Quote:
Originally Posted by Xerxys
Now I think your just overdoing it Martian. You want to save $4.00 monthly? On phone service? Well, I guess that's cool to penny pinch but I really doubt it's at all significant. I pay $10 monthly for unlimited text messaging. My sister pays $15 fot T-mobile and she avareges 2500 texts monthly. I'm not sure what the difference is in Canada and USA but I'm of the mindset they're quite similar.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Martian
It's a cost/benefit thing. I begrudgingly pay the price for the cell phone, even though I think it's excessive, because I'm not willing to do without. Text messaging I can live just fine without, and so I'm getting rid of it.
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It's less about the cost ($3 actually, if you're curious) and more about the principle of it. I have no problem paying a reasonable fee for a service I use. My objection to text messaging is twofold:
1) A 1500% markup on a service is not reasonable in any way, shape or form, and
2) I do not use it, and therefore do not believe I should have to pay for it.
I was unaware until today that I had the option of disabling the feature, and am quite happy to have learned this. I wonder how many other customers there are out there who are similarly unaware of that capability? How many of them are going to end up paying for a feature they don't want or need?
If you're curious, I have sent a grand total of 7 text messages since I signed on with my current carrier in March of this year. Had I signed on for a text messaging plan, I would've paid $12 for those 7 text messages, or $1.71 per message. Each was sent as a response to one I received, and was done solely out of convenience; in each of those cases I chose the immediate option rather than taking the trouble to respond in an alternate manner. I'm as guilty of the occasional bit of sloth as the next man.
By contrast, I have received a great deal more than 7 text messages since receiving the phone; I'm unsure of the exact number, but there are 19 of them in my inbox right now and I delete them regularly. None of them were critical and in each case alternate methods of communication existed, yet my twentysomething friends have embraced the medium. As long as I wasn't paying for them I didn't particularly care, but as soon as it starts costing me money I start raising objections.
$3 may not seem like a lot of money, but then again there's the old maxim: take care of the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves. I'll happily fork out $3 for something that's useful to me. I will not give my phone company $3 for something I didn't ask for, don't want and will rarely if ever use, and quite frankly I'd question the intelligence of someone who would.