|
The market sets the price, true. At the same time, if there's no competition on pricing within the market, and if the market provides a highly useful (bordering on necessary) product, than it's at best a bit immoral for the provider of that product to set the price arbitrarily high.
My complaint is not about the cellular phone itself. You'll note that while I acknowledge that I consider a cell phone to be expensive to operate, I consider it worth the cost due to the utility of the service provided. My objection is to this specific function. There's no opt-out offered at sign up, there's no alternative and pricing is uniform across providers, meaning there's no competition. The fact that the price is artificially high is simply icing on the cake.
Some consider market forces to be a strong regulating force, but I'm of the opinion that pure capitalism does more harm than good precisely because it leads to price fixing and monopolistic practices. It's my opinion also that one of the functions of government is to step in and regulate industries that prove incapable of regulating themselves. I don't think I'm alone in this view.
Microsoft gets a lot of flak for Internet Explorer, because they bundle it with Windows and don't provide the option to uninstall it. I can only imagine the furor that would follow if they decided to start charging for this non-optional component, particularly if the price demonstrably had absolutely no relation to the cost incurred to provide it. Why should other industries be held to different standards?
__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said
- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame
|