What if the idea was around instant video conferencing with on-demand doctor or a lawyer? Would interested parties still be concerned about the (additional) cost of a data plan?
Yes. This is the whole point. The telcos' will extract rents from any profitable biz model. The more profitable, the larger the extracted rents will be. The net result is that, if people feel that the value they are creating will be expropriated by a third party on poor terms, those services will never make it beyond the cocktail napkin stage. And if...the founders are still optimistic and willing to let this happen...the VCs are not likely to play along...knowing what will predictably happen. As long as either of those two factors is in play, the economy ultimately will suffer in the sense that those services will "never happen" if people take that approach. Or, at least that's the argument if I understand correctly.