

Don't Text Me, Bro. - evhr
http://donewithsms.tumblr.com/post/24477241985/dont-text-me-bro

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kingfishr
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 :)

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timjahn
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.

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NeutronBoy
> 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?

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phene
Lack of choice and collusion by the major telecoms.

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pcopley
If you're going to implicate every major US telecom company in a massive
conspiracy to commit a crime, you should probably have a source.

Or not be crazy.

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evhr
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.

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mgkimsal
Amen. I like the analogy (coffee shop) but wondering if there's a better or
easier one to get the point across to people.

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evhr
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¢
;)

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tgrass
With generally available wifi and a smart phone, one hardly needs voice, data
or text services from a carrier at all.

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asciident
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.

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pcopley
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.

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tgrass
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?

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DigitalSea
I don't pay for SMS here in Australia either, I'm on a call cap simple. Having
said that, the article lost me at the line " _god invented TCP/IP_ "

