, I need to do N number of "under the table" transactions. That means a huge amount of bribe with my ledger starting from the municipality office peon to the minister, everybody on my payroll. Now as a capitalist, my intention is to make profit as it the the very reason which motivated me to start the business. In ideal case, if my investment would have been Rs 1000, then I would have calculated a target profit of Rs 500 and fix my selling price at Rs 1000+500 i.e. Rs 1500. That is simple mathematics and I would have charged my customers reasonably & ethically to run a sustainable business. But if my investment is Rs 10000 with Rs 9000 being spent on bribing everyone, then what should be my selling price ??? If I can buy the services of certain dishonest government people, then why should I bother about the various legislations and legal aspects of the business ??? The recent 2G scam is a perfect example of this as many telecom companies and politicians were involved in a transaction of Rs 1.76 lakh crores which the Law of the Land terms as illegal.
Again you might be pondering why this politician needs such a huge bribe and kickback to perform his/her designated duties ??? For any politician, contesting elections is a huge investment. So, he/she feels that it is his/her birth right to amass the principal amount and compound interest of the investment from the general public indiscriminately by whatever means - ethical or unethical.
So, in this scenario nobody i.e. the common man, the telecom operator or the politician/bureaucrat is guilty and at the same time everyone of them is guilty. They are guilty because of the miserly attitude they have in their minds. By miserly attitude, I mean to say, each one of us have the attitude to evaluate life as a balance sheet or a profit-loss statement. The common man does not want to bear the monetary loss of the service provider; who in turn does not want its share of loss in the politician's transactions. Ultimately, the politician also does not want to make a loss on his 5 year investment to contest elections. If any one of the above mentioned entities removes this vicious profit-loss statement from the issue and analyze the situation fundamentally, rationally and ethically, then the world may become a better place to live in. As Mahatma Gandhi rightly said - "The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed."