It seems Verizon has decided it doesn't like frugal customers who pay as little as they can for the service they need. Rather, Verizon wants customers to pay a lot more for service they don't need.

It is in Verizon's interest to raise their customers expectations of how much they should pay for service.

Just because Verizon wants customers to give them more money does not mean they will.

I expect Verizon's efforts to fail and the company will either come back with mid-tier plans that their customers want or those customers will find better deals elsewhere.