I'm American, and I've never paid for an SMS in my life.
You can block texts via your carrier so that people can't cost you 20 cents or whatever by sending you a text. I'm pretty sure that all phone companies have this. This is what I did before the age of smartphones.
Now I still block texts, but I use Google Voice and only give people my Google voice number, never my real phone number. I receive texts through the gvoice app on my phone. Calls go through gvoice (and I can filter/redirect them). I never have to bitch about people costing me money by sending me texts :)
Amen indeed. My wife and I finally buckled down about a year and a half ago, and got unlimited texting. Why?
Because the amount of texts we were receiving (and starting to respond to) was starting to add up individually to be more expensive than getting the unlimited plan.
The way texting works in the US now, you're almost forced to buy unlimited texting if you have any friends who like to text on any sort of regular basis.
> On the 4 major carriers in the U.S., we don’t have the luxury of a rational system like some carriers in other parts of the world, where only the sender pays for the text.
Someone, please explain the rationale behind this to me! It's such a strange concept to me. How does this make sense? How do people actually put up with _paying_ to receive SMS and voice calls?
It's possible to infer collusion from indirect evidence, especially extraordinary pricing. See American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 328 US 781 (1946). It's not common, but it's not crazy either.
Yeah, I'm totally open to other analogies; I'd love to collect more and field test them a little. It's tricky to find a way to whine appropriately over 20¢ ;)
I'm finding that everywhere I go, free wifi is harder and harder to find. Many of the open wifi hotspots don't work or redirect to a payscreen. People are getting savvier about securing their wifi, and I can go around the city days without a free wifi.
This. 5 years ago it may have been easier, but I don't remember the last time I was even able to connect to a free publicly available wifi signal, whether I did or not.
This is interesting...makes me feel out of touch. I wasn't aware that it was on the decline because the only place I really use it are at the coffeehouse and home. Are there stats on this? What's causing it? Years ago I remember there were many movements for MORE public wifi. What happened?
You can block texts via your carrier so that people can't cost you 20 cents or whatever by sending you a text. I'm pretty sure that all phone companies have this. This is what I did before the age of smartphones.
Now I still block texts, but I use Google Voice and only give people my Google voice number, never my real phone number. I receive texts through the gvoice app on my phone. Calls go through gvoice (and I can filter/redirect them). I never have to bitch about people costing me money by sending me texts :)