OMG Did U C What U R Paying 4 Texting? 721
theodp writes "If you thought gas prices were rising too quickly, writes CNET's Marguerite Reardon, check out what's been happening to text messaging. Since 2005, rates to send and receive text messages on all four major carrier networks have doubled from 10 cents to 20 cents per message. If the same pricing was applied on a per-byte basis to a single MP3 song download, it would set you back almost $24,000 according to one estimate. So why are carriers gouging their customers so? Because they can, concludes Reardon."
Re:Some data 4 U (Score:5, Funny)
Why do people put up with this?
Because we can.
Sigh (Score:5, Funny)
517,602,528. There must be something infectious about Verizon and getting your decimal points in the wrong place.
Get unlimited texting (Score:3, Funny)
In case you didn't know, it does cost about $24k (Score:4, Funny)
to download an mp3 ... if the RIAA smells you.
Re:I've never text'd (Score:5, Funny)
Obivously (Score:5, Funny)
If the same pricing was applied on a per-byte basis to a single MP3 song download, it would set you back almost $24,000 according to one estimate.
Looks like we're not downloading MP3's from the same place... Even if my price goes up 2000%, I will still pay exactly $0.00 for my MP3's.
Re:You know what the problem is? Capitalism. (Score:0, Funny)
Web via txt? (Score:5, Funny)
So with such a setup you can do rudimentary webbrowsing (without images) / emailing etc., your laptop sends an url via the mobile to the mobile at your home, which the PC there picks up, retrieves the webpage & sends it back in txt message "packets" and your laptop retreives and combines back into a web page, with all the txt messages encrypted so the carriers can't directly snoop on your browsing/emails.
Good gravy! (Score:5, Funny)
Thank god no one texts me duplicate Slashdot stories!
Re:You know what the problem is? Capitalism. (Score:5, Funny)
Free markets require perfect knowledge. And without that, the invisible hand doesn't work.
I suppose getting everyone to acquire perfect knowledge is going to be pretty tough. So my interpretation of your post is that as an anarchist you propose that somebody should regulate the market. Is that right? I couldn't agree more.
We will need some of us anarchists to join hands and form a regulatory board or such. Naturally the board would not be able to regulate anything unless it can regulate itself and so we will need some sort of hierarchy. Also, the board would need a mandate to regulate anything at all, let alone the market. So we could maybe try to get other people (who are not in the board) to consent to our plan. We could either buy guns and make them agree or we could ask them to pick their favorite among a bunch of us anarchist that are going to be the members of the regulatory body. Either way, it is going to work out easily.
Every sunday we could burn books to emphasize that we are anarchists, so that no one confuses our regulatory board with dictatorship or democracy (depending on how we got the mandate). You know, symbolism and all that!
Re:Some data 4 U (Score:5, Funny)
you get charged to *receive* sms messages????
wow.
they'll be charging to receive phone calls next.
Re:Is this really an issue? (Score:3, Funny)
I wonder how many MMS messages you can send?
Shut up commie! (Score:2, Funny)
Go capitalism! We don't need no commies telling corporations they can't charge 17,253 times more for transferring bytes over a cellular network than a T1 line! That's what people will pay, that's the beauty of the free market, that's what previous generations have fought long and hard for. Those bytes that cost 1/8th of a cent each (20c w/ text messages containing up to 160 bytes each, since you commies are mathematically challenged) are what keep our country free and prosperous! If you want the government to keep the telecoms from charging 17,253 times more then go move to some communist country, and good luck smuggling a cell phone in there, or finding a telecom company for that matter.
God bless America.
Re:Same as gas... (Score:5, Funny)
I wish there was a "-1, American complaining he's paying too much for fuel".
(PROTIP: The average cost of petrol in the UK is just under $9 per US gallon.)
Re:Some data 4 U (Score:5, Funny)
Not to mention that their text messaging packages are much lower per message. Verizon's cheapest package (that they don't advertise) is $0.002 per message.
Is that 0.002 cents or 0.002 dollars?
Re:I've never text'd (Score:2, Funny)
You know you're spending too much time on the net when you're supposed to laugh and instead you just say "lol" in one of various degrees of emphasis.
Re:free (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but....dude, this is *Sprint* you're talking about.
It's sort of like saying "I asked all these girls to go to bed with me and every one did!", which sounds impressive - until we find out that the only ones you asked were terminally-ill great-grandmothers.
Re:Some data 4 U (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Channel miles (Score:5, Funny)
Text messaging costs as much as it does purely to rip people off.
[snip]
The size limit is pathetic too
[snip]
then again I'm quite a verbose person.
I didn't notice ;)
Re:Some data 4 U (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Some data 4 U (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Channel miles (Score:4, Funny)
AT&T Family unlimited texting plan ($30 covering five phones) ... Let's just call it 26,000 messages per month. 3000 / 26000 = $0.115 per message.
So, how is work at Verizon these days?