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Text messaging is one of the latest crazes. It's a hot thing with the younger age group and seems to be picking up with some of the older generation, as well. Even if you are not addicted to typing with your thumbs, text messaging can be a very useful tool. It's great for getting off a quick message when you don't want to get involved in a detailed conversation. It can even be the polite thing to do. For instance, if you are in a crowded public area, sending a text message can keep your message quiet and private and can be sent without disturbing others.
In spite of the usefulness of text messaging, I don't text. Why not? Well, the truth of the matter is that text messaging is one of the most over-priced commodities in the world. If you thought that gasoline was expensive at $4 a gallon, you need to take a good look at text messaging. Since 2005, the costs have on all four major carrier networks have doubled from 10 cents to 20 cents per message. Those rates are charged to both send and receive text messages. If you text a lot, you can get a package that will allow you to text a certain number of messages for a monthly fee, but that fee starts at $5 a month and goes up to about $30 a month, depending on the carrier. Even with a monthly package, texting is a rip off for the consumer and a huge profit center for the cell carriers.
Text messages cost carriers very little to transmit. Text messages are limited to 160 characters each. That works out to a maximum of about 150 bytes of data per message. Email messages and files like MP3 songs that can be downloaded to a cell phone can be thousands of times larger. In fact, several Internet bloggers have calculated that if music files were charged at the text message rates, each song would cost thousands of dollars. Dr. Nigel Bannister, a University of Leicester space scientist, has calculated that sending a simple text message is far more expensive than downloading data from the Hubble Space Telescope.
The reason that cell phone carriers are charging so much for text messages is because they can. As long as people are willing to pay the price, they will continue the high charges. When we are willing to pay exorbitant fees for products, they tend to get more expensive as their creators bask in their easy profits. For instance, when cable television first came on the scene, many people were willing to pay for it to get commercial-free programming. Then, over the years we wound up paying more and more for television programming which was previously free. On top of that, we are now paying for cable television that is filled with commercials.
Another example is bottled water. When I was a kid everyone drank the free municipal water from the tap. Now people think nothing of spending $2 for a small bottle of water, making it more expensive per gallon than gasoline at its peak.
My own personal boycott of text messaging is likely to have no effect on the price, but at least I'm making a statement!
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