Don't Text Me, Bro.

http://donewithsms.tumblr.com/post/24477241985/dont-text-me-bro

by evhr • 14 years ago

21 14 14 years ago

donewithsms.tumblr.com

mgkimsal• 14 years ago

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

evhr2• 14 years ago

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¢ ;)

timjahn• 14 years ago

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.

tgrass2• 14 years ago

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

asciident• 14 years ago

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.

pcopley2• 14 years ago

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.

NeutronBoy• 14 years ago

> 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?

phene• 14 years ago

Lack of choice and collusion by the major telecoms.

pcopley2• 14 years ago

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.

hindsightbias• 14 years ago

Free Markets aren't so free?

Am sure one of the libertarians here can help you out.

kingfishr• 14 years ago

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 :)

DigitalSea• 14 years ago

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"

Don't Text Me, Bro.

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